Bayview Rumble.

JANUARY 18TH & 19TH, 2003

THAT'S RIGHT. WE DID IT. THE SKATEBOARDERS DID IT.

For as long as I can remember I would go to the trade show twice a year and sort of ghost-walk through this huge scam that increasingly had less and less to do with skateboarding. From crappy security guards not letting skaters come in to three-dollar cups of coffee to being forced to "rent" electricity for 10 times the going rate and having to pay for "loading in" our own booths, the entire thing always felt like a fucking tip off. Recently after the last three or four trade shows, I would find myself wondering what the hell I was doing wasting so much time and effort on an event that really didn't matter anymore. As far as skateboarding was concerned, the trade show had run its course. Sure, it gave us excuses to get our crap together twice a year, but as far as a gathering of like-minds, it wasn't that at all anymore. I mean, do we really need to get together twice a year with overzealous security guards, shoes with wheels in them, and bikini salesmen?

We single handily killed "business as usual" in skateboarding. We--all the skateboarders, skateboard shops and skateboard companies who were a part of the Bayview Rumble--have the blood of a dead animal on our hands. And it feels damn good. The animal known as ASR won't be sucking off skateboarding for much longer.

For me personally, the 'show last September was when I decided it was time to do whatever it took to take skateboarding out of their hands and put it back where it belonged--in the hands of skaters. Screw it. Screw trying to follow their rules in a piece of shit, over-corporate show that cared more about wakeboard fashions than skateboarding I was confident that if given the correct outlet skaters would come together and create their own "trade show." I wasn't alone either. Skaters from all over the world felt the same way. The concept was simple: come together under the banner of skateboarding and do it the way it should be done. Invite everyone from around the world to SF. throw a Pro/Am contest, enjoy an all day free BBQ, show all the new stuff from the best companies in skateboarding. have open houses at High Speed. Deluxe and Street Corner, and end it all with a free blow-out punk show. The rules were swell--there were none (except for Mic-E. We made him stay off the booze until after the contest).

Tour vans were used as shuttle buses, complete with coolers of beer nestled in between the front seats and the pungent aroma of hundreds of thousands of road trip miles greeting every passenger. The contest had a remote feed running back into Thrasher's parking lot using cables covertly strung up on telephone poles that spanned the three blocks to the Double Rock park. We also chartered a 60-person tour bus from LA, and for a cool couple hundred the driver turned his head to the 300-plus beers downed along the trip by the shop owners and skaters on board. The contest was sick. Cole, Basset, Appleyard, Sumner, Rowley, Paez and Fuenzalida destroyed the place. It's down in the books as one of the sickest jams ever.

Everyone who came to the Rumble knew they were a part of something special. As a group everyone finally had the time and place to be able to just sit down and talk with each other; split a beer and enjoy each other because we truly wanted to be there, not because we felt we had to be there. As stupid as it sounds, you could just feel it in the air, as if a collective sigh of relief had been let out from skateboarding like, "Finally it's done. Skateboarding is back in the hands of the skateboarders." Things will never be the same.

Thanks to everyone who made it happen. For those of you who had to go on back down to the trade show the next weekend, my heart goes out to you. On Saturday the 25th, while you were robot-walking around under the fluorescent lights, I spent the day pushing all over downtown Oakland and split a few cold ones on a curb with some friends while waiting for a ride back into town. It gets no better.

RELATED ARTICLE: A whole gaggle of pros went for broke at Double Rock but here's a short list of notables...

MARK APPLEYARD-- Again, no spastic mad-dogging, just casual destruction. Nollie flip crooks, nollie nosegrind, and, as a top three trick, a mind-melting tre flip 5-0. He hit a QP after that and did a kickflip 5-0 in the only line of the day

CHRIS COLE-- Goddamn... he was non-stop. A monster. He wasn't a foaming-at-the-mouth mad dog, either. He just laughed and handled his business, which included a tre flip and backside 360 over the pyramid, nollie backside 5-0 across and down, kickflip 5-0 across and down, kickflip backside tailslide down, and easily a dozen others. Keep in mind this is not your average park pyramid

DANNY FUENZALIDA-- This dude has arrived. Yeah, he's been around but this was his moment to bust and he seized it (just like that Eminem song). Nollie heel noseslide across and down, kickflip frontside tailslide, a dozen others, and, as a real crowd-killer, a straight nollie heel over which was twice as gnarly as it sounds

ZERED BASSET-- The Cinderella story of the comp. More than a few didn't know who the hell this guy was. He skated fast and threw down a nollie crooks across and down, a boneless 180 over, and an ollie over to backside 5-0

JESSE PAEZ-- He's still got it. It was almost like he was making a statement. Frontside flip over the pyramid, tre flip 50-50 (which no one noticed), and a noseblunt slide across and down for one of the biggest cheers of the day

GEOFF ROWLEY-- Was a bit off considering everyone knows what he can do. He did reel in a fat heelflip straight over and a frontside heelflip varial 50-50

JAKE NUNN-- "Almost" doesn't count much when $10k is on the line, but he came awfully close to some big stuff. Any other day he'd be a contender

Basically, this was as raw as it gets. Even if you generally couldn't give a flying shit about websites, go to www.thrashermagazine.com to see clips of these tricks and more