Beastern Suburbs Slopestyle Recap

Words by Tony Graves, Photos by Trav Horsfall (Heelside Magazine)

The Eastern Suburbs of Sydney are a sprawling expanse of Steep urban streets. This was the setting for Gabe gwynns Beasturn Suburbs Sunday Freestyle jam. 20 Riders attended keen to shred the eastern suburbs like it's never been done before.

The format for the competition was open slope-style, each rider had roughly one hour of riding to pull off the biggest slides, steeziest tricks and impress the judges with whatever flair they could think of.
Judges included the guru himself; Steve Daddow, Chris Sanders, Lea Robbo And Myself. The judging was based on speed, style, length of slides, technicality general creativity.

Extra points were given for adding your own personal flair to a slide or trick and for having fun! Each rider brought a unique style to the competition that made things difficult from a judging point of view. The usual everyday moves were seen; stand up speed slides, 180's etc, but the real impressive riders were adding extra flow and style to their slides. Deep long soul carves into steezy surf style stand ups, hands down feeling every inch of the pavement, and skating with soul. Extra points were given to the riders who used the entire road surface in their runs, slashing driveways, early grabs off sidewalks, sliding into piles of dirt, anything that made them stand out from the crowd.

The passion and dedication of every rider became more obvoius as the day went on, no one rider ran away with the competition, everyone brought their own new tricks, slides and style. As a judge it's extremely hard to say who deserves to win when there are so many different styles of riding in the same competition. To make things harder we had some extremely talented riders that didn't start riding until the last 15 minutes of judging.

In the end the judges decided to award 3rd place to Alex Martin for his impressive number of runs down the hill. Every run was new, faster and more aggressive than the last and he did it all with a huge smile on his face. Gabe Gwynn took 2nd place for his ability to do fast, aggressive stand up slides. Every slide was attacked as if his life depended on it.
The overall win was given to Jackson Shapeira for showing a HUGE variety of sliding styles, utilization of the entire road surface and a near perfect sliding technique.

After the Slide jam came to an end it was back to Gabe's house for the awards ceremony and some well deserved beers for the judges. Complete Radness supplied a hefty box of swag for the product toss. Almost every participant went home with a couple new t-shirs and hats. Prizes were given out for best crash (Alex Martin) Best flow (Radzi) and most variation of slides (Jackson Shaiera). The Freestyle jam was an undeniable success and it will only continue to get better. Thanks to all the people who volunteered: the judges, residents of the street we used, Gabe's mom for letting use her backyard for the awards ceremony and after party and a Big up to the sonsors, Complete radness, Hopkin Skate And Sector 9.

1st Jackson Shapiera
2nd Gabe Gwynn
3rd Alex Martin
4th Ben Westover