ARE YOU A RAYNE MAN/WOMAN?

THANKS FOR THE UPDATE GARTH!

Thirsty?

Many thanks goes out to Pabst for helping keep our Friday afternoons a little more sane or insane???

I HEART MIKE BENDA!

Who doesn’t love Mike Benda? HIS HEART IS PURE GOLD!

He has been a huge part of the local and international longboard scene since the beginning. “Serial 5″ has probably shown you how to do a trick or two… his fast, all or nothing style makes Mike a fun rider to watch and skate with.

He is always helping grow the scene by driving groms all over the city and showing them how to ride properly. He has even been known to pay for entry fees and loan equipment just to allow other people to share the passion of longboarding. He gives a lot and really expects nothing in return.

If you’ve spent time hanging out with Mike you know he is ultimately a kid at heart just looking for the next session. So when you see him in a suit(not leathers) it can be a bit shocking – it goes to show that there is a lot more to Mike than meets the eye. He may be standing next to you with a smile on his face but really he is thinking of how to best catch you off guard to sneak a quick jab.

Next time you see Mike make sure you give him a hug.

Thanks to Brianne, Nick and Shawn for making the custom t shirts and to Paul for taking the photos.

TELL US A STORY ABOUT YOUR FAVORITE EXPERIENCE HANGING OUT WITH MIKE BENDA!

Simply Steezie

Simply Steezie! from Rayne Longboards on Vimeo.

There is hope yet that BIG BROTHER does have a heart…

FROM MIKE BENDA’S PAGE:

So I posted up about three months ago in part about that skateboarding ticket I had mailed to me. I sent in my dispute the next day and the “two to four week process” took three months, inclusive of continual hounding from my end. The hounding and follow up, however, DID pay off as I received verbal confirmation today (after yet another call into them) that they’ve voided my ticket. Thanks for letting me know eh? Anyways, it’s a small victory but a victory nonetheless. Stick it back at them!!

Sultan of the Shawnigan Shredder

Just Another Weekend Down Under

On Saturday, February the 21st ASRA President Haggy Strom and myself got up before dawn to embark on a reconnoissance mission to the victorian alps to scope out and skate some of the best mountain roads this country has to offer. After months of talking about what roads were possible to skate we finally decided its time to go down and actually check it all out. We flew down to Albury, hired a car and began the drive down towards Mt Beauty and Falls Creek. Our first stop was a small gas station in Dederang, where we stopped for some munchies and to inquire about the mountain roads down towards Mt Beauty and Falls creek. The attendant told us the roads there were very long and windy with beautiful scenery, and when we told him we were there to skate down them on our longboards he was completely blown away, but at the same time interested, and told us we were in for the ride of our lives. This definitely put smiles on our faces and got us very excited.

Our next stop was just outside of Mt Beauty at a road called Tawonga Gap Road, which is the link road between Mt Beauty and Bright. I had been told about this road by Pete Conolly who road it when he was down here for Newton’s Playground last March, and just like he had described, it was steep, fast and very technical. It seemed like it took forever to drive up, but that just added to the excitement. Haggy, being fairly new to the whole downhill thing, seemed a bit nervous about skating down this road, so i told him if he didn’t skate it i would have to kick him in the nuts, it just cant get much better than this where we are from. He wasn’t going to back down. We parked the car at the look-out looking over the town of Mt Beauty and started to gear up, while a few people drove by and slowed down giving us weird looks saying ‘your going down on your skateboard….?’. It was pretty cool to see the interest they had, as they must have never seen anything like this before.

One of the hairpins Tawonga Gap Rd has to offer. The road itself was a little bit rough for the first few hundred meters, but then dove into a very tight right hand hairpin covered in smooth hot mix and then opened up to about 2k’s of sweeping turns. After a while you start judging the corners by the recommended speed limits on the road signs, and then the 2nd gnarly hairpin comes out at you. It was pretty wide but fairly steep. On Haggy’s first run he was greeted by 2 semi-trailers coming round the corner, it looked kind of sketchy from my point of view but Haggy had enough control over his speed to slow down enough and take the corner like a pro, giving the truck drivers a wave as he did so.

The next section was a lot faster, with more straight lines and looser corners that came into an incredibly steep right hand switch back that drops about 12m with some sharp banking on the inside that slingshot you around it and exiting at some pretty high speeds. From then on it was holding the tuck with some slight bends and then the final hairpin, a very loose and wide right hander (with a big ‘Reduce Speed Now’ sign before it) that shot you down the final straight.

After a couple of runs, hi-fives and burning legs we decided it was time to continue on and explore the road leading down to Falls Creek. From Mt Beauty to falls creek there is 36k’s of winding road, up and down the whole way. Every bit of downhill road either going towards or away from Falls Creek was very skate-able. There was not one bit of straight road the whole way, and the surface was pretty smooth and consistent. We counted at least 10 downhill runs on the way to falls creek, each of which were very fast and technical. But the main event was the final section of road leading up to Falls Creek from the creek just past the town of Bogong. The road is around 16k’s and constant winding downhill, full of sweeping corners and big loose hairpins with a few 90 degree stingers here and there. When i rode it from top to bottom it took nearly 15 minutes to do the whole run.

Haggy and i decided to play on the top section of this road, which is about 7 or 8k’s long leading down to switchback creek, a massive 270 degree switchback corner that has a small up-hill run out (you can ride over it and keep going) that we were finishing our runs on. The Road starts up at the town of Falls Creek and runs along side it to start with before shooting you into 4 or 5k’s of constant left/right corners with a few long left handers thrown in the mix. The road goes on past the gates of Falls Creek and out into a lush forest with dense vegetation either side. It gets a fairly bit faster and the corners get a lot tighter, with 3 gnarly 90 degree right handers that are banked on the inside and a few left/right sweepers before coming down into switchback creek. The road was amazing, there was basically no traffic at all and the feeling of freedom you got while flying through the corners of this winding paradise was awesome. We did as many runs as our legs could handle, before calling it a day.

We were staying in a nice little apartment in the town of Falls Creek kindly lent to us by Braden, the man behind www.charliedontskate.com, and as we drove around to found the place we realized that the town itself was a longboarding heaven. The roads were steep as all hell and each corner was a 180 degree switch back. You could run from the top of the town to the bottom and would have the ride of your life, but only if your skills were high enough to be constantly sliding and speed checking each corner because the roads were so steep. We then sat down with a couple of the locals and fired up a barbecue with a couple of beers and told them about the downhill skating scene. They were pretty stoked on the whole thing and were getting really into it. They were kind enough to share some of the local knowledge and point out some other great hills around the Victorian Alps. After a few beers and some very drunken table tennis Haggy and I decided to call it a night and went up to pass out.

The next day we were greeted with clear blue skies and fresh mountain winds, then had some breakfast before going out to sample some of the hills in the town. Just outside where we were staying was the top of the run, and the first gnarly corner. We stayed here and sessioned it a little bit before making our way down the town sessioning all the corners we could find. Each of them were super fast and super tight. I donated a fair bit of Urethane to the roads of falls creek sessioning these corners as well as a little bit of skin when i hit a small crack doing a stand up slide down the steep sections.

After playing in the town, it was back out to the main road where we geared up in our leathers and skated the road going out of the town again. Haggy had a bit more knowledge of the road and was really ripping it up, he had the biggest smile on his face at the end of each run. After about two runs some of the locals showed up and came out to take some photos, so Haggy and i got to have a few runs together, which was really fun. One of the locals Pete (also known as PC) was shooting out the back of a car and got some really wicked shots, showing some great scenery and a bit of the town at the same time.

We then decided to end the session and grab some food before heading back to Albury to fly home. The thick shakes and cheese burgers we got from the cafe at the top of the town were superb, and really hit the spot. It was a real shame to drive away from that place as the energy up there was really positive. Everything seemed so laid back and the scenery and fresh mountain air was really good for the soul. It was a feeling of freedom. On the drive back towards Mt Beauty we discovered another good downhill run which we sort of overlooked on the way out. The road leading into MT Beauty itself looked amazing. The road was smooth as hell and was full of winding turns. Not as long as the falls creek run but the corners seemed really nice. It was a shame we didn’t have time to skate it but we will definitely spend some time on that hill next time we are there. This trip was definitely one of the most amazing skate trips i’ve been on. It was such an awesome experience to explore our beautiful country and find some of the best roads it has to offer, and not only that but get to skate them too! Big thanks goes to ASRA for supporting the trip and making it possible, and i will definitely have to go back there soon to explore all the roads there is on offer.

Jackson Shapiera

Major Stok’em Outlaw

If you are in the New Jersey area check out this race on March 1st.  DH Rodeo, Swap Meet, and Slide Comp. what more can you ask for?

Long Trek on Skate Decks

Day 17: Day long Decent

We woke up on the fish farm after having a great sleep with a star filled sky. For breakfast the patrons of the restaurant/farm served us the best French fries we have eaten in Peru. I felt better too. Fortunately the fish that I had watched die for my meal the night before did help. I was no longer ill and I already felt stronger. Then we were off to finish our hard earned downhill. We skated all day into 60 kph head winds. It was very frustrating to say the least. We should have been flying down the road doing 60-70 kph but we were reduced to a slow roll or even hours of pushing downhill. Some sections felt as if we were climbing. We spent lunch in Challahuanca were we ate fruit and got teased for being gringos and it was off again to fight the downhill climb. Adam Aaron and I kept our spirits up by racing each other (slowly) riding hills switch and using liberal amounts of speed mooching and bump drafting. At about 5:30 some deep dark clouds started to form overhead. We decided we should consider setting up camp. Just prior, we passed through a small town. There we purchased cookies and somehow managed to find some avocados. Just before heading off to setup camp. Adam asked a local if it would rain during the night. No he said, it wont rain tonight the clouds will pass… 4 kilometres away, as we scrambled desperately to set up our shelters in the hail, torrential down pour and 70 kph winds  we mocked “No… No lluvia esta noche”, it won’t rain tonight.

Day 18: 3 soles

By some miracle grace from god, or perhaps credit should go to the PTFE fabrics my bivy bag is fashioned from, I managed to wake up mostly dry. Only slightly damp due to my own sweat during the night. Even better I had lived many days within vivid dreams of being home with friends and family. We slowly rose from our shelters and began packing up our wet gear  so we could engage in battle with the very same winds that plagued our travel the day before. If not for this wind we would have made Albancay yesterday evening… After skating for a few hours we made it to the base of the climb into Albancay. The steep windy road was adorned with a horribly hot burning sun and the same damned wind. However I knew that at the top of the climb I would be able to rest for two nights. I charged the uphill hard with powerful pushes. My illness and lack of strength from the days prior had been completely eradicated. The misery of pushing masked by the feeling of power as I ploughed my way through gusts of wind and maintained a roll normally reserved for fast travel on flat terrain. After 45 minutes I had made my way to Albancay. Everyone seemed surprised to see me, not because I had skated up a huge steep slope, rather because I was white. “Gringo!” they gleefully cheered as I skated by. The whole gringo thing is starting to get old. Then a dog jumped out at me. Now when you tackle a hill in the manner I did you make a decisions… It’s like choosing to push hard, to attack the hill regardless as to what it throws at you. You completely ignore how bad you feel. Its an amazing feeling yet it puts you in a strange state of mind. Its fight or flight and after choosing fight  you are in fight mode. I chased that damn dog down the street and around a house. The dog jumped down a 7 foot drop and slid 5 feet on its belly as it barked at me its posture changed from the aggressor to the submissive. I wiped the sweat from my eyes, turned and skated towards Adam and Aaron. Still furious at the dog and the towns people who called me gringo. I needed something to sooth my hot temper.

I want a freaking ice cream cone…

Day 19: Albancay

Our second day and people are already treating us like locals. The biggest factor in this is due to our carrying water balloons around with us. Ready at a whim to retaliate against our attackers. Our Spanish is getting better and we tell the locals tall tales of being professional ventriloquists and drinking cat milk and we tease each other for their amusement. We frequent a small bakery and a little convenience store many times a day and engage in conversation with the clerks and owners. What’s  best is we no longer get Gringoe prices… The first time on the trip everything is much cheaper. In the evening we go to a pizza shop and we get the most amazing tasting food we have had in a long time. My pizza had spinach on it! I can´t describe what this meant to me. It´s been so long since I´ve eaten a vegetable other than potatoes. We almost cried with joy as we devoured our dinner. This was a good day.

Day 20: 2000 meters in merely 4 hours

The day began with running errands and a phone call to my ex spouse which left me in a weird upset mood. We left some balloons with the hostel owners children who introduced us to the popular pass time. Then it was time to pack up. The guy who worked at the hostel whom had been asking us all weekend how much all our stuff costs and if he could have my t-shirts sat in our room as we packed up to leave. He played with our stuff slowing us down considerably. Then when we were a few minutes past check out he tried to charge us an extra 10 soles. We pretended to misunderstand his Spanish and said no not 10 days to Cusco it will only take 5 and we thanked him profusely as we walked out of the hostel and took to our boards.
We began climbing; It was really hot and humid. My freshly clean shirt was soaked with sweat in less than 30 minutes. The humidity also seemed to get into the camera. I couldn´t get it to work at all. I feared it was broken. That paired with the weirdo at the hostel and my earlier phone conversation really played on my mood. Its funny how much bad morale can affect your physical performance. I felt like crap and I struggled to maintain a pace which I normally find child’s-play. Other things set me off. More dogs yelping at me trying to bite at my ankles, believing my skating to be my fleeing from their guard. I also cut my shoulder open on my drinking tube clip. My shoulder was covered with blood and my pack is stained. Somehow I managed to pull my thoughts away from all the negative and I once again began to appreciate the gorgeous scenery. My pace quickened and I began to lead the pack again. I tried to sing but the air was too thin. We were getting close. Fog rolled up the side of the hill and it chased us up the hill to the summit where we enjoyed a view of the clouds that sit to our right flank. It looked like we were gazing directly into heaven. We began to bomb a crazy endless decent at incredible speeds. Adam and I are getting more comfortable with our packs and we begin to push a little faster on the corners. The cars don´t know what to make of us and the children we pass run after us in awe. The sun set as we skated yet Adam and I continued for a good 20 minutes after dark we were having too much fun passing cars and drifting corners in the dark. We stopped because the roads surface changed to chipseal and we didn´t want to leave Aaron behind in the dark. When he finally caught us he was angry for subjecting him to riding in the night. We found our way to a small family’s home and asked if we could sleep in their field. Tomorrow we would awake to more downhill.

Day 21: A monster named chipseal  …and hes hungry for my wheels

The Family was really nice although kinda weird and the mother ripped us off by charging both Adam and Aaron separately for the same items (they had a small store in their home) We continued down the chipseal covered hill for a few hours until we reached the nearest town. We got called Gringo a lot as we ate at a restaurant. A small crowd began to form made up of Peruvians wishing to glimpse at real live gringos. We told them that In the US people eat dog meat and in Canada we drink Milk from large cats. We also told them it took us 2 years to skate from Lima to their town. After skating away really slowly we began pushing down hill again. The slope was steep but the pavement was really haggard chipseal. Every so often we would encounter a fast section that would have us rolling without pushing. I drifted my carves pretty hard for hours and by the time we had arrived at the bottom my wheels were pretty rough looking. We skated uphill for about 15 kilometres before setting up camp on a abandoned bridge that was covered in ants. I spotted 4 different species in 5 minutes including leaf cutter ants. We only have 84 kilometres and two more passes to climb before we reach Cusco.

Day 22: Limatambo to Anta

We woke and up brushed the ants off our gear before heading on to Limatambo. At the restaurant I got laughed at for being a vegetarian they suggested Chicken because it wasn´t meat. I had some egg sandwiches (stale bread with a fried egg) then we headed up the hill. The Chipseal made the climb hard. It was by far the steepest mountain pass we have encountered But that also means the climb would be shorter than any of the others. I felt sick so I took a few breaks and Aaron had to clean his wounds as Adam went on ahead. After a long gruelling stretch it began to rain and for some strange reason this cheered me up immensely. I splashed upwards to the summit and met back up with Adam.
We had a few hours of fast flat mixed with downhill all the way to Anta. In Anta we ate dinner in a restaurant. The owner was a kind honest lady who gave us fair prices on everything (in fact I think she undercharged us). We asked if we could sleep on the floor in her restraunt if we left before they opened and she agreed. I tried to give her some money and she smiled and told me to save it for Cusco. Tomorrow we will skate to Cusco. We have one more tiny pass to tackle before we drop into Cusco. We´re managing to do one pass per day… We´re getting tougher.

Day 23-24: Cusco

Woke up, thanked the owner of the restaurant and began our last accent to Cusco. It took us two hours. The climb was a joke, A tiny hill before a massive downhill through the streets of upper Cusco. We blitzed over speed bumps around people through dense traffic and drifted alongside cars through the windy corners that plummet towards downtown. The drivers here are a little nuts. On my way into downtown I encountered people passing vehicles around blind corners. I found myself on a few occasions threading the needle between cars that were 3 wide in two lanes around rough chipseal corners with little traction. It was exhilarating and it gave the locals something to watch to I´m sure.
In Cusco we found a quaint little hostel, we ate pumpkin soup we threw water balloons at Gringos from our hotel room. It seems the only way to cope with the constant staring and Name calling is to make it a joke and parody it. Cusco is too touristy. I am constantly bothered by street vendors that try to convince me that their Alpaca sweaters are not too heavy for my backpack. Adam tries to buy a 750ml bottle of water and they ask for 4 soles, 3 too much. It’s not the Peru I know, yet it totes itself the cultural capital of Peru. It’s very European filled with Churches and other fine buildings likely build by the Spaniards using the hands of the natives. Although I must say I enjoy how you kind find mostly anything here in Cusco (except for HDV Tapes for our video camera). We ate well the last few days and now I´m just about to go for lunch and then skate off towards Bolivia.

I´m getting sick of transcribing my notes to this computer so I´m off for now. More updates in a week.

Long Treks on Skate Decks

Day 16: I´m sick…

We earned ourselves very little sleep in exchange for our 7.30 soles we each paid for our room. The night was filled of blood curdling snarls, gargles and whines from dogs growling at people and fighting each other. At one point I had to pee, I brought my knife. Luckily at that point the dogs had circled to the other side of the hostel. 5:30am finally rolled around with the sun we headed across the street for breakfast. Aaron locked me out of the room. By the time I got an extra key he and Adam had left to begin the climb without me as I rushed to get my stuff ready and clean up our collective mess in the room we had rented. I was perturbed. It took me a while to figure out where they were and when I did I began to skate in a fury. I pushed past them tossing some of Aarons forgotten gear to the side of the road as I sprinted up the huge hill. I gasped for what little oxygen the thin air carried. I´ve never breathed so hard in my life. My lungs would fill to full capacity effortlessly 2 times per second and I was still running a oxygen deficit. I smelt blood on the exhale. (I have experienced this before when training really hard. I think it means my lungs were working at full capacity. When saturated to this point you can smell it.) I pulled over to hack and cough and remove my bandage on my hip. My leg seems to be infected too. Equipped with only surgical sponge I wasn´t to excited about throwing a new bandage on my hip so I after cleaning it thoroughly I left the wound to dry and scab in the open air. Not wanting the wound to adhere to my pantaloons I skated the rest of the day without pants. To make the day more desirable It seemed as though I was fairly ill. My nose ran I had my first real battle with “the shits” and my energy levels were really low (when not fuming angry). By 10:00am I had calmed down, and we had reached the top of the pass. Then began 6 hours of dowhill broken by short stretches of flat ground. It was gorgeous, we skated down into lush fields and thicker air. We raced in our tucks, we carved for hours, I honed my speed checks on backpack, it was great! One section was incredible long steep and frighteningly fast, considering our extra weight and lack of protective gear suitable for the blinding speeds we were achieving. By the bottom of the steep section our wheels had become noticeably worn. It was great although exhausting. We continued down a fair slope until we found ourselves at a small fish farm and restaurant nestled in a canyon. I actually ate fish for dinner today. I feel as if I have lost something, but after spending nearly a full month eating nothing but cookies, stale white bread, and the odd plate of French fries I was willing to try to see if it would help me feel better. I may be sick as a result of malnutrition. In the evening we set up camp on the property of the restaurant and we enjoyed the sunset in the canyon floor.

For pictures and more information, please check out http://www.longtreksonskatedecks.com