Saturday, June 11, 2016

Moved to tears...

Damn-it.... forgot to publish this.....  Long overdue....  this was scheduled to post on June 16th of last year....




Your network of friends used to be within a 5 mile radius when we were younger. No computers, no internet and only a single home phone, connected by a chord no less, that if it was busy you were out of luck until they were off the phone. The world is a much smaller place now and my network of friends reaches all over the world.

I've been around the world with "my streetboarding family". China, Spain, England, France, Japan and more. We're always having such fun and it's like we have never been apart. Skating and hanging out like we see each other every day

Little background: Streetboarding is most similar to snowboarding. In that you are connected to the board via bindings. You can check out some of Colin's and Christian's edits.

I've known "Bob" (Ismael Calvo) for more about 15 years. He's was a rider for Dimension Streetboards since the beginning (aside from 10 or so years since I have kicked him off the team in Spain...). He call's Chile home but spends a good deal of time traveling and skating with his friends.

I was in San Francisco with Ismael and friends about 1 year ago. Just as I was recovering from another battle of my own. Bob was determined to 5-0 a huge rail and it didn't end well. I have never witnessed a crash this bad, I seriously thought he broke his back. (4th slam in the intro). To this day I'm grateful and amazed that he can walk, let alone skate.

When we are together he is always asking me "what keeps you moving forward". I don't know really, family and friends. I do know that others are in worse situations than me and for that I am grateful.

If I had to describe Bob's skating in just a few words it would be: Dedication and Style. The video below show's you what I mean. I didn't know that Ismael was working on a video until the "coming soon" video came out like a week ago and since it's been released I have probably watched it at least 100 times.

Thanks Bob for continually pushing Streetboarding forward but for the kind and thoughtful ending. It brought tears to my eyes.

Ismael Calvo - Strap In To Live from Colin Horan on Vimeo.