Posted by Keita Inamura on Tuesday, 29 September 2015

I think we can all appreciate that it’s not about to win a D&AD award for looks, yep, we know. I reckon the biggest consideration you have to have when thinking about new tricks is their implication for the future. Yes, it’s not looking so fresh and so clean clean, right now, but it’s the first iteration of that rotation, and it’ll take time for riders to master that trick.

A case and point would be triples; Torstein Horgmo’s first triple was somewhat similar, not a looker I think we can all agree. However, fast-forward 5 years and we saw Seppe Smitts hammer a triple 1440 nosegrab that looked a hell of a lot better than that first iteration of the trick. That’s because it took Seppe (and riders as a whole) 5 years to master that trick; to be comfortable with the rotation, the speed, the landing, the feeling and the muscle memory required to own that trick.

It took years for riders to have the backside double cork 1080 on lock, and now riders like Sage have the back double 10 japan, or the double back 10 nose to fuckin tail! That’s sick, right?

Even breaking it down farther from that, we’ve got Sven Thorgren doing cab 1260 roast beef shiftys, or cab 12 roast beef nosegrabs. In last year’s BYND x MDLS we saw that Kevin Backstrom has his shifty front 10s that would make Kate Mara look twice in the mirror, and how long has the front 10 been about?

Riders throw tricks like this, to see if they can – if we’re all gonna lampoon somebody for seeing if they can do something, lets all jump in the first design of the car, or perhaps we could jump on our penny-farthings to the pub for a nice glass of warm ale.

Actually, that’s probably going on in Shoreditch somewhere…