My Culture Vert Opening Day

Saturday 17^th of July 2010, the weather was great and the wind was still - which made perfect conditions for a vert jam. This monster of a ramp was 12.5 feet high and 10 meters wide, situated at Base3, Leisure Lakes in Midrand Jo’burg and it was right next to the water so you could look out at the amazing view and let the water calm your nerves before you dropped into speeds of chaos.

 
The order of the day was to have a jam session / mini best trick comp, nothing hectic; chilled vibes. People started skating the ramp from about 9am, dropping in for the first time and getting the feel of the ramp. Most people who made it out to the jam had never skated such a big ramp before, so we saw lots of hard bails.

 
Before the skateboarding jam started – which was the first event of the day – we had a mini breakdancing demo in the middle of the vert ramp brought to us by Freedom of Feet. This crew did awesome windmills, flares and technical freezes. It’s always nice to see an extra My Culture subculture featuring at an event.

 
During the course of the day, everyone braaied, played x-box, listened to some good tunes and enjoyed the atmosphere. George Rabe set up a very cool photo booth where he took random photos of all the riders and spectators and we got some really crazy shots.

 
Once the jam got underway there were a lot of old school skateboarders that came through, doing plenty of airs and hand-plants which is really beautiful to watch. This turned out to be the main jam of the day as we were all rooting for Werner du Plessis to land his rhodeo flip but he didn’t manage to stick it as time ran out. For the BMX category not many riders came through, maybe they were too scared, but the riding we did see was impressive with x-ups, tables and the highest airs of the day. In the rollerblading category we had the most entries which was nice to see as this discipline normally has the least number of entries. We saw a lot of technical tricks on the coping such as a back slide to alley-oop porn star as well as big tricks such as miller flips and mute airs.

 
Everyone had a lot of fun and we hope to see more up-and-coming vert skaters in South Africa. I would like to thank all the sponsors who made this event possible; Monster Energy Drink, Base3, Iron Fist, Black Flys, Rolling SA Distribution and Media, The Riot, Skull Candy, Grande Industries and Funisu. I would also like to thank all the awesome photographers that made it out; George Rabe, Blaine Wakeford, Suretha Du Plessis, Tim Moolman and Scott Simpson.

 
Winners:
Skateboarding: Werner du Plessis – Mute gay twist
BMXing: Jehane Strydom - Tabogan
Rollerblading: Hugo Vermaak – 450 Front royal

 
Till the next My Culture event – over and out!