I had some friends from my hometown come visit this weekend. They were very excited to skate the many beautiful street spots of Austin. So what did we take them to? First spot, a bank to dumpster and a rock. Perfect. Honestly, every spot we ever try to go to is terrible. It’s the age old tale of “every street spot is harder in real life”.
That’s never really an issue though. Even if the spot is awful (like the curved handicap we go to in this one), there’s still a curb. There’s still SOMETHING. There’s always something, even if it’s a crack on the ground, skating is always fun. We did something different in this one, something we haven’t really done before… Skated a mini-ramp.
I’ve made it a point during this series to not film skatepark, that’s what instagram is for. There’s so much park footage on instagram, you couldn’t watch it all if you spent the rest of your life trying. That being said, I’d count this mini as a “DIY” spot. It’s not a skatepark… So it counts. Let us slide on this one (literally). If you’re hometown friends come to skate, not every spot can be trash… literally. - Cody Sanders.
Featuring: Mick Casals, Caleb Benavides, Heath Burley, Andrew Broom, Matt Raker, Anthony Medina, Cody Sanders & Friends.
Jumbo Setups with Anthony Medina - USD Aeon
The USD Aeon, the most customizable skate on the market… That’s obviously a joke. But, there are actually a few different mods that exist for these things. Anthony Medina discusses how he’s dialed in his Aeons over the past few years of skating them. - Cody Sanders.
Jumbo Series by Cody Sanders - More Episodes.
Episode 5 - The Short one
It turns out, it’s hard to film a full edit when you show up to the session with only 8% of battery on the camera. Is this my fault? Yes. Do I have a good excuse? Always. But this one is actually good though. I got to go to Disney World last weekend. I didn’t get back until 4am the night before the Saturday session, but I still tried my best to come out and film what we could. It was really fun, for the time I was there. That little bank to rail spot is a hidden gem.
Heath Burley died on the second spot and Andrew got a really sick clip, just playing around (as usual). Overall, not much to say about this one. It’s just skating mostly, but that’s ok. They can’t all be big hitters…. I mean… None of them are, lol. The goal was accomplished. “Wake up, make something.” - Cody Sanders.
Episode 6
Michael Kraft makes me feel like I don’t even know how to skate. I’m pretty sure he did 3 never before done tricks this weekend. Some of them aren’t in the edit (sadly), but I’ve never seen anything quite like it. I feel like I’m watching the doors open to a new era of skating. It’s like watching a new genre of music be created.
Whenever it comes to all the wheel swivel stuff, I get that some people don’t understand it. I mean hell, I barely do and I like the stuff. I can hear those “hammer-types” thinking “I don’t like all the nimbly bimbly dance skating. I feel like the invention of “glides” can change that thought process. It takes the precision movement of flat-ground skating and turns it into a maneuver that looks more umm… classically understood. It’s like a grind… Except it’s a “glide.” What’s a glide, you ask? I didn’t know til last Saturday either. Apparently that’s the genus for the wheel slide stuff:
- Grind: soul plate
- Slide: frame
- Glide: wheel
I kind of like that it takes the letters from both “Grind” and “slide” to create it’s name. Fitting. I’m really just rambling at this point. I’m not even the right guy to be writing about this kind of stuff. Anyways. Only 2 spots on this drizzly day, but they were both super fun. The best kink rail in Texas was uncapped recently. Shoutout to whoever did that. It felt like 2002, watching everyone line up at the top of a kink rail to session it as a group. Overall, amazing session. Great energy all around. Saturdays are the best. - Cody Sanders.
I think every crew has that one guy that is charge of getting everyone together and setting up the session. It’s never said out loud, that he’s the person that’s in charge of this, but we all know who it is. In this case, I’m pretty sure that’s Anthony Medina.
…Well he’s not here this weekend. It’s fucking lord of the flies and I’ve got the conch. Our friends from Dallas (John Sullivan and Aarin Gates) were in town as well. Whatever expectations they had for a classic Austin session were immediately dispelled after meeting up.
We’re not skating the good spots, we’re at the spot that we made, The Dawg Pound DIY. It’s called the dawg pound for multiple reasons, but today it really earned its stripes. There were more actual dogs than there were people skating. I’d rather have more dogs than bladers any day, so that’s fine with me. I’m not trying to film, I’m trying to pet a dog.
It’s always nice having people from out of town come visit. Not just because it’s good to see old friends, but everyone gets a little more motivated than usual. Most days, if we’re just derping around on a little ledge spot, not much happens. But I think everyone made the most out of what we had. - Cody Sanders.
Jumbo Setups: Kirill Braynin - Gawds Team Skate (Large Sizes)
This is the first installment of Jumbo Setup Series. I’m a pretty big skate nerd, I like to talk specifics. The goal is to not just show the setup, but also discuss exactly why we skate these things the way that we do. To go a bit further than the average commentary.
Average commentary: “Yeah I skate them stock, anti rocker and it’s rad.” Whether or not we achieved that…. Ehhh, we’re working on it! Haha. In this one, Kirill Braynin discusses his Gawds setup. For everyone out there with big feet, this one is for you.
The Setup. Boot: Gawds team boot (Size 11/12), Soul plate: Gawds stock soul, Frame: Kizer Slimeline 2, Liner: Rollerblade Twister XT Liner (I couldn’t find just the liner), Wheels: Bloom 64mm Tony Woodlands, Anti rocker wheels: Ground Control generic, Bearings: Unlisted, generic ABEC 9’s.
No one is answering in the group text. It’s Saturday, where is everyone? The first spot was a complete disaster. Getting lost, can’t find our friends, the ledges are capped, but we made the most of it.
I guess since no ones around, we can finally check out the bad spots. The spots that look great on film, but you don’t want to bring 20 people to, ya know? Filming these glorified b-roll edits is a lot of fun, but we’ve been working on “real” edits this entire time too. I just haven’t been posting the bigger tricks in the 4TS videos.
I did put a few of the bigger tricks in this one though. Zach Gutweiler is a madman and what he sessions for fun, I wouldn’t touch. This edit is a bit of a slow starter, but the ending is pretty sweet. - Cody Sanders.
Jumbo: More Episodes.
Another perfect weekend with the boys. The spots this weekend looked really fun. I had to cut out a couple of the spots because I’m working on “full length” sections for a couple of my friends, but even skipping those spots, there was still so much leftover.
As I’m making these edits, I realized that my crew laughs a lot. In the moment I know that I’m thinking “this is fun,” but having to sit here and rewatch a majority of the day… I realize how important this seemingly meaningless activity is to me. The amount of laughter/ jokes/ hilarious banter that I’m having to cut out of these edits is overwhelming. Most of it would be hard to understand.
This project (so far) is fun. If not to just give me something to do, but to give me a newfound respect for the weekly ritual of forcing myself to wake up and go film the boys dork around on the streets. It’s late and I’m ranting.. I’ll probably rewrite whatever is above this. I dunno. Hope yall are having a good day. - Cody Sanders.
Featuring: Anthony Medina, Andrew Broom, Cody Sanders, Heath Burley, Isaac Parks, Will Kennedy & more!
Previously: Jumbo: 4 the Streets (2023) - Episode 1 with Cody Sanders, Anthony Medina, Andrew Broom & the whole Crew.
One golden hour is Austin, Texas. Featuring skating by Brad Anthony, Josh Broughton, Mick Casals, Eric Bayou, Andrew Broom, and Anthony Medina.