My Dad's from Florida. I used to live in Orlando. One time we did a demo at the Skate Park of Tampa in July...
It's hot.
Very hot...
and humid.
I'd like to give bigtime propers to all the kids out the skating right now in Florida, the South or anywhere else in the world where it's that hot. Your passion far outweighs any concerns of comfort. You are determined skateboard soldiers persevering in the heat while the other kids get fat and watch TV.
I salute you.
Stay up.
And stay hydrated.

In order to really get the feel of these kickflip challenge photos I'm going to need you to put on a sweater and turn the heater on in your house full blast for a few minutes. If you have a humidifier than turn that sucker on as well. OK. Are you sweating? Then let's go:
I'm going to start with the Skate Park of Tampa. This is their fourth annual Kickflip Challenge and the were one of the first to give it a shot.
Thanks fellas! You guys are what Skateboarding's all about!!!!
Have I ever mentioned my secret fantasy of moving down to Tampa and working the snack bar? Its sort of my Amercian Beauty fantasy. I'd be working at the SPoT, smoking weed in my garage and working out in my favorite indoor skateboard park. Of course I'd have to pull some sort of extortion scam so I could get a year's worth of pay before I left Krux if we're sticking with the A.B. script. That's not gonna happen so we'll edit that part out and change it to a big win in Vegas on my drive down south. Problem solved.
Once again I digress and my point here was just how much I love the S.P.o.T. and when I read their website skateparkoftampa.com I find from there stories that I wish I was there...as long as I'm not shacked up at the Milner.
First place in this year's SPoT Kickflip Challenge was Ryan Nicole with 249 kickflips. His brother Charlie got second with 237. It's a family affair. I apologize to their mother for the shoe damage. At least Ryan's going home with a gift certificate for a pair of new Lakai's. I'm not sure who this picture is of. I stole it from the SPoT's website and I picked it cause the kid's got some Argyle Krux.

Thank you Barak, Rob, Ryan, Brian, Westside Skateshop, Montessi and everyone for coming out once again.

On to the next Kickflip Challenge held in Florida this last weekend, The Finest Skate shop in St. Petersburg Florida. Malcolm Seaman came through with 283 to take first place. Once again I wasn't sure who's shredding in this photo I just picked it because I found it to display proper kickflip form.

And I had to include this shot as well because that shirt is all about buisness!

Thanks again to Tommie and The Finest.

As we near the end of Kickflip Season a tear begins to develop in the corner of my eye.
So much fun, so many kickflips and so much last minute shipping.
I thank Clare Geyer for all your help this year. Krux couldn't have done it without you. Kudos.
So if you go to kickflip.kruxtrucks.com to checkout the last remaining K.F.C.'s don't be fooled by our lack of updating as of late. There are only a few challenges left in the 07 kickflip season and only a couple more opportunities for someone to break the current world record of 563! (go Chris!)
here they are:
N.C. Boardshop- August 12
Dirty 530
Graffiti Skate Zone
World Boardshop
Hit up the shops for dates.

Boy we've come a long way. I remember the first one that the Skate Park of Tampa had. There was a lot of message board haters confused as to whether the kickflip challenge was cool or lame. When I checked the S.P.o.T.'s message board on this year's KFC it was people commenting on how they wished they were there. For this change in perception I'd like to thank all the "kids" who were in there late teens and 20's playing the game with the kids who have yet to reach double digits.
I've seen the comraderie and competition first hand and its a beautiful thing. Skaters of all ages and skill levels coming together and having fun in a greasy parking lot or on a sidewalk. Out skating in the summer heat with a Slurpee and a smile.
The tension that builds when someone nears the benchmark, the wary "Oooohh"'s when someone barely pulls one off and finally the excitement and shock when someone who's just done 150 flawless kickflips in a row bails one out of the blue.
It all about concentration, baby.
Thanks everyone and pace yourselves please, you can't win if you have a heat stroke.

whew!
wylin' out over here tryin' to change a tiff file to a jpeg.

I don't usually have to convert files for bloggage but I will a couple times a year and everytime I have to ask somebody (keith) how to do it again.
like I never learned it before... which I obviously didn't.
"Feels like first time...feels like the very first time!"
thank you, Foreigner for diluting the fury in my brain with raw classic rock.
o.k., I can hear the solo...that's it...
"like we've opened up the door!"
alright...where was I...

oh yeah, so I'm trying to blog on my own two feet over here and figure it out myself but the "help" button on my microsoft picture manager did me about as much good as punching the side of my head.
actually that was much more of a relief than the help button which only made me grind my teeth and cuss simultaneuosly... I had to wipe spittle off my monitor and apologize to my computer.
eventually, I monkey'd a little shakespeare out of the typewriter and clicked on the proper link.
remember ronald: export!
export, export, export!

i might have to go "momento" on myself to get this one down.
i'll take off my shirt tomorrow and the word "export" will be tatooed on my chest but i won't know what it means.

...like the very first time...

well it looks like my bottom-of the-blog tangent forced its way straight into the intro this time.
i apologize for that but it was really with the best intentions. i just wanted to get Sweet Lou's new Tranworld cover up. Spong-E would be proud. Covers Baby!!
Spong-E
Just in case you didn't know (and most people don't) Spong-E, the photgrapher in our commercial, is actually Louie.
funny how much a difference a hat over the bowl cut and fresh chinstrap can make.

congratulations to Louie and the Enjoi boys for best vid. i still think my man Tommy Sandoval should have won rookie of the year though..

the only film hotter than Harry Potter right now is none other than Krux's Globetrotting..

our friend Max got so amped on it that he decorated our myspace with this..

Louie's stache is on point and his skeletal-heterochromian-iridium girlfriend is pretty awesome looking... Thanks Max!!

Dang dudes.
(and babes of course)
There's been some serious kickflippin' going down this past week.
Y'all are gonna have to bear with me on this blog lag and the fact that I'm consolidating a big week of K.F.A. (that's kickflip action) into one all inclusive blog. 'All inclusive' means that I, as Captain Stubing of the Krux blog, will be paying for your mai tais and prime rib as we creep this hog on down to lovely Puerto Vallarta. Hey Gopher, why don't you mix us up a couple and lets get this baby started.
Hmmm...
where to start?

Should I start with the new world record? Nah, lets go back in time a little and figure out how we got there. Just like a movie...

Wait a second. I just opened up the Strangenotes page and saw that my man Larson has been fully on top of the bloggage and as excited as I was to see how long I could make a single blog, the simple fact is that the info is already up and probably doesn't need to be done twice. Lars, homeboy, with your sense of humor, I could think of no one better.
But you know what? I really liked my Love Boat intro so I'm just going to lead this into a quick recap of this past week.
Maybe I'm not so "Stubing" after all. Maybe I'm more like Julie McCoy, the cruise director. Sort of concierge or majordomo...fine with me as long as I can keep telling Gopher to make the drinks.

Quick Recap:

Well last week Magnus Borderwick blew minds by reaching 508. Check his picture down below (way below). If homie popped and caught all his flips like that I'm totally impressed cause I've seen a lot of people roll that thing over like a dachsund that wants his belly scratched. But I ain't hatin...

So, I know you're thinking "Wow. 508 is a lot of kickflips!" Yes it is.
I guess it took him about an hour and 40 minutes.
Get this man a Green Tea! Actually I don't know what they drink in Norway. When I think of Norway I think of the other Antarctic camp in The Thing. In which case maybe we could get Kurt Russel to flow Magnus a little of that J+B before he pours it into his chess simulator.
Wait, I may have strayed from my initial topic. Oh dear. Where was I...
Oh yeah, did you know they were thinking of remaking The Thing. I hope this outrages you as much as me cause its total b.s.. Can't we just leave the gems alone people? Don't even digitally enhance it so Greeo shoots first. Just insert the VHS tape back in its cardboard sleeve and put it back on the video store shelf in all its intended 80's glory.

By the way, this is still my quick recap.

Magnus' victory was strongly earned but unfortunately all things must come to an end, and since its kickflip season, that end came about a week later.
It was only fitting that the kickflip record should return to Southern California, where the kickflip was born!
Actually I can't confrim that so cal is the birthplace of the kickflip. Somebody get Rodney Mullen on the horn and find out where he made them up. I think he's from Florida so the kickflip could easily be Eastern bred.
Oh and by the way, thank you Rodney for making up most of the street tricks we do.
Know your history, kids.

Not only was Magnus' record beaten but it was beaten twice. At one kickflip challenge! Chris Demendoza came through with a whopping 563 kickflips just beating Josh Pantoja who had 535.
Man, its rough out there. Go Whittier!
Yeah I said 'whopping'.
Look below for more details about these indiviual events.

Ok, that's the recap. What have we learned? Lets recap that recap.
-Kickflips: good
-Remakes of cinematic gems: bad
-Thank you Rodney

OK, enough of the hearsay and recaps of things. I'm here to tell you a story from first hand experience. The fabulous Louie Barletta and myself went back east to check out some of these kickflip challenges ourselves. We met up with Jason Forrest. NHS representative, kickflip challenge emcee and closet wakeboard master.

Traveling with Sweet Lou is always a treat. Since I was the only other Krux dude coming out my name was on some of the flyers but I did'nt mind cause Louis is #1 on Transwolrd's exposuremeter (a marketing boner-meter) and it was apparent his coverage surge was paying off with all the kids who rushed him to sign their Louie trucks and Enjoi boards.
Our first stop was New Generation in Easely South Carolina. We got out the car straight to shredding this plywood mini they got out back. Literally shredding splinters outta that baby. It was HAF (hot as f#ck) and slow but somehow a perfect warm up. Some of the kids figured out where we were lurking out back and started to trickle out.
Lou's amazing. He'll be fooling around then out of the blue he'll blow your mind. I think he blew some minds on tha plywood mini when he snagged a perfect frontside blunt to frontside flip in. Savage.

The park inside was really good and the homies were shredding. Everyone seemed to enjoy the Kickflip Challenge and we hung out and had some hot dogs with the skaters.

Wes, Casey, Mical Swett and the homies took to a lovely dinner and night on the town. There was talk of a day on the lake for our day off. When 10am rolled around the next morning it was HAF and we were thrashed. The lake sounded lovely.
We never got breakfast. Wait, that's a lie. Casey hooked us up a couple of Otter Pops and from then on it was Yeungling's and Mad Dog...all day.

Lake Keowee was amazing. Wes was the first up on the wakeboard and nearly had some savage 360's. Forrest was killing that thing as well but I'd say the big shocker was Lou's secret wake skills. He got up on that thing 2nd try and was cruising. 3rd go he jumped wake to wake about 5 feet in the air. He took a beatin but also eanred the nickname Havasu Lou.


We busted out the innertube and took turns trying to murder each other via slingshot. Wes' boat kicks ass and it was super fun to drive. Some of us drank the lake water, others had their sinuses flushed with it. Brews were shot gunned. Faces were burned. And the day was a success. Big thanks to Wes, Casey and Melanie for the day on the lake!


The next day we went to Verical Urge and flips were kicked. Marky Clements shreds and local flipper named Ron took the KFC. Todd took us out to sushi and it was another fun time. Vertical Urge is a fun park that has AC so it wasn't HAF and we could let our sunburned faces take a day off.

Our last Kickflip Challenge was in Frederick Maryland for Pit Crew. It was a big turnout with grown shredders busting kicklips 2 feet off the flatground. We got to skate a lovely cement park and it was another fun day in the sun.

Wow. I really feel like the excitment in my story fizzeled out somewhere after that recap of the recap. I need some imagery to get amped.


That did it. Now I need to post the names and results of the east coast KFC winners....