DOWNHILL FREESTYLE SKATEBOARDING

Downhill freestyle, or slide skating, a skateboarding phenomenonoriginating in 60s California , has been brought back to life by a team of skaters from Cornwall who are continually developing new tricks and moves.

When I first moved to Falmouth from the south for university, I had the good fortune to move in with Alex Brinnen and Chris Humphris, two keen skateboarders and eventual founders of Faltown skateboards. Skateboarding was nothing new to me, but when I went out with them and saw what they were doing I was in shock. Sliding around on all fours, on a skateboard, on a big hill, around corners at speed, with cars on the road. It was no wonder one well used local run was simply referred to as 'A&E hill'.
But as they informed me, slide skating is a technique developed by US skaters to save injury on fast downhills. Riders wear special gloves and move their weight to their hands allowing them to slide and slow down. In Cornwall this has progressed into a sport of high speed spins and turns, more style than safety.

The team formed in 2000 when a handful of skateboarders in Falmouth – Tom Clough, Mark Short, Dom Lilly, Andy Lewis plus Alex and Chris – rediscovered the lost art of sliding and set about creating their own gear to help progress the moves.

"I remember skating around Falmouth and then seeing two friends of mine sliding their skateboards down the hill sideways and on their hands!" recalls Alex, "It blew my mind and I knew right then I had to give it a try.

"That morning I skipped all my college lectures to get some chopping board and some gardening gloves ready to make some slide gloves." The nylon chopping board is cut and melted with a blowtorch and then stuck to a decent pair of gardening gloves. This allows you to put your hands down, kick the skateboard into a slide and then spread your weight across your body. Then come the spins, switches, grabs, manuals, toeside and heelside slides and god knows what else.

What initially was our student house soon became a makeshift warehouse for what became Faltown skateboards. Piles of blank decks lined our hallway, Chris would be spray painting skateboards in the kitchen while Alex was loading decks into our bathtub so they could be shaped. Grappling with the production techniques involved, our personal hygiene suffered.

"We never intended to start a company" Chris assures me, "we just could never afford new skateboards. We loved our boards and we kept making more, experimenting with different shapes and wheelbases." 6 years later and Faltown decks are cut by machine in California , and are for sale from their website and 10 skateboard shops and 'urban boutiques' in Europe .

There are four different shapes of board; pool, slide, free ride (or bomb) and cruise. There's also all the t shirts, hoodies, jeans and workshirts you'd expect along with specially selected wheels, trucks, grip tape and nylon pucks for gloves to save you buying a chopping board and cutting it up. The site is packed with information, photos, profiles of the skaters and over 45 minutes of footage which has caused a stir across the pond.

They received a lot of attention through online skate forums, exchanging videos with fellow skaters the world over, to astonishment. "I suppose whilst our technique is based on that 60s style, we have really taken downhill freestyle to a whole new level by using the slide gloves to allow us to do various spins instead of simply to slow down".

Cliff Coleman, the Californian granddaddy of sliding who pioneered the sport in the 1960s, was so impressed with the growth of sliding in Britain – and the performance of the Faltown skate team – that he came to the UK to meet the Faltown crew. He spotted them as they took the top six places at a Sheffield skate event in May 2005. His latest trip to Britain , last summer, was with Brazilian slide legend Sergio Yuppie, who came with him to see the Faltown boys perform. Footage of their skating antics will become part of the Faltown Skateboards DVD due out in March this year.
Cliff, who is now in his mid-50s and living in the Berkeley Hills, California , said: "The Faltown guys really motivated me. Here I am, still re-learning things I learned 20 years ago because of guys like this at Faltown. The level of skill in the UK regarding sliding is awesome; the UK sliders are the real thing."
After meeting Cliff, the boys made the pilgrimage to visit him in California last year and found that their brand of skating went down a storm. They speak fondly of "butter smooth hills" and the kids who came lined the streets to see them skate after watching video clips online. Cliff added: "The Faltown guys are the epitome of camaraderie. Their bond is sliding on skateboards and their youthful competitive nature has taken their slide skills to new levels and given them global notoriety."

In August they hold their own FalJam 2007, around Falmouth and Cornwall , with downhill and slide sessions as well as workshops and a slide school for newcomers. In September they head to Cadwell Park in Lincolnshire for another slide, downhill and slalom jam. They are also heading back to America for the 'Danger Bay ' event in Canada on the 24th of May and Slidefest 2007 in San Francisco organised by Gravity skateboards, an event which Faltown skater Mark Short competed in last year, finishing fourth overall against stiff competition.

Mark speaks passionately about how seeing what the Californians and Brazilians are doing has motivated him to push the sport and himself further than he originally thought possible. Keep your eyes peeled in 2007 for these guys in the West Country pioneering a new part of skateboarding, or check out www.faltownskateboards.com