Tony Hawk’s Secret Skatepark Tour had an amazing group of friends showing up at skateparks unannounced, surprising the locals, ripping parks in Oregon, Montana, Indiana and the Cayman Islands, and culminating in a big demo in Athens, Georgia. With excited fans calling their friends, it doesn’t take long before the parks are overflowing with hundreds of skaters, fans, TV news crews and even police.

Once enough tricks get thrown down, it’s time to move on to the next park. On their way, the guys stop off to surprise fans at their homes and even drop by an unsuspecting middle school. Tony Hawk’s Secret Skatepark Tour 2 gave you an inside look at the athletes’ life on the road as they ride some of the best skateparks, travel, and pick up some friends in a cross-country quest to enjoy what they do best!

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A space-time anomaly hits the local skatepark. Home grown special effects and two world-class skateparks.

Support Your Local Skate Shop

It used to be easy to spot one of your own fellow skaters no matter where you were in the world. It used to be as easy as checking out what shoes they were wearing and you knew instantly if you were in the presences of your own kind. The main reason for this is because back then when you actually fashioned yourself as a skateboarder, you actually were a skateboarder. Nowadays I see posers as far as the eye can see, the general consumer market is saturated with skateboard products. Just take a stroll through your local mall and you will see that everybody wants a piece of the “Xtreme” pie. I was in Walmart last night and walked by a display of Tony Hawk doing a hand plant in the name of teen vitamins?

The whole thing really distanced me from skateboarding for awhile as I watched skateboarding trends and fashion be raped by the masses. I just find it funny that the same jock itch Idiots that used to shout “Skate or Die Dude” as they drove by in their Bitchin Camero’s are now sporting Hurley shirts and Etnies skate shoes. In my opinion skateboarding has been soldout and watered down leaving the workhorse of the skateboarding industry in the dust, your friendly nighboorhood skate shop.

Sadly there is no stopping the wheels of progress and I like a good deal just as much as the next guy and we have all sold out skateboarding to some extent but at some point you have to say enough is enough. The bottom line is SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SKATE SHOP! If your buying your gear online make sure it’s skater owned and operated like 360skate.com or try driving past the mall and visit your local skate shop, I mean there’s a novel idea, buy your skate stuff from a skate shop because thats where you’ll find the “real deal” and real people.

What most people don’t realize is that most skateboard companies will only deal with local skate shops or at the very least grant them access to products way before they will be released to the mall rats. Chances are the people that work at your local skkate shop actually skate and have either used the products your interested in or know someone who has. They are gonna know what’s hot and what’s not, what is crap and what is worth spending your hard earned cash on.

I came across this press release about Foot Locker trying to get their “foot” in the skateboard industries door.

Foot Locker Inc. said it will buy skateboard-apparel business CCS from Delia’s Inc. for $102 million in cash, as the sportswear retailer tries to capture more younger customers.

The skateboarding-inspired apparel market has been a bright spot as consumer spending dwindles in segments like basketball shoes. CCS sells products such as skateboard shoes, apparel and accessories — from brands including Volcom, Nike and DC Shoes — directly to consumers through catalogs and the Internet. The company expects to generate $80 million in sales by 2009.

Retailers like Foot Locker have come under increased pressure to adapt to teenagers’ shifting tastes, which have migrated into action sports like skateboarding and BMX bike riding. In August, footwear sales in both basketball and action sports categories were roughly the same, with action sports sales growing 30% to $300 million, according to SportsScanInfo, a market research group.

“We believe that expanding our offerings in the skateboard category will allow us to broaden our appeal to the teenaged male, providing an exciting growth opportunity for our company,” said Matthew D. Serra, the chairman and chief executive of Foot Locker, in a press release Monday.

The deal will allow Foot Locker’s “retail operations to have greater access to hot-selling skate products that have limited availability at some of the firm’s brick-and-mortar formats,” John Shanley of Susquehanna Financial Group wrote in a research note Monday. However, the firm remains “cautious on Foot Locker’s near-term sales and earnings prospects given the current macroeconomic environment.”

As our economy suffers more slams, some of us are going to be stretching the dollar as much as possible. If you have been skating for a while you must already know about Shoe Goo and how wonderful a product this actually is in extending the life of your skate shoes. If not you need to go out and Buy a Tube of Shoe Goo

The Airwalk Prototype made popular by Mike Vallely back in his Powell days

Back in the day when Airwalks ruled the skateboarding world the one weakness of them was in the soles, which would wear out almost indefinitely before the sides of the shoe did, especially with the Airwalk 540 and Prototype. I often found myself applying huge gobs of the stuff to the bottom of my shoe almost daily for awhile there.

As skate shoes progressed and better gum rubber soles came along, soon the side of shoes specifically in the small toe region developed holes quicker than the bottoms had a chance to wear out and get a hole. The major reason this was happening was because of ollie’s and kick flips, which tended to wear away an even bigger area on the toes on a skate shoe. Most skate shoes can be recognized by the extra layer in those areas. Some shoes come with lace savers to help protect the shoelaces themselves from the wrath of grip tape.

Shoe Goo skate shoes best friend

So instead of running out and grabbing a new pair of shoes every time you start rubbing your little toe raw from an ollie, you should consider using Shoe Goo to extend the life of your skate shoes. This stuff is seriously magic and every skater should own a tube of it. A good tip when using shoe goo to repair a skate shoe is to used an ice cube to spread the shoe goo around the damaged area. Using a popsicle stick or something the spread the shoe goo around with will only leave a sticky mess.

Another good tip that will extend the life of your skate shoe is to really examine a shoe before you buy a new air. Check to see how it was made and how the sole is actually attached to the rest of the shoe. You should be looking for a skate shoe that is single or double stitch all the way around it. You have to look closely sometimes because some of them appear to be stitched but turn out to be a design molded right into the sole and then the sole is actually glued together. Always look for double or even a triple stichs and that they have a good gum rubber sole.

Of course there are alot of diffrent reasons to go with a certain shoe verses another, like the shoe companies reputation, how long they have been making shoes, if it is signature pro shoe, the durability, the wieght, and the list could just go on and on. But if you at least take a good close look at how well they were made and most importantly always check your local skate shop before you think the mall is a good idea. Usually you will have much more knowlegeble staff who actually use the same shoes your considering making a purchase of and can really help take a step in the right direction orI should say 360 flip in the right direction to a longer lasting qulity skate shoe.

This is a video of a mini ramp being built in 3 minutes produced by www.xtremeskater.com It’s pretty cool and so is their website. You will find tons of free ramp plans and free good information on building ramps, so check them out!