Skateboarding
Skateboarding
Enjoy 10 of the best Red Bull skateboarding video projects of all time
From China to Tahiti and Uzbekistan to Bolivia, savour ten times we left the skateboarding content competition in the dust.
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Red Bull Skateboarding has always been about unique, pioneering content. From concept pieces that test the bounds of possibility to travelling skate explorations which take skateboarding where others can only follow, we are all about the wow. Here are 10 blisteringly good skate featurettes that only Red Bull Skateboarding could deliver: enjoy.
01
Greece: The Blu Enigma
5 min
The quest is over - watch the Blu Enigma sessions!
Five skaters in search of a rumoured skate compound on a Greek island come back with heavy evidence.
The Blu Enigma is a little hotel on the Greek Cycladean island of Andros, just off the coast of Athens. There, the owner has built one of the most unusual and challenging bowls we've seen within the footprint of the compound for the use of any rippers who may pass through.
Nikos Garyfallos, who owns the Blu Enigma, inherited his grandfather's little hotel and turned it into something mind-blowing. Not content with that, he then turned the BMX trails high above the island into a massive DIY concrete skatepark. A skate paradise on an unknown Greek island: who could say no?
The Search For The Blu Enigma was shortlisted for a European Sport Tourism award when it was released.
02
Utah: The Petrified Park
2 min
Petrified Park
Join Ryan Sheckler, Barney Page, Ryan Decenzo, Alex Midler and Zion Wright as they rip the oldest skateable terrain on Earth in Russell Houghten's incredible Petrified Park edit.
World-renowned skate and adventure photographer Jonathan Mehring found himself on holiday in the world-famous Moab region in Utah, USA, where he struck up a conversation with a local. That person told him that one of the greatest spots for skateboarding is on a smooth rock formation known as Slickrock, hidden deep in the mountains.
The guy drew Mehring a map on a napkin, and after a lot of searching, Slickrock was eventually found. Next, an all-star crew of Ryan Sheckler, Zion Wright, Barney Page, Ryan Decenzo and Alex Midler, alongside master lensman Russell Houghton headed out into the desert for five days to see how rideable the rocks really were. The result was Petrified Park, above.
03
Hotel Uzbekistan
10 min
Keep on charting new terrain
The guys continue to find once-in-a-lifetime adventure on their journey through Uzbekistan.
Patrik Wallner’s trilogy of skate edits from Uzbekistan featuring Ethan Loy, Vladik Scholz, Pasha Kuznetsov and Rob Wootton blew minds when it dropped. Uzbekistan is a country in Central Asia, a vast region within Eurasia which is sandwiched neatly between Russia, China, India and the Caspian Sea. It's pretty much the geographical heart of Eurasia, and for many centuries these lands were an important meeting point for merchants and travellers on the Silk Road.
Located between some of the biggest civilisations in this part of the world, Central Asia was shaped by those influences, as well as their own cultural and historical identity. With modern transport and communications, the Silk Road has lost its original purpose, but countries like Uzbekistan, which used to be the epicentre of this famous intersection between East and West, still have many interesting things to offer visitors, including those who come with skateboards – as our intrepid crew discovered.
04
Bolivia: The White Desert
2 min
The white desert
Creating a skatepark out of bricks of pure salt in the Andes mountain range has never been done, until now.
Visionary skateboarding filmmaker Gaston Francisco first travelled to the Salar de Uyuni salt flats in Bolivia about 20 years ago as a tourist. He slept in a salt hotel, travelled around the salt flats and met the salt workers who had their own quarry and produced salt bricks. Years later, he started to think about skateboarding projects that would be different or out of the norm.
Perhaps not surprisingly, one of the first things that came to mind was the Uyuni salt flats and skating on them; but he wasn't sure if this could be done. Francisco did a little research and found out through videos and friends that the salt flats might be skateable. Watch and enjoy the fruits of his heavy labours.
05
China: Lost In Ordos
5 min
Lost in Ordos: Drifting through the Ghost City
A bunch of european rippers go in search of an empty skateboarding kingdom in Inner Mongolia.
The Chinese city of Ordos, built to house more than a million people, but currently home to just a few thousand, contains all the essential ingredients of an amazing giant virtual street park except that here in the ghost city, everything is ‘real’. Created in a matter of months, brand-new empty buildings line the winding, deserted streets of Ordos City.
Across hundreds of square kilometres, futuristically-designed museums compete with monuments dedicated to the glory of ancient Mongol warriors for the attention of no one in particular. Korahn Gayle, Daniel Pannemann, Thaynan Costa, Alex Mizurov, Antony Lopez and Bastien Duverdier arrived in Inner Mongolia and found a surreal and, at times, disorienting place.
06
Tahiti: Some Like It Blue
5 min
Experience tropical thunder skating Tahiti
A tiny green pearl in the vast blue Pacific, Tahiti hid an undiscovered backcountry skate treasure!
Tahiti taught us that everywhere has the potential for skate exploration, and the reward is finding unexpected jewels in terms both of terrain and people. The Tahitian skate scene were very gracious and welcoming to our team of Ryan Spencer, Jordan Taylor, Adrien Coillard, Jarne Verbruggen and Philipp Schuster.
As well as sharing their camaraderie, they also took us to a secret gem in the jungle. Although it involved some off-road travel to reach, the facility was absolutely worth it. Built by hand, ruled by the locals and kept in pristine condition, what lay behind that door in the dense vegetation of the island’s hinterland shocked us all.
Skateboarding in French Polynesia
07
Dubai: Waterpark Lockdown
3 min
Check out this insane Dubai aquapark skate session
See Milton Martinez, Alex Sorgente and Jan Hoffmann make dreams come true shredding a waterpark.
Edu Muñoz captured this once-in-a-lifetime skate session on some of the world's biggest and most treacherous natural transitions, complete with seams, sprinklers, fallaways and any other number of heart-stoppers. This is insane terrain, one night only, go big or go home.
Aquaventure, Atlantis The Palm Dubai's waterpark, closes down for one full day every year so that the maintenance guys can give it a once over. This time around, they were gracious enough to allow this squad of Alex Sorgente, Milton Martinez and Jan Hoffmann to charge around the rides all day while the slides were dry. This is the stuff skateboarders dream of.
08
Norway: Larvikite Lines
8 min
Larvikite lines
Torey Pudwill and friends create, shred and then donate ancient stone skate spots in Norway.
When the opportunity arose to visit Lundhs Real Stone quarry and create a permanent Larvikite skatepark for the town’s skate scene, Torey Pudwill, Chris Haslam and Angelo Caro flew in to link up with Deedz and session the 300 million-year-old terrain in situ – before bringing it all down from the mountain quarry to create a permanent skate space in Larvik itself. Marvel at the wonder of nature, the ingenuity of humanity and the radness of skateboarding in Larvikite Lines, above.
09
Austria: Wheels On Woods
2 min
Wheels on Woods
Ryan Decenzo, Gustavo Ribeiro, Giovanni Vianna, Mauro Iglesias and Luiz Francisco in a hectic skate session through the trees of a dense forest in Vienna, Austria.
Forests are dangerous places to traverse at any kind of speed and trees have a habit of not moving, let's say, so the hand-picked squad invited to experience this once-in-a-lifetime session had to have not just the ability to handle the sketch factor but also the verve to deliver under pressure.
Using two nearby houses as a basecamp for the week spent filming in the Austrian forest, the crew of Ryan Decenzo, Luiz Francisco, Mauro Iglesias, Giovanni Vianna, and Gustavo Ribeiro battled wheelbite and slip-outs, along with the weather and tiny margins of error to deliver the goods when the time for talking stopped. The result was the internet-busting short film you see above.
10
The Mediterranean Skateboard Cruise
6 min
The Mediterranean Skateboard Cruise Chapter 01
Come explore the cities of Savona, Olympia and Mykonos on the first stop of The Mediterranean Cruise
A crew of skaters sailing the Mediterranean Sea on an all-inclusive luxury cruise ship, disembarking along the way to discover new spots and different ports. Join us on this unique skate mission as the crew discover new spots, new ways of travelling and the secrets of life on a boat. Watch Walker Ryan, Milton Martinez, Jaakko Ojanen, Tom Remillard, Ross McGouran and Silvester Eduardo on this first-of-its-kind adventure.
Want even more skateboarding shows and films to choose from? Get the Red Bull TV app.
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