Falmouth’s Downhill History
The crew of riders; Andy Lewis (not shown), (Alex Brinnen),
Chris Humphris, Dom Lilly, Mark Short and Tom Clough all
met through an appreciation of Skating and Sliding. We
all used to long board, but either on our own or in other
small groups of riders.
Most skating was spent bombing and carving the hills
of Falmouth and Cornwall’s coastlines. Chris and
I skated together and new each other from college whereas
he new Dom (Random Rides skate shop proprietor) from playing
basketball in a local team together.
Tom
new me from just skating about and seeing me around and
was good friends with Mark, Andy and Dom too. After a
crappy day at college, I went skating with Mark and Dom,
I was riding one of the first Faltown slide boards’,
trying some basic tricks whilst keeping up with the other
two who were carving hills instead of sliding. After witnessing
the different style of riding, they owned up and said
they to were getting into sliding and were exploring various
Coleman-esque techniques. Andy was a snappy street skater
and Tom a madman cruiser (I use the term cruise lightly,
he’s pretty fast). A few skate sessions later we
all became mates and were looking towards the future of
sliding.
The Team has been essential in the development of Faltown
Skateboards. Dom helped us pilot our boards and tune our
original 8 board range down to the 4 boards we have today.
Mark assisted Chris and myself to develop the shape and
style of our slide board and the whole team has been crucial
to the R & D that has gone into our products.
We regularly skate together and over the past few years
we have managed to build a thriving slide skateboard scene
in Falmouth to create our own unique style and manoeuvres.
Our style is very much a team effort and we all bring
different skills and riding styles to the table. The creativity
within the group comes from the individual elements of
each rider. Nothing is sacred everything is shared. Some
of us are better at analysing movement and others better
at creating something new from previous tricks and manoeuvres.
Developing the tricks has been an interesting process.
Some of the time it’s a matter of ‘going through
the motions’ but as any slider will tell you, sometimes
you can over-cook-it and some how manage to pull a trick
with a new twist or tweak.
We initially met Cliff Coleman up at Lush Longboards
summer Jam in May 2004. We travelled up there to meet
and skate with the legend himself not realising that we
would become good friends with the grand master. Cliff
travelled down to put on another slide clinic here in
Falmouth later that year, organised by Johnny X and Dom.
It was a great weekend with people travelling nationwide
to take part and was such a success that it featured on
TV ‘s ‘Extreme’ channel.
We met young Olli Binns there and couldn’t help
but recognise his talents. Olli was only 9 at the time
and started the day without being able to slide and finished
the day doing 360’s around one of our steepest hairpins.
He is an excellent all round skater, bound for stardom,
who excels in Bowl riding and Vert as well as Downhill
and Sliding.
The Cliff Coleman slide clinic gave the Falmouth slide
scene the push that it needed. All of a sudden the skaters
we met at the slide clinic from the local area were out
with us. Our longboarding and street skater mates came
out to give sliding a go too and are now hooked!
We
would like to put out a special thanks to all of the sliders
and longboarders that have been coming out to skate with
us who have helped build and develop the scene here in
Falmouth.
Without those individuals inputting there time and skating,
none of this could have evolved the way it has. Big up
to the Castle Hill Mob, you know who you are.
