Ian Rudge placed 2nd in the Juniors!

And Elena took a first place win in the Women’s category!

Sayshun had quite the showing at Kelowna this year, with the entire Pro Team in attendance, along with many up-and-coming flow rippers sporting Sayshun decks and Plasma Wheels.

Until next time,

Live Before You Die.

As well I’ve been hounding Ian, who’s becoming more and more involved with Sayshun and the team, to do a blog. The following excerpt is his words, pertaining to the Britannia Classic, which went down a few weeks ago.

“Here we are in cow town; Mason, Bean, Brennan and I had left for Squamish Thursday morning aiming to make it there within ten hours. The drive was a long, scenic adventure with many stops in between. The weather was looking supreme for the weekend; it was forecasted to be in the 20’s all three days!

We had made it to the campsite successfully; we made a fire and chilled out and got stoked for the next day of pure freeriding. With not much sleep, we drove from Squamish over to the Britannia Classic. After registration we piled in to the two U-hauls and made our way to the top of the hill. I must say this is one of the best courses I have skated; very technical, yielding 3 hairpins and a double apex corner through a bridge. The pavement was unlike any other; it was super slidey and just torched your wheels. We must have got about ten runs in that day with only a few minor crashes! Also, the pulled pork sandwiches and chilli for lunch were both delicious and kept us going hard for the rest of the day.

So after a full day of riding, we were off to the campsite again. Another meal was served at the campsite and as night fell, the party began! The second day was just as good, the morning consisted of more practice runs and the afternoon had two qualifying heats to determine the initial brackets for the next day! Finally, the last sleep before race day! A live band and a decently sized bon fire had kept us entertained until the early morning. Another night of going hard had left many skaters hungover for race day… very nicely planned!!! But that’s chill, because we’re skaters and that’s what we do..!!

The Sunday started off with one practice run and then straight in to race heats. The open class had cycled through twice before junior heats and masters heats had started. Many spectators were at this event, estimated to be about 1000 people there! Good to know people are getting stoked on longboarding. Once enough riders had been eliminated, we had a lunch break and then proceeded to quarter finals, semi finals, consis finals, and of course the finals! Watching the brackets go down was super neat, along with some carnage in the last corner!

The open final was super sick!

Kevin took 1st place.
Patrick 2nd.
Byron 3rd.
Dillon 4th.

This event has to be one of the best in Canada; I definitely recommend it to anyone out there contemplating racing it next year! Overall, everyone was killin it and I was super glad to be part of it! Thanks to Unkle Lee for hosting this rad event!”

Wise words. Wise. Words. Video of the Britannia Classic featuring some Sayshun riders to come soon!

When arriving at the Skatehouse you sometimes aren’t really sure what to do. Because the Catalina Classic brought back downhill racing to Southern Californa, the Skatehouse was a little full, to say the least.

Some skate gear

Of course some delicious riding ensued all throughout Malibu and Santa Monica in the days leading up to the race. Even posted a video down one of them. Kind of a zany style but I had never really seen it done before so I experimented with it.

Also snapped a scenic shot inside Malibu.

So in order to get to Catalina Island where the race was taking place, one must board a ferry, and face rough waters at early, early hours of the morning. People were puking overboard but my guts decided they weren’t going to void my breakfast like so many other unlucky individuals.

After the long ferry you stumble back onto solid ground to meet the qaint town of Avalon. Not many full size cars on the Island… And the entire place is tremendously beautiful.

In the end Cinco de Mayo made for a crazy party and the race went off without a hitch. Next year will be even better. Check out this quick edit as well and for more updates in the future! Live Before You Die.

Our second biggest accomplishment in the 2012 line-up is the creation of Series One. There has been lengthy discussions about this in the Sayshun office about how we wanted to create a family of boards designed specifically for the first time rider. We have seen the sport of longboarding grow and develop so much in the past ten years but how many of you would agree with us that 90% of people’s first board purchase is a bamboo pintail. No hard feelings against the pintail but when a when that first time rider wants to get into slides or learn to bomb a hill properly they end up having to get a whole new deck! Series One is designed to be the very best introduction to the sport of longboarding and to what downhill and freeride is all about. These boards are stable and low to the ground. They come in a Junior and Senior size. But most importantly we’ve streamlined our manufacturing process to give your our very best price without having to move to overseas manufacturing. These boards are easy to learn on an have no limitations when the rider is ready to throw down.

Other developments for the 2012 line-up came primarily from talking to riders. We asked them what they loved and hated about our boards and we made them better. We cut a brand new mould for every board this year. In most cases only minor changes where made to either mellow out the concave or just tweak the dimensions but we did it in response to real feedback. Another thing is we didn’t change out the graphics for every board. Our graphics are produced both in house and through our Artist Collaboration Program. The reason why we didn’t change every graphic is it takes time to develop graphics and seek out artists who really want to work with Sayshun. We’re passionate about every graphic and we want to give recognition to the artists we work with like Russ Mills and Adrian Knopik. When you’re flipping through the new board models just take a second to appreciate the time it took for each artist to create what we are lucky enough to put on a longboard.

As development of the Sayshun line-up continues we set the bar at “bad ass”. If we are not making bad ass boards then we might as well throw in the towel. When you’re out there shredding this 2012 season remember that sometimes big improvements happen a little bit at a time. Keep pushing your limits and value your accomplishments.

Live Before You Die,
Jacob @ Sayshun

So more about Greenware.
Max has created an online Eco Lifestyle skate brand. He sells organic tees with sweet longboarding style printed on them. The store part of the website isn’t quite launched yet but he aims to do it by 20/02/2012. It’s worth checking out because longboarders don’t really have their own clothing brands yet so it’s cool to have a longboarding tee. And then from there Greenware is going to grow into pants, jackets, swim wear, and even boards and gear.

Here’s the links:
www.greenwareboarding.com

www.twitter.com/greenwareorigin
www.facebook.com/greenwareboarding
www.greenwareboarding.tumblr.com

Here is a stellar video from some boys in Singapore! It’s a tribute to their friend Muhd Shah Rezza. Please pass this video on and encourage helmet safety in your skate crew!
Live Before You Die

Sayshun has teamed up with Royal Boardshop to bring you, “To The Core”. This contest is only for the most dedicated riders who can slide a set of wheels into submission! Contest Contenders have the chance to win the entire line-up of plasma wheels, a $540 value!! All you have to do is buy a set of wheels and core them faster than anyone else while the contest is on. From date of purchase to date of cored wheels. This contest is not for the weak! There’s 24 hours in a day and the more you can spend on you board sliding the greater your chances of winning 9 sets of wheels!!

So why would you buy a set of wheels just to core them? Besides the endless hours of practicing your slides and the bragging rights for coring a set of wheels Royal is offering 15% off any Plasma Wheel in the line up for you to do it!!!!

For all of you cheaters out there our cored wheel specialists will need proof you are actually riding these down to their core! You will need to submit a photo of them on your board brand new, a couple shots part way through, and then down to the core. We will also need to see some video of you shredding these down and proving to us you can in fact wear these down as fast as you said you could. Important – if it comes down to a tie the prize is going to go to the person with the most entertaining and most complete documentation of their process so make sure you put your effort into capturing your riding on film and instead of wasting time trying to cheat behind the scenes…

The Contest is live right now! Contact Royal Boardshop to prebook your set of wheels. The wheel coring begins on September 1st! You can enter as many times as you like, simply core your first set, submit your finished wheels, then enter again! SIMPLE!

Thanks to Royal Boardshop & Longboard Calgary

Max Wipperman (USA) qualifies first in Junior II DH skateboard!

James Kelly wins King of the Hill!

Race day is tomorrow! Live Before You Die!

Sticker sign!

And this one shot at a Stonehenge replica built just seconds from the track…

Do as the sticker says...

Go skate.