News From Osiris

Ngoho and T Mag

On Saturday, the 10th of October, the world got to officially witness the biggest evolution in skateboarding since the Megaramp; the world largest pool, built as a hybrid between modern vert ramps and the modern skate pool, which is likely to contain just about any shape. Bucky’s pool is affectionately known as “Heaven” and is built in his backyard, if you can call a couple of acres a “backyard”. The pool got finished a couple of months prior and Bucky thought it was time for a fun jam.

The pool itself is almost 14ft deep in the arrow head end (the deep end) and about 13ft deep in the round end. The two are separated by a mellow hip and about a 7ft shallow end that also functions as a line builder and has 2 very workable hips. The arrow head consists of 2 elbows and an extra large round corner. So how does this concrete monster ride? The name Heaven says it all; it really is a totally new skate experience in that it so effectively mixes two very different styles of skating; modern vert skating and classic backyard pool skating.

You can come to Bucky’s and just skate the pool, backyard style, with lines, grinds and carves and have a great time. You can also come and work on your latest switch flippidy-do-dad vert trick. Or you can do what most pro’s are doing at Bucky’s, which is to put together runs that combines the two styles in a skating style that is truly groundbreaking. To watch Bucky, Chris Miller, Tony Mag or even any of the local crew put together mind bending lines with big airs and technical tricks gives you the feeling that this pool is just the first of many more large pools that accommodates this revolutionary way of riding a skateboard.

When I asked T-Mag about the pool, not only did he affirm what I already mentioned but he also grumbled on about how it was about time and how he’s been trying to get people to build a pool this size for years. Apparently, there were plans for Carmel Valley to have been built according to this extra large spec but somehow a certain street skater got involved on the design crew and chopped things down to a more standard size pool and not surprisingly, T-Mag was not stoked about that.

Bucky's Bowl-B-Q Photo: Concrete Disciples

He has a point, there’s so many skateparks out there now, that it doesn’t hurt to start expanding the pool building horizon to include larger pools. There just no shortage of the 8-11 ft style backyard pool in thousands of skateparks across the nation at this point. Also, if you look at parks that have two or more pools, it’s always the largest pool that gets ridden the most. Vert ramps used to also be 8-11ft and grew for a reason. This day at Bucky’s made this point as clear as the day was; it was absolutely beautiful on this fall Saturday in Encinitas.

There also wasn’t a shortage of skateboarding royalty on hand, besides the host extraordinaire Bucky Lasek. Also present were; Tony Hawk, Chris Miller, Salba, Jeff Grosso, Peter Hewitt, Pat Ngoho, Lance Mountain, Christian Hosoi, Tony Mag, Kevin Staab, PLG, Bob Burnquist (who also celebrated his 33;rd birthday), Sergie Ventura, Jason Ellis (who mostly entertained the crowd of 300 or so on the mic), Aaron Astorga, Rune Glifberg and Cookiehead Jenkins. There was also plenty of younger pro’s and am’s, perhaps most notable Zach Miller, who was seriously ripping on this day. Also skating the huge pool was this 10 year old kid Tom that did 540’s in the pool and generally ripped, which again proves that man sized pools aren’t just for pro’s. I know that 13 year old Allysha Bergado has also skated Bucky’s in the past and loved it. There’s a local girl that skates there all the time and the older, more carve, grind pool slasher’s that have ventured down to Heaven have also been super stoked to skate there.

PLG Photo: Concrete Disciples

So the day started off with a death race style contest, where cones where placed at key locations in the pool and the goal was to do a pre-determined line around the cones the fastest. The line was tough but not so hard that you struggled to get through it. But to do it fast proved to be a tall task, with speed skater Aaron Astorga taking top honors, followed by Zach Miller, who notably beat another known fast and line skater, namely his own father Chris, with both Jason Ellis and the voice of skateboarding Dave Duncan making a lot light of that during the event. Chris, being a humble guy, was just stoked to see his son do so well though.

Next was a variation of a classic skate game that was around years before the game of “skate”, namely add-a-trick, but with a twist. Bucky called it add-a-wall, which meant that it didn’t matter what trick you “added”, you just had to do the trick on the wall that was added. The basic idea is that skater 1 drops in and does a trick on any wall. Skater drops in and does a trick on that wall and “adds” a second wall. Skater 3 does both walls that is now the line and adds a third wall and so on. If you miss any wall or forget, you’re out. 15 walls deep it was down to Bucky and T-Mag, with the old vert dog coming out on top, mainly because the Buckster decided to go for some rather tough tricks and bailed whereas T-Mag played it safe with basic airs, ollies, grinds and 50-50’s.

With the help of Bucky’s super cool sponsors, there was a plethora of prices available for all kinds of stuff including these two fun events. Later on, Duncan was handing out cash and other prices for various accomplishments in the pool on a totally random basis, which made the jam totally fun and energetic. So thanks to Rockstar, Vans, Element and other sponsors, T-Mag walked away with a Vans Fender guitar for winning the add-a-wall event, a couple of hundred in cash, a new Samsung phone and other knick knack stuff for doing some seriously high airs, a rodeo flip in the deep end, some 360 varials and a pretty good slam on a backside ollie. The best slam award went to Zach Miller for getting totally pitched from the bottom of the shallow into the round like a ragdoll. Luckily he walked away from that one though. I believe thousands of dollars was handed out between all the riders, who ripped so totally hard, it was hard to believe, even as I stood there watching it all.

Between the BBQ and the skating and the overall atmosphere, it was certainly one of the most unique skate events of all time and you know you’re bummed you weren’t there. But fret not; Fuel TV is set to air the madness over the thanksgiving weekend, so check your TV listing.

Text By Stefan Nilson