Sunken City Skates is a core skateshop that is run by Ricky Plancich and Brandon Zankich. Sunken City Skates is the probably the best San Pedro Skateshop. They have a cool vibe, are a owner operated mom and pop type operation, open 7 dayts a week and my personal favorite is the 20 foot wide mini ramp located in the back of the shop.

Sunken City Skates

Sunken City Skates is located at:
619 SOUTH MESA
SAN PEDRO, California, 90731

Sunken City Skates Mini Ramp

Both Ricky and Brandon are both skateboarders and here is a picture of each of them.

Ricky Plancich Sunken City Skates

Brandon Zankich Sunken City Skates

Vans Skatepark in Orange, California is turning 10 years old this saturday!  Come out to The Block on Saturday, November 8th to join in on the festivities.  There will be free skate sessions, free food, free Vans giveaways and appearances by Vans pros.  Skip the free session line and buy a day pass ($5 for members and $10 for non-members).  Join us for a full day of fun to congratulate The Block’s 10-year run!

Vans Skatepark Turns 10 Years Old

As you may or may not know, Vans built quite a few skateparks in malls around the country following the construction of the Vans Skatepark in Orange. In all I believe there were a total of 11 Skateparks built and they all folded except for Vans Skatepark in Orange, California and Vans Skatepark in Orlando, Florida. I would like to take a few moments of silence for the Vans Skateparks that didn’t make it. Here is a list of them with pictures.

Vans Skatepark in Milpitas, California

Vans Skatepark in Ontario, California

Vans Skatepark in Bakersfield, California

Vans Skatepark in Woodbridge, Virginia

Vans Skatepark in Moorestown, New Jersey

Vans Skatepark in Westminster, Colorado

Vans Skatepark in Atlanta, Georgia

Vans Skatepark in Houston, Texas

Vans Skatepark in Phoenix, Arizona

Fat Kid On A Skateboard

I have standed on a lot of skateboards and I weigh 230 pounds but I have never flexed a skateboard this hard and this kid cant weigh that much! WTF Time? This is the June 23,2008 cover of Time Magazine

Red Bull Vegas Am Jam Skateboard Competition

Local skateboard and BMX amateurs put their best tricks into competition at Doc Romeo SkatePark last weekend for the final round of the 2008 Vegas AmJam skatepark series. This series raps up the Red Bull Vegas Am Jam Skateboard Competition for the year.

Registration was filled to its limit as 150 locals signed up for the season finale of the 10-round series. The Saturday series was hosted by the city Las Vegas.

“This competition got my heart racing,” said Frankie Decker, who competed in the skateboard advanced division. “Sponsors come by all the time to check out the best skaters. A lot of people get noticed here. It’s a step that can lead to better things.”

The day was filled with socializing and competition as several bands performed and vendors set up booths in the park, which is located at West Cheyenne Avenue and North Buffalo Drive.

“There are so many events in October that we try to do what we can to stand out,” said Aly Mikos, a coordinator with Las Vegas’ office of Xtreme sports.

The competition was held in a “jam” style format, a more relaxed setting where competitors to try various maneuvers together within their division.

Each division got two five-minute heats where competitors tried to pull off their best tricks. Judges tallied points, allotting more points to more difficult tricks.

“It’s all about the style and the tricks you land,” said Jon Almarez, who competed in the skateboard advance. “You also get a lot of points for the consistency of your landings.”

In addition to heat champions, judges awarded best trick honors that came with a $50 check from Retaks clothing shop. Spring Valley resident Nick Caple won the check for BMX after performing a backflip tailwhip.

“I tried it before but I fell really hard every time,” Caple said. “If you mess up you could get hurt, but if it’s at a contest and for money, I’ll try anything.”

For all the dangerous tricks performed, injuries were minimal as helmets were required and paramedics stood by.

BMX amateur Bret Scovil, of Summerlin, injured his hand while performing a trick but quickly returned.

After checking with paramedics, the pain quickly subsided and Scovil finished third in the BMX intermediate division.

“When I am around a crowd like this I do a lot better,” he said. “I basically want to show off and do better for the crowd.”

Xtreme Sports Director Joe Wichert, who started the AmJam series in 2001, deemed the year a success. Wichert has already begun planning for next year’s series, which is scheduled to begin in February.

“There are not many government programs that recoups its costs,” he said. “This recoups its costs plus it brings in revenue for the next year. It’s great we can do an event like this without costing the taxpayers money.”

Skateboard winners for the day included: Destin Watts for junior jam, Nicolas Michel for intermediate 13 and younger, RJ Andrade for intermediate 14 and older and Kenneth Tanner for advanced.

BMX winners included: Adrian Johnson for junior jam, Eric Minnick for intermediate and Aaron Fotheringham for advanced.

For Immediate Release
Media Contact: Adriana Matthews, Vans

2008 Vans Downtown Showdown
Watch the Webcast and Win the Ultimate Vans Prize Pack!

Watch the live webcast of the Vans Downtown Showdown this Saturday October 11 for your chance to score some great prizes!

We’re giving away a custom Downtown Showdown Epiphone Les Paul Jr guitar signed by the competitors, plus a killer prize pack that will outfit you in head-to-toe Vans gear.  Just complete the entry form, cross your fingers and tune in to vans.com to see if your name is called on air as the winner.   The last day to enter is Friday, October 10 so be sure to visit www.vans.com/showdown today!

More on the Vans Downtown Showdown:
Join Vans on Saturday, October 11 to see skateboarding’s top pros and ams shred for their chance at $85,000, as the 4th Annual Downtown Showdown invades Paramount Studios’ Back Lot.  We invited top skateboard companies and their riders to submit designs for one of four custom obstacles that were chosen and built as part of the Showdown course.

Those that can’t make it to this year’s Showdown can catch all the action at www.vans.com, including a live webcast of the entire event, plus plenty of photos and up-dates.  The Downtown Showdown will also air on January 19, 2009 at 8:00 pm EST/PST on FUEL action sports network.

Who: The top teams in skateboarding including Deathwish, Foundation, Toy Machine, Girl, Real, Element, Habitat, Creature, Black Label and Blind.

What:  Each team will session four unique, custom-made obstacles in a round-robin format with awards going out for top team, best pro, top am and best performance by obstacle.

When:  Saturday, October 11 at 5 pm (doors open at 4 pm)

Where:  Paramount Studios Back Lot

Prize Purse:  $85,000 in cash and prizes for individual and team winners

The Vans Downtown Showdown is made possible by the support of Rockstar Energy Drink, Scion, Epiphone and Skateboard.com.

For updates, check out vans.com/showdown

Here is a picture of the Creature Obstacle from the 2007 Vans Downtown Showdown Contest 

A no-bikes rule at the city’s new skate park has frustrated some bikers and caused clashes with skaters, according to officials and park users.

Reid Menzer Memorial Skatepark is open to anyone using inline skates or skateboards, according to a sign posted there. Bikes are not allowed, the sign indicates.

But some bikers have been using the park. While some say the two groups get along, others say it’s sparked some fights. Police have been called several times for “what continues to be the biker-skater conflict,” said Jim Gross, the city’s public works director.

Police Commissioner Mark Whitman said police have responded to calls about fights between the two groups.

“(The park) is not designed for bikes. I think people on bikes are a little miffed,” he said. “I think skateboarders want to protect it.”

The city police log lists one harassment report for four youths who repeatedly punched another in the head at the park. Four juveniles were arrested, the log states.

Gross said there is nothing specific to the skate park in the city’s laws right now. The city might have to add to park rules “to give them a little more teeth,” he said.

Police can ask the bikers to leave, and anyone there after the 10 p.m. closing can be cited for trespassing, he said.

Whitman said the city might have to consider fencing the park and having someone responsible for opening it. Adult supervision would be the best thing, he said, but finding a volunteer might be the only way to do that. Eric Menzer, Reid Menzer’s father, declined to comment recently, other than to say the park is now in the city’s hands.Gross said the park is limited to skaters for safety and because of potential damage to the facility, because bikes cause more harm to the concrete than skateboards do.

Some at the park agreed.

Dakota Rosenzweig, a 15-year-old skateboarding there recently, said bikes do cause more damage and would hurt him more in a collision.

“No offense,” he said to Francisco Ehrhart, 18, who sat at the edge of the park with his bike resting behind him.

Ehrhart said he’s been asked to leave the park for riding. He didn’t know he wasn’t allowed, he said.

“They want us to get off the street, but we can’t ride at the park,” he said.

Other skaters and bikers said they’ve been getting along fine.

Linda and George Pryor of Dover Township said they’ve brought their kids about three times to skate and haven’t seen any problems. Linda said she’s just happy they have somewhere to go.

“I like the atmosphere,” she said. “Kids need a place to go.”

Holly Bowers, a Springettsbury Township resident whose son rode a bike there, said she hadn’t seen any trouble, but fights could happen anywhere.

“So far, I think everything is going along quite smoothly,” she said.

Gross said officials agreed to make a place for the bikers using leftover dug-up earth. A mound of it rests behind the park.

Robert Taylor, who lives in the southeastern part of the county, brought his 15-year-old son to skateboard recently. He said he hopes the city follows through on the offer.

“I’d like to see a place for both,” he said.

On Tuesday July 15th, 2008 in Calgary, the ARA sent a clear message to all neo-nazis and the Aryan Guard of Calgary. We will not tolerate a Nazi Gang in this town! Disappear!

Today, a Neo-Nazi gang member of the Aryan Guard was knocked out after he attacked a multi-racial group of youth, punching and spitting on them.

Members of the Anti-Racist-Action went to the Calgary skate park to hand out posters against racism. They warned youth in the Calgary skatepark of a local White supremacist recruiter, Willis. Willis is an active member of the Aryan Guard and attends their protests. He would go to the Calgary Skate Park almost every day to recruit white skateboarding youth. He would also teach children as young as ten to fight, and give underage youth cigarettes to gain favor.

When ARA left the park Willis was seen giving a heil Hitler salute from the balcony of his apartment. He left the balcony and came down to attack the group of ARA members. The result of this attack, was that Willis was left unconscious on the ground.

ARA believes that the skatepark belongs to all youth, not just Nazis and their sympathizers. We went to take it back and declare it a Nazi-free zone. Young kids should be able to skateboard in peace!

Lets show the Aryan Guard they are not welcome on our streets. This article is from the 325 Collective and we support what they are doing for sure!

This is the Lakai Shoes Fully Flared Video Review. Lakai’s  latest full-length DVD with footage of the whole Lakai Team.  Features the likes of Eric Koston, Brandon Biebel, Cairo Foster, Guy Mariano, Marc Johnson, Mike Carroll, Rick Howard, Scott Johnston, Jeff Lenoce, Rob Welsh, Danny Garcia, Anthony Pappalardo and others.

The DVD Cover

I’m gonna go out on a limb here. I don’t feel there are enough trees left to rehash why this video won. That horse has been taken out to pasture, beaten into oblivion, shot, incinerated, sailed down the Ganges, and sold to Pakistan for a small piece of cashmere.

Eric Koston

So I’ll just get this out of the way up front to spare us all the culture-Guy, MJ, Ty, Eric Koston, Guy, Carroll, Judas Priest, Spike Jonze, Puig, Jesus, Guy, Pops, Mo, JB, explosions, Guy, combos, Brady, innovation, Guy, Olson, the new Questionable, Biebel, Cairo, Jensen, Guy, Bird, Band Of Horses, Lenoce, JJ, Welsh, S.O.T.Y., Guy, King Diamond, SJ, Feds, Milan, three-song part, Guy, Mercado, Lazarus, MJ, Guy, Guy, Guy, MJ, and onward. If you’re lost, go grab a fixie and roll up a pant leg. If not, bear with me I may actually succeed in writing something about the Lakai video you may not have already read.

Rick Howard

My favorite part in Fully Flared goes to Rick Howard. And after you get done re-reading that sentence, I’ll tell you why. First off, he’s been my dude since Adventures In Cheese (’90) when he unveiled the Rick flip and convinced me that short-sleeve button-ups were my ticket to fakie mannys (they weren’t). He was my dude through Questionable (’92) and Virtual (’93) even over Carroll, Way, Duffy, and most shockingly Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. He was most definitely my dude in Goldfish (’93) the second he tre flipped off that curb cut to Otis Redding. His Lockwood line in Paco (’95) made me want to get those twisty little hair deals. He held it down for an injured MC in their joint parts in Mouse (’96) and Penal Code 700A (’96), even becoming one of the first humans on Earth to roll grind a tree and shred-a-late a forest (sorry, Element). His front nose down the church rail in Modus (’00) stands as one of Ty’s all-time favorite tricks he’s filmed. I’ll even give him Yeah Right! (’03), which he shared with a bunch of dudes’ “retirement parts,” although Gino clearly eclipsed his frontside 180 fakie five-0 frontside half-Cab kickflip to board splinteration. I’m stupid, see. I’m that big a fan.

 
Mike Carroll

With that off my chest, allow me to return to my initial argument. The full part he put out for FF, along with about two-thirds of the aforementioned ones from years passed, were filmed while dude was knee-deep running a company scratch that, companies. He is also the dude, along with Johannes Gamble, who, regardless of what you may have read in the credits after said videos, has pretty much conceptualized every Girl Films production since the dawn of SHT Sound.

In ‘07, seventeen years after having made his bones with Blockhead, by all earthly accounts, Rick could easily have sat this one out and just thrown a few tricks in for parity. But he didn’t. Switch crooks flip in at 7th Street-solid. Fullpipe gap action-funtastic. Bluntslide the Girona three-stair to pop out over the gap straight-hell yeah. Switch nose manny fakie flip switch manny the Inglewood up banks-f-k. The dork poses-still got ‘em. Hurricane to fakie at the Pink Motel Guy says yes. Nine-stair-wallride-yep. Fakie five-0 fakie manny to fakie flip the Sants three stair-Goddamn. Skating to Echo & The Bunnymen-priceless. The ditch gap ollie with the oversized hands-the clincher. Did you want to read about HD technology? Blame Canada.

Shaun White has a lot going for him these days. He is an Olympic Gold Medalist, just got his deal with Target to do a Shaun White clothing line and he is progressing and moving forward in both skateboarding and snowboarding and there is no sign of him slowing down any time soon.

Shaun White has a nice big house which is more of a mansion really and it is overlooking a canyon in Rancho Santa Fe 40 minutes north of San Diego. Inside shawns house, he barely seems to notice that surrounding his ping-pong table in the living room are racks of painstakingly arranged clothes, and on the floor are pair after pair of shoes, lined up neatly in rows, for him to choose from for the the next day. He has a huge white horse, an infinity pool  and a bitchen spanish style house. He has a velvet-wallpapered music room, where White has a drum-kit set up in one corner, various expensive guitars on stands, and some amps. A pretty sweet set up indeed! He has another pad in Park City Utah and a $350,000 Lamborghini Murcielago which white justifys buying because he can and its a fast cool car and he wrecked the last one.

Shaun White is just a genuinely nice guy, one who can crack a joke about anal lube as unselfconsciously as the next dude. If he’s going to buy a car, it’s going to be one of the fastest models on the planet; if he decides to take up guitar, it’s going to be a Gibson Les Paul; if he has to travel the world, then, damn it, it’s going to be with his friends in tow.

“That’s kind of my secret to my whole thing-it stays fun,” he says, when finally I manage to pry him away from the throng. “If you just sit around and train in the summer because you’re going to be `the best snowboarder in the winter’ and that’s all you’re thinking about, it’s not good. That’s why I got better than the kids that stayed in the mountains-I’d come home to the beach and skateboard, and have fun. Then, I’d go up to the mountain and I’m like ‘This is amazing!”‘ He pushes his gold, mirrored sunglasses a little further up his nose. “You just gotta remember the reason you started doing it in the first place.”

When White is in beer-pong mode, he’s in his element. It’s the other side of his appeal: not only is he one of the most exciting athletes to emerge in recent memory, he’s also just one of the guys, who just happens to be a multi¬millionaire, a video-game character, and, hang on, wasn’t that him in Vogue a few months ago, standing next to Daria, holding a skateboard? Take this recent blog post, written on his official website after White won the Winter X Games gold in Aspen: “What do you do after winning the gold? Do you go and immediately pawn it for a VCR and a PS2? NO! When you are in Aspen and Target has the biggest house on the mountain, you get together for a little dancing with all of your buddies! Deep in the heart of the basement was a secret room where amps, guitars and a drum kit were set up and ready to kick out the jams! Shaun was found ripping the frets on some classic songs, jamming along with the rest of the crew. It is fun to win gold, but it is even better hanging with all your friends and jamming.” Shaun White, then: just like us! Only not really: he does, after all, have an Olympic medal. White became a celebrity (and American hero) when he won the snowboarding gold in the 2006 Winter Olympics, in Turin. “I think that the Olympics needed snowboarding more than snowboarding needed the Olympics,” he says. “If you think about it, who do you know that can relate to that guy that skies like eight miles then shoots targets? Nobody can relate to that. Nobody goes out and toboggans. The highest rated things in the Winter Olympics are ice-skating and snowboarding. It’s because you can relate and understand. You can watch us do airs in the halfpipe and go `OK, I understand that. They’re flipping and they’re spinning.’ It’s a spectacle.”

But, as famous as he’s become as a snowboarder (he’s one of only two athletes with seven golds at the Winter X Games, and achieved his third consecutive halfpipe championship at the U.S. Open earlier this year), he has, all the while, been skating, too, often under the watchful eye of one Tony Hawk, who lives close by. White is currently the only skater to land the body varial frontside 540 and is known, as he is in snowboarding, for huge airs and smooth landings.
“Snowboarding was my thing, and skateboarding was just this fun thing I did in the off-season,” he says. “Tony Hawk would invite me to do demos and we became friends. When I was 16, I sat with him one day at the ramp and I was like ‘What do you think if I start competing in skateboarding? Would that be weird?’ And he was like `No, I think you’re good enough to go for it.’

White’s motivation to succeed, specifically by winning competitions, comes across in every sentence he speaks about snowboarding and skateboarding. It’s a tenacity that has brought him a long way and looks set to take him much further. As a kid, White would travel the three hours with his parents and brother to Big Bear mountain, where the family would spend the weekend snowboarding. “I would cram a weeks worth of riding into two days,” he says.-”On every run I was working on a new trick. My mom started to ride and she was really slow, so in order to let her progress enough to where she could catch up to me she made me ride switch. Then I got really good at it.” Soon enough, he was signed by Burton. “It wasn’t because I was like the raddest dude on the mountain-Burton just came out with a kid’s line, so I was there at the start with them,” he says. “They were like `We’re going to give you this snowboard and if you keep doing well and keep competing then we’ll give you another one.’ That’s all the motivation I needed. Done: I rip, I get more boards. Sick!” As he gained confidence, White began to attract attention. “I was super young and had this funny look,” he says. “I was just a giant helmet at that point, but I’d hit these huge jumps and just go for it.”
Eventually, White became the person to beat at the mountain. “It turned into this thing where everyone was against me, and I didn’t really like it,” he says. “I’d be at the start and the other parents would be all ‘OK Johnny, you’re gonna beat him today.”

He is already well on his way to changing both skateboarding and snowboarding but, in winning that gold medal, White, under the watchful eyes of his parents, and Burton, catapulted the sports into the mainstream. By furthering what Tony Hawk had started-doing commercials, video games, etc.-White has propelled extreme sports where many thought they could never go (and where some purists think they still shouldn’t): into the public consciousness. In the process, he has become a superstar, made a fortune and paved the way for others to follow suit.

Twenty-fine years of Independent Truck Company constitutes an anniversary that demands both respect and introspection. The contemporary tendency is to envelop history in an impenetrable containment sphere of numeric details. The human relevance of occurrences and entities becomes lost in a blizzard of data. What real consequence do computations of ballistic rounds expended, X billion burgers served, acres burned. number of units produced, pool size of participants, topographical chart coordinates, revenues generated, reentry duration times, calories used, et cetera, have? What stats could convey the impact of 25 years of Independent Trucks?

The value of Independent far exceeds its performance as a business entity. Granted, Independent Trucks are the de facto standard of contemporary skateboard truck design. Virtually all legendary riders have been associated with Independent Trucks in some way at some time. No professional skateboarder or company owner exists who is not aware of the Independent hegemony. Nevertheless, the true accomplishment here is about people and their discovery of a workable way to live out their lives. Whatever success they ultimately garnered is incidental to that first pure impulse. Independent is proof that the hectic will inevitably push out the hype. The Independent Trucks cartel is very much a family. Once you are in, you are never out.
Every person in this narrative is more or less connected to the others. That interrelation and the expectation of excellence are the primary mechanisms that drive the beast known as independent. It has always been about the truck.

Webster’s Dictionary describes the skateboard truck as “a wheeled vehicle consisting of a frame with a pair of wheels to carry and guide one end of a vehicle in turning sharp turns.” Independent is defined as “not dependent: not subject to control by others. not affiliated: not looking to others for one’s opinions or for guidance in conduct.

Independent Trucks have been around for many years. I have been riding them since I was 12 and I will not switch. I guess my slogan on this list would be Built To Grind. Here is a list of Independent Truck Slogans that have been used in ad campaigns over the last 25 years. Of course the most popular and the one that is my favorite is Built To Grind.