He skates like a horse!

"Look at him, the beast! He skates like a horse, or he skates how a horse would skate, if a horse could skate..!" Lee Devereux about Jake Ricketts during the open comp.

I apologize in advance to those of you who don't follow rollerblading, or know the Boneyard skatepark. You won't understand this blog at all, but fuck, please try.

Boneyard Jam, January 2010, will go down in history as being the best competition ever held at the skatepark.

Many people claim to have the hardest job in the world, but i certainly wouldn't like to be in the shoes of the judges to todays finals. The stars of Ben Shelbourne's film Let It Never End ripped up the park no end, and the 5 minute time limit was extended to at least double that - just to accommodate some more exceptional tricks.

Nick Lomax's beautiful cork 900 over the box following a 5 on the vert was a huge shout for first place, but that was just the start of it. Topsoul up the kink to switch 540 out into the secret ramp kicked off the proceedings, nothing short of madness to follow. Boneyard local Mike Salt gapped from the secret ramp into a soul on the driveway, the disaster 360 into it escaped him but come on, thats fucking nuts. Not satisfied with that he decided to stall the wall, and drop back into a grind, if he missed it he'd have eaten serious shit, no wonder it's never been seen before.

Alex Burston kept things chilled with some true top soul switch ups on the handrail, before pulling out a cab 7 true mizou on the kink. Enter Joe Atkinson, i'll admit- i'd never heard of him before today, but he ensured i won't forget him. I mean, who in their right minds considers grinding the top of the curve wall ride? He does. And he succeeded. And if that wasn't enough he topped things off with a nice cab 7 true fish on the vert.

You'll have to wait for the edit to fully appreciate this, but there was no stage where anyone wasn't impressed by the hammers thrown.

Burston killed it with a back royale on the box to a huge gap to front royale down the kink. The crowd erupted. Then within seconds Lomax gapped all the way over the step up ledge, and got a switch soul back along it, to the same massive gap to soul down the kink. What the fuck.

1st place went to Alex Burston,

2nd- Nick Lomax,

3rd- Joe Atkinson.

Best trick went to Frazer Watson for his insane 720 transfer from the airwalk to the quarter (top pic).

Boneyard skatepark, it just never fails to satisfy.

Here's to Ben, Lee and everyone else for making it a quality competition. And my god, those pork buns were nice.