Tech Street Skating 101: Sheckler Prepares to School the Field

Aug 03 2006 / Los Angeles, CA

The skate street course is one of the most unassuming street courses ever built. Made up of concrete ledges, wooden ramps, metal handrails & little bushes (yes, shrubberies) most of the course resides at or below waist level.  It is a small, technical course but with options limited only by the level of your creativity.

PHOTO GALLERY  Check out  photos from X Games 12 Skate Street and Big Air practice.    VIEW GALLERY>

The biggest feature is the double-high five stair set, with attached hubba ledges & handrail.  Koston stomped a perfect heelflip down the set in practice earlier today, and it seems to be the feature that is getting the most use.  The street-realistic curbed bank (the sloping bank doesn't go all the way into the ground, it drops off about a foot before) was getting sessioned pretty hard, and the wooden pyramid saw a couple frontside flip to fakies.

Great all-arounders such as Koston & Sheckler will benefit the most from the course.  Both of these guys can tear apart the hubba & the big set, and then pull crazy tech tricks on the bank, boxes & pyramid.  In practice, Sheckler found a little step-up over which he did several 360 flips and by the end he was eyeing the big set with the more or less the same way of thinking.  Sheckler's foot injury (due to a burn which he incurred on the 4th of July) is a thing of the past & will not be holding him back here like it did in Denver (Dew Tour Stop #2).  Young guns heal quickly and this one's back up to par like it never even happened.

Above all else, this course will prove to be the dividing line between the skaters with versatility & technical skills, and those without.  When you take away all of the showy drop in ramps & big table-tops, it leaves the skaters with less options to stall time, and forces them to dig deeper into their bags of  flip-trick variations & combos using manuals, reverts, etc.  The course will level the playing field until all that's left are the skaters, their talent, and their fresh ideas - and when these guys get to thinking, they usually come up with some pretty unbelievable stuff.

- Cody Allen