Rumour Has It...

Word from our sources on the street has it that Danny Wainwright, he of the world's highest ollie, has just been signed up to the Kr3w team. This is pretty special news if it's true and a bit of a coup for the man from Bristol as he'll be joining luminaries such as Tom Penny, Jim Greco, Chad Muska, Terry Kennedy, and Antwuan Dixon on one of the most exciting teams out there.
Obviously needing a bit of UK flavour to add to the heady mix, we're pretty made up by these rumours, so our fingers are crossed for the official word...

War Of The Roses Is Coming!

Next weekend sees the highly anticipated return of the best skateboarding event on these fair shores: War of the Roses! Held over two days between the Works in Leeds & Ramp City in Blackpool, with the best skaters from all over the UK in attendance, this is certainly not one to be missed! And we're gonna have part of it. Yep, the Route One team will all be making
their ways up north (or down south in Leyden's case!) for both days & I for one can't wait to watch it all go off!
Keep your eyes peeled in the days following as we'll be bringing you first hand reports & photos of what went down plus, to top it all, a video of the weekend's proceedings so those of you that can't make it don't miss out! But for those of you that can, we'll see you there.
Bring on WOTR '09!

Get Your Hands On A Fourstar Freebie

Here’s your chance to grab a great limited edition DVD from Fourstar! It includes a collection of videos covering Fourstar’s tours and catalog shoots for 2008, including:

* A Tribe Called Mapquest - Fourstar’s fall haul through the American South
* North of Everything - the team’s summer tour of the great country of Canada
* And the catalog shoots of 2008 shot on location at the Pink Motel, New York City, and San Francisco.

Total Running Time: 35 minutes.

In order to win this exclusive DVD, just email us your postal address, and we'll get one in the post to you. Simple as that.

Introducing: Schaeffer McLean

Schaeffer first came to our attention back in August '08 when his mum, Eve, e-mailed Route One with some links to videos of her then 4 yr old son, skating. And wow, can he skate! After absolutely no consideration at all, we got in touch and offered him sponsorship, as his enthusiasm and love for the sport is above and beyond anything we would have expected to see from someone of his age.


Schaeffer is a busy lad, always travelling to skateparks with his Mum, he's been to our warehouse and had a skate with Andy Makepeace, (R1 Team Rider) and also went along to the Jib-Vid event in Bristol, to name just a few things he's been up to over the last 5 months.
The crowning achievement was his trip to the King of the Groms 2008 competition in California, where he became the FIRST EVER UK entrant into the competition!
Click here to read Schaeffer's KOTG tour diary, it's an amazing read.

So we at Route One would like to introduce Schaeffer as an official Route One Team Rider! Watch this space as this kid will get better and better!

War Of the Roses Returns For 2009

The fourth (re-scheduled) installment of WOTR returns next month and will be handily taking place on the last weekend of the February school holidays. Saturday's event is at The Works in Leeds and Sunday's at Rampcity, Blackpool (so as to make it easier for the Scots to get home).

As ever there will be both unsponsored and sponsored/pro categories and the comps will work on a ‘best trick’ basis on various obstacles around both parks.

Hopefully the proposed mini ramp complex at The Works will be finished in time which, along with Simparch bowl and full pipe at Blackpool, should make for an interesting change from the traditionally street orientated vibe of the event.

As always, you know it's gonna be massive, so don't miss out.

Elwood Knockout Jam - Coming Soon

If you're at a loose end this Valentines Day, or really want to treat the lady, make your way to the Central Skatepark in Manchester and check out the Elwood Knockout Jam.
With £500 up for grabs for sponsored riders, plus plenty of free Elwood goodness for the rest of us mere mortals, it's well worth a visit, especially as some of our very own team members will be there, well, the single ones anyway...

Offcuts?! Bring On The Oncuts Then!

The recent Route One trip to Bulgaria is really beginning to bear fruit. The most recent addition to the Bulgarian fruit line-up is a video of offcuts from the upcoming Sidewalk edit (due to drop any time now...)
So if these are the offcuts, then we really can't wait to see what they've left in, as there's some cracking footage in this great compilation.

Check it out now in preparation for the main event.

Why, Why, Why?

Is it April Fools Day already? No, then it must stupid rich people's day instead. Not content with making hideously overpriced, ugly luggage, Chintz-mongers Louis Vuitton have produced a limited run of skateboards. Why, you may ask, well your guess is as good as mine, especially when you see the price tag - $8,250. A total bargain, even with the free box.

If $8,250 is a bit out of your price range, check out our £60 alternative, which handily gives you enough money to hire an assassin to take out whoever at Louis Vuitton came up with this rubbish.

So if you see a stick rolling around your local park, accompanied by some high pitch squeaking, then it can mean only one thing, the Beckhams have just taken up skating, just make sure you watch out for the chavs with the fake, market L.V. skateboards though...

Watch the Simpel Session 2009 Right Here

MPORA TV is pleased to announce a partnership with Simpel Session 2009 and the exclusive live webcast of Europe’s biggest indoor skate and BMX contest.

Tallinn, Estonia will host the eighth Simpel Session on Friday 16^th to Sunday 18th January and attract some of the hottest riders in skate and BMX. Riders from both sports will fight it out for a cut of the €6,000 prize purse with Red Bull and Snickers also offering €750 for the best trick. Simpel Session’s skatepark set-up has previously proved a real favourite among riders and this year will be no different. The thinking behind this is that an unconventional course enriches the sport and pushes them in new directions.

The video below will be the place to view the whole event, exclusively live and direct from Tallinn, so grab a (insert favourite poison/beverage here), sit back and enjoy as the action unfolds.
Mpora TV will live streaming directly from Estonia on Saturday from 10:00 – 19:30 GMT and Sunday, from 10:00 – 19:00 GMT.

Sidewalk's Sofia Spotlight

As you should know, we took our skate team out to Bulgaria with Sidewalk last year for a bit of a jolly tour with a difference, and finally it has made it to the hallowed pages of the nations favourite skate 'zine. We don't want to spoil it for those of you waiting for your copy, but it's well worth a read and out now, so go get it.
What we can show you is some of the stuff already put up on the Sidewalk website, namely interviews with the team, so click the link below to continue reading this post, where you'll find an interview with Mr Bernard Leyden himself.


Click here to continue reading

How does Scotland compare to Bulgaria then? Any similarities as far as you could see?

It looked to me that the general population of Bulgaria take a lot more pride in themselves than the average Joe in Scotland. You know, I don’t think I seen anyone wearing trackies or drinking Buckfast. Nearly everyone I saw looked really clean and on point...

The Bulgarian language barrier was hard enough for the best of us - how did the distinctively thick Scottish accent go down with the natives?

I never had any trouble with it really, just as long as I took my time, spoke slowly and threw in some sign language type stuff.

What did you and Ashley get up to when not skating then? Did you manage to take in more culture than the rest of the crew?

Well if KFC and pizzas count as culture, I drew in plenty (laughs). Me and Ash did a good bit of wandering around, there was one point were we ended up lost somewhere in Sofia and I was kind of stressed, obviously because of being somewhere completely different and a bit ghetto, but the missus didn’t seem fazed at all. Women are mental.

What were your favourite three Bulgarian spots that we skated?

Pretty much everywhere we went was pretty rad, so I don’t think anything stands out to me man. I was just really happy to be somewhere rad with loads of potential.

Top five memorable incidents from the trip?

1 - Avid being a total bastard.

2 - Hanging out with new folks and making new friends.

3 - Physically feeling heat from sunshine.

4 - Trying new food and drink.

5 - Just feeling good about skating in general, it was all good! Stoked!

And finally, the most memorable Amir lyric you heard?

Seriously man, Amir is so funny, that boy was spitting mad lyrics, yo! He was waffling some stuff man, f*ck knows what man, he's like like the Pharcyde wrapped up in one big underground hip hop parcel. He's a f*cking good lad.

Interview stolen from Sidewalk.com, 12/01/09.

Manhead Becomes A Vans Man

It's been a while but the blog is now back up and running at full steam after a rather hectic Christmas period and have we got some great news for ya?

First up, congratulations must go out to our Manhead, not content with being merely a Vans Flow Rider, he's just been promoted to the full Vans team in recognition of quite a spectacular 2008 and we're totally made up for him!
After becoming member of the Independent UK team back in July, it's continued to get better for the man from Tingley, with tons of international exposure, he's become one of the hottest talents on the UK skate scene and we reckon things can only get better in 2009.

Good work fella!