John Igei #3.

I always dig the simpler tricks done well. John is from Washington, DC and moved to San Francisco for skateboarding. He rode for Capital, Western Edition, FTC, Elwood, Zoo York, and Autobahn over the years.

Jonathan Mehring was the photographer.

Transworld - August 2000 Volume 18 Number 8

Shiloh Greathouse #3.

For better or worse, boredom often leads to creativity in skateboarding. It's why regulars at a skatepark come up with unusual tricks that only exist at the local park. After skating the crap out of the benches and tables at various LA schoolyards, Daewon Song and company started moving the furniture all over the place to do the same tricks on different setups.

What size wheels are people riding? I was 56 mm for the longest time and dropped down to 55 for a while. I had been using 54s due to plague related supply chain issues. They were OK new and with fresh bearings. I'm back on 55s, but I'm not sure if I still like that size. Ollies feel somehow odd, but the extra speed is nice for parks. I'm contemplating giving 56s another go round or I might stick with 55s.

The photograph is by Seu Trinh.

Transworld - July 2000 Volume 18 Number 7

Clyde Singleton #7.

Cooking a way to be happy.

Clyde is from Jacksonville, Florida. He rode for Acme, 101, 23, Aesthetics, and Zoo York for his pro career. He was written numerous articles for skateboard magazines and made videos to promote rising skaters over the years. Clyde is also into cooking and works as a chef.

Transworld - February 2000 Volume 18 Number 2

Rob Welsh #8.

This ain't no picnic.

Wu-Welsh with a front crooks during the DC Shoes days. He would have switched over to Lakai by the middle of the year. Rob was riding for Aesthetics after Mad Circle had ended.

I checked out the Food Court Skatepark in the McKinley Mall on Sunday. It's up near Buffalo and somewhere between the towns of Hamburg and Orchard Park. The park is really nice and everybody was very friendly. I went when the Bills were away because I figured most of the crowd would be home watching the game. There were only maybe a dozen people skating so it was cool to get a feel for the place without getting in the way. There are an assortment of pyramids, table tops, banks, bars, and quarter pipes. There's a bowl, too. If you excel at doing ollies over pyramids, this is your spot. I did my usual dumb little ledge tricks and cruised around. I had fun and I'm looking forward to going back. Food Court also has a shop with a big selection of boards and some shoes. Yes, it was kind of weird skateboarding in a mall, but the 80s kid in me dug it.

This is way too good of a photo to go with my dumb story about visiting a skatepark.

Transworld - January 2000 Volume 18 Number 1

Joel Meinholz #5.

Denims.

Not only did we have clothing designers back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, we had wordsmiths as well. Joel took the photo of Brian Anderson in the recent ad for his guest model on There Skateboards.

Transworld - November 2001 Volume 19 Number 11

Kingdom Skateboards #2.

For the real heads.

Kingdom was running a stacked team of 1990s vert legends, 1980s Texas vert legends, and a couple rookie street shredders in the year 2000. Did anybody ever send in the two bucks for a CD?

The photo is credited to Theo. It might be Theo Hand. Whoever did this Photoshop masterpiece also deserves some credit.

Transworld - May 2000 Volume 18 Number 5

Dylan Rieder #10.

Graceful elegance.

The Skateboard Mag - July 2011 Issue 88

Sarah Meurle.

Melting in the heat.

Sarah is from Malmö, Sweden. She recently turned pro for WKND. She also rides for Thunder, Spitfire, and Nike. Sarah studies photography and has been a guest editor of Solo Skateboard Mag.

I like how Thunder has brought back some of their logos from the early 1990s. I've always been a Venture rider, but Thunders often look neat.

Thrasher - July 2023 Volume 44 Number 7

Dick Rizzo.

HUF and Quasi dropped videos this summer. I only watched a little of the HUF video and didn't care for the tune Dick was skating to. I made it through all 18 wonderful minutes of the Quasi flick. If Quasi had boards that were 8.125" x 32" with a 14.25" wheelbase, 7" nose, and 6.75" tail from a different woodshop, those are what I'd ride. But they don't. So I'll wear the t-shirt and enjoy their video output. Dick skates like a gnarly Bobby Puleo, if that makes sense.

The Skateboard Mag - June 2017 Issue 159

David Gravette #3.

"Great content. Incredible video. The 15 year olds experienced meeting a pro skateboarder in a way that every 15 year old has always dreamed of - wasted off Twisted Tea, slamming super hard, and going all out at your awful, empty hometown skatepark." - Zach Harris

In a glorious piece of content in our content driven world, Gravette visits a lump of concrete and ramps passing as a skatepark in Morton, Washington. He proceeds to get drunk and exhaust every possible trick you can do in the lot. Maybe you can hem and haw about the drinking, but the part was the best worst thing ever.

The quote is taken from Zack's Twitter.

The photo is by Joe Hammeke.

Thrasher - October 2011 Volume 31 Number 10

Rick Howard #17.

Frontside firecracker.

Girl ran two frontside noseslide ads a month apart. I bet Rick landed the trick, too. It's too bad we don't get to see more of him skating, even if it ends up being low impact tricks or mini ramp sessions. It'd be good because we all know Rick still skates, he simply doesn't have the onboard time due to having a grownup job of running a skateboard company.

Transworld - March 2000 Volume 18 Number 3

Rick McCrank #9.

Momentum.

I bet Rick landed this trick. He was added to Girl after a very short ride with Birdhouse following the demise of Plan B. Rick was the first established skater added to the team that didn't join Girl or Chocolate because they quit a World Industries brand. This maybe ruffled some feathers, but everything turned out fine in the end.

You have to appreciate the shoes for the week - Axion, DC, and éS. Those were the halcyon days of skateboard footwear design.

Transworld - January 2000 Volume 18 Number 1

Colin McKay #9.

Switchstance dogsled.

Colin was the perfect vert skater for Girl since he was doing the same type of tricks the rest of the team were doing out in the streets.

It rained yesterday so I did the planning for a dark and scary Halloween week. It'll be a lot of scanning, but it should be cool.

Transworld - December 1999 Volume 17 Number 12

Eric Koston #15.

The most Transworld skater of them all.

A switch front blunt down a handrail is a proper trick for sure.

Transworld - September 2000 Volume 18 Number 9

Guy Mariano #6.

There is a ghost.

Guy gets tricky with a switch noseblunt. Switch noseblunt tricks are generally cool, but I'm unsure on regular blunts done switch. Due to the nature of the trick, doing a switch blunt feels corny.

I put together a week of Girl in honor of their 30th anniversary. Everybody knows the story of how a bunch of former World Industries riders and employees left to start a new venture that would be become one of the best companies ever. Girl debuted to the skateboard world at the 1993 Back To The City contest in San Francisco held during Labor Day weekend. I'm sure people knew about it before then, but it wasn't reported in the mags until the December issues because of the lag in production time.

Transworld - June 2000 Volume 18 Number 6

Miles Silvas #3.

Numbers in motion.

Miles is doing a heavy duty fakie flip into a brick bank. He was on Organika prior to Numbers and now rides for Primitive. Miles is another in the long line of technical skaters from Sacramento.

It'll be some Girl next week since I think we're right at about the 30 year anniversary of their beginnings.

The Skateboard Mag - July 2017 Issue 160

Rodrigo Teixeira #3.

Rodrigo pilots a switch backside kickflip over some empty real estate in front of a police station. He was on DGK prior to the brief excursion on Numbers. I'm glad they spelled his name out properly. It ain't that hard to pronounce, although the Tx. functions wonderfully for name recognition.

I don't get the whole 12:45 thing. I guess Numbers was trying to build a type of mysterious brand narrative. It sucks with how modern design is obsessed with building a brand story or creating meaningful content. The process feels very contrived and boring with results that bear this out.

The Skateboard Mag - June 2017 Issue 159

Magnus Bordewick.

Numbers was kind of scattered for advertising so I didn't find much. I had used the two ads for Antonio Durao already so that thinned out the options even more.

Magnus is from Oslo, Norway. In 2017, he rode for Adidas, Indy, and Spitfire.

Sci-Fi Fantasy hot shoe Akwasi Owusu was also getting some boards from Numbers back in their day.

The Skateboard Mag - October 2017 Issue 161

Numbers.

Imaginary Numbers.

Eric Koston and Guy Mariano left Girl in the late fall of 2015. They started up Numbers Edition at the end of 2016 for a launch in 2017. The initial team included Rodrigo Teixeira from DGK, Miles Silvas from Organika, and Girl amateur Antonio Durao. I'm not sure who distributed the boards. For a super team type of company, Numbers never really generated much buzz. The graphics were decent, but rather unremarkable. Let's be honest here, some very talented people are better off riding for a company over attempting to do their own project.

The Skateboard Mag - February 2017 Issue 155

Adrenalin #2.

This was the Adrenalin pro team for 1996. The ad was a request by the artist who did the painting. Jaya had seen the painting, taken a picture of it, and used it in the ad. As payment, the painter got to fill up a box with product from the warehouse.

I managed to skateboard every day in August. I try to get one full month each year as some kind of odd personal goal. Usually I'll lose a day or two here and there due to weather, but August stayed dry when it was skateboard time.

Have a good weekend. Vert Is Dead will be back on Tuesday with the digits.

Slap - February 1996 Volume 5 Number 2