Welcome to all the new members! I hope the lads didn't smell too bad at the stand ;).

But seriously, glad you decided to join up. Hopefully you guys'll do a read of this blog every now and again and we'll try to stick relevant and cool stuff up here, including pics and such.

In the meantime, read on and have fun!

Sunday Taster Session

1. Everyone is welcome, from complete beginners to crazy pros.
2. Outside Stag's head on campus at 2pm. (in the pub if its raining, and we'll chat and beverage and have fun!)
3. Bring boards or helmets if you have them. If not don't worry we will provide stuff! Let us know beforehand and you'll get dibs on the newer kit :)
4. We suggest either bog standard outdoor trainers or skate shoes. Boots and heels don't work well!
5. we'll then go grab some munch after the session, and head down to the Shooting Star pub (clicky for map! it used to be Kolebka if you tried using streetview) for a debrief bevvy and maybe some skate videos. Feel free to meet us there later.

We have returned from our epic charity adventure!
So far we are over half way towards our fundraising target, which is brilliant as we still have some cash to add to the Justgiving page. So here's a summary of the weekend:

On friday, we all met up at the ferry terminal with our tents, bags, boards etc... bright and early (about 11am)

And then it was all aboard the ferry, and the race to get to Ryde pier in time for a photoshoot began!
straight off the ferry there was what seemed like a neverending uphill stretch of road followed by several others, everyone getting lost and separated and the van hire company claiming they'd never heard of us. A slightly rocky start to the weekend, but all was fine and dandy when the support team arrived victorious at Ryde in a slightly less than ideal condition van... We got some photos for the papers and the team went on it's way to the next destination...

lost!

The campsite for the night was quite a way away, up some insanely steep country roads, and then along the seafront for a few relaxed miles. After stopping to skate the hairpin by the seafront which every town on the island seems to have, we found the campsite (which had it's own roads) and pitched our tents in some strange places...

Josh in a tent on a van

Tent in a tent

After the tent shenanigans, we went and ate in the pub and got a surprisingly early night... The next day we went for breakfast, and more route planning ahead of the longest distance of the weekend.

Louise, Tim and Matt at breakfast

We set off from the first campsite aiming to reach the needles by the end of the day, we started by climbing up another great big hill... this one was followed by a brilliant stretch of downhill with some nice corners thrown in that we were all far too busy skating really fast down to take photos of...




We eventually reached the next town we planned to stop at, which was ventnor. We knew ventnor had some ridiculous hills, but they still surprised us on the way in and out of the town... Our favorite was this:

Monaco

Sadly, at this point, my camera decided to run out of memory. There's more footage and pictures of the event to come soon...

We left Ventnor towards a place called Freshwater, and along the way skated up and down some amazing roads, some of which were up to 2 miles of downhill... stopped for lunch in a tiny sleepy village and battled onwards to freshwater, where we all went in the sea!

We stayed at a small campsite on the side of a hill near Freshwater, where we were greeted with a sign saying:

"To the skateboarding firefighters, please pitch your tents anywhere you like"

Enthused by our new skill of fighting fire, we pitched our tents and went to the pub. We decided that it would be a good idea to go back to the campsite and order a takeaway, which went terribly, but it was all OK because we had a few jerry cans full of cider.

On the third and final day of our trip, we set off for Cowes again. We had to get back in time to drop the hire van off so somewhere along the line in a place called Yarmouth we fuelled up with a huge breakfast, which set us going along the final stretch of the journey (up and down some more huge hills) and along the seafront at the end to get a victory ice-cream.

I'd like to say a great big thank you to everyone who got involved, to the skaters: Tim, Tom, Pete, Moe, Josh, Sam, Matt, Dan, Danny, and of course to the support team Louise and Charley.
The Hampshire and Isle of Wight air ambulance fundraising team have been really supportive of us, and I hope we have a chance to do more for them in the future.
Also big thanks to you if you donated towards the charity, you all made it worthwhile.

Jon

Hello once again!
To help us raise money and awareness for Hampshire and isle of white Air Ambulance as well as awareness for our forthcoming skate, the crue will be outside WestQuay all day raising money. If you want to swing by and say hello that'd be great. Or if you'd like to help for an hour or so and stand outside with one of our T-Shirts and a collection tin we'd be ecstatic!

Some of our sponsors for the event will be making an appearance as well:
Reskue Skate shop Southampton who'll hopefully have a rep down there on friday. Their shops just round the corner.

A rep from Hampshire and Isle of Wight air ambulance will be there to answer any and all of your questions about the ambulance service.

Export To Reality will be there for a bit as well!

See you on friday!


View Larger Map

With a bit of help from two huge OS maps glued together, we have a route for the trip next month!! This google maps version isn't a perfect rendition, but it's close! Check it out and have a peek at the places we'll be visiting! and yes we're skating out onto Ryde Pier! 65.9 Miles in total over three days!



View Isle of Wight Charity Skate 2010 in a larger map if you really really want to

We've almost confirmed the route, done a lot of messing around, and are ready to start promoting!

Route is around 100km, Starting from East Cowes, stopping overnight in Shanklin on the Friday, and near the Needles on the Saturday, arriving in West Cowes Sunday afternoon to catch the chain ferry back to the start point.

Get to the justgiving page and get sponsoring! The air ambulance runs 2-3 missions a day - the money we raise will be invaluable to the charity, and to the lives it saves.

Peace, love, helicopters and skating,
Also, here's an album of us trying out our teeshirts and then planning the route.
Timmy

We're currently in the process of planning a trip to the Isle of Wight to raise money for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance. The trip will be from the 17th-19th of September, and you're welcome to join us if you want! We'll be getting a ferry from Southampton to Cowes, then skating around the coast of the island. The trip is roughly 60 miles of pushing around the island, stopping off on the way at the towns we come across. We'll probably be camping as there are many campsites on the island. 

Click for a bigger version!
Nabbed from Skate House Media over in the states.

Jon

So the crew who weren't elsewhere (Moe, Timmy, Si and Dan) jumped in Dan's car, grabbed some of our gatorade stash and headed for the andover hills to hang out with Brian, Dave and Nathaniel in their local hillz.

The following videos (uploaded soon) chart the fastest and longest hills hit. I'll stick some maps up later aswell

The 45+mph (we reckon) hill with some sweet speed from Nathaniel (red+black, black helmet) Dan Shinnie
(white Helmet) and Timmy (on the boom).


This video has some silly audioswap jazz cos all you can hear is a white noise from the car. Enjoy a super long hill with carving and cars!



Peace love and urethane!
Timmy, writing in third person some more...

Three of our members completed the marathon on Sunday, and we all achieved great times!
It was my first year at the event and it was brilliant! although extremely hectic.
We'll certainly be back next year too!

Matt Elver from Plymouth, (who also recently skateboarded 1000 miles in 21 days) took the top spot of the longboarders there. He managed to beat his previous world record by flying round in 1:43:18

a close second and third were Chris Vallender and Alexandre Bangnoi from France!

XSS times:
Jon Steel 2:07:18
Tim Peters 2:08:53
Moe Neve 2:14:58

A massive thanks to all who participated in the event or helped to organise it.

Skate Further!

Jon