Kingpin Magazine » Red Light | Kingpin Skateboarding

DTSD Coming To London – Jack The Ripper-Style

Jan — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 10:54:21 +0000

Only few more days to go until Vans Downtown Showdown kicks off in London on August 20th. Twelve of Europe’s sickest skate teams will be battling it out on London themed, team-customized ramps, to get their hands on the 50.000 Euros purse.It’s easy to see Old Spitalfields Market will be the place to be that day, not only for the kick-ass skating, but also for Vans legends Alva, Rowley, AVE, Dollin plus hot shit Pfanner coming in to witness the ripping.
Talking of ripping, the whole event will be inspired by historic London themes, such as that of Jack the Ripper.
The chosen ramp designs for this year’s comp were handed in by Superdead, Cliché and Death, so prepare for some innovative set-ups and tricked out special features on the course.
As Superdad’s Harry put it: “The Superdead obstacle – The Superdead Tavern, a ‘ye olde English pub’ with a twist – contains trap doors, bars and beer barrels its what every good skate spot needs… London is steeped in history and it became easy to add a heavy flavour of that history into our design.“
And Death’s Dan Cates explains: „This years Death obstacle is a tribute to London’s most notorious serial killer, ‘Jack The Ripper’ and is loosely based upon Gunthorpe Street in Whitechapel. A spooky looking alleyway that still stands today leading to George yard where some claim that the first of The Ripper’s victims was found. Death’s obstacle is a skateable interpretation of this Alley in all of it’s Victorian beauty, complete with blood stains, filth, Ripper graffiti and a rideable version of the infamous ‘Ten Bells’ pub, complete with cellar door.“

Sounds like heaps of fun to me. Make sure to mark the date if you agree.

Vans Downtown Showdown 2011 – Teaser from Vans Europe on Vimeo.

Youness On Some King Pin Shit In Cypress

Jan — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 10:41:53 +0000

Well, no photos of the skate action here, as they got denied by the on site photographer who is taking care of displaying the real deal action. So it’s straight to side pics then…

While old men Lennie and Marcel were chilling, having on-spot lunch, the skate-unit came stopping by for refreshments…

Wieger got a sick line here at this spot…

and so did Youness. I think it was in Troodos… amazing town, by the way, definitely worth a visist!

As I said before, sun drops quick in Cypress, so after this session, another lovely sundown followed.

Besides skating and harvesting bangers everyday, one of the big attractions of our Nike filming trip was Space Bowling (oh yeah, and thanks for your wi-fi, guys!), a bowling alley just across from our apartment’s backyard.

First day, the staff there didn’t really get our names right. So Wieger’s name on the score-screen appeared as “Niger”!

He kept killing it almost every night; the toughest competitor for semi-pro Mark Nickel’s run for instant victories…

For the second game we told the staff about the spelling mishap, so they took care of some adequate corrections…

Anyway, time for midnight bowling – didn’t know that existed!!

By the end of this, it turns out, Youness seems to have a fucking talent in all sorts of sportive activaties… 202 on his first round ever!!

Which got him so hyped, he had to stand on his head for a while to chill out. Besides being pretty good even at that – what strange way of chilling out! But seems to work for him though.

Some more Keos followed, and then it was the end of that night.

Epic, Near-Death Drop Ins

Jan — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 12:32:20 +0000

In response to Alex’s post regarding this month’s drop-in from The Rad, a few other epic near death drop-ins came to mind…

…one from one of the very first skate-mags I ever held in my hands, crica ‘89. The image of Frankfurt local Martin Wagner in a Monster Skateboard Magazin, instantly ingrained into my tender and innocent mind, establishing a spark of loco – one of the fundamentals that make up skateboarding’s radness!

And another one, that almost ended tragically, with David Conrads going to front feeble split seconds after Helge Tscharn had pushed the button on this one, sending David flying pretty much directly to his dome piece! – Sirens. Hospital. Fractured skull… splitting from the hospital a couple of days later, just to skate a comp in the local park!! – The spark of loco is strong with this one!!

Vans Downtown Showdown Hamburg

Jan — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 09:10:15 +0000

Vans’ Downtown Showdown went down yesterday at the heart auf Hamburg, Germany’s district for dry throats and lonely hearts: the infamous St.Pauli “Reeperbahn”.
Jart, Death, Blind Europe, Titus, Antiz, Cliché and Element Europe were in charge of the ripping, each team providing four of their best to session four obstacles, one hour each.
The weahter forecast had been looking grim for Saturday, yet still the sky held, and the radness could go down, under the watchful eyes of hundreds of spectators and legends Tony Alva, John Cardiel and Danny Wainwright, who presented the comp.

In the end the Element team won, Antiz came in second and Blind Europe third, also splitting most of the single and obstacle-specific awards amongst their riders, with Phil Zwijsen taking best AM

and Sam Partaix taking best PRO.

A very nice event all in all, just what those deserveing winners did with their shares of the 50 grand prize money, with one of Europe’s most renown red light districts in only a stone’s throws reach, remains a mystery…