Curb Debris

New Site Soon

2009-01-08T14:55:00.003Z

Curb Debris will be down for for a few days but will be back with a new site, new content and new ideas.

This'll be the last post on this RSS feed, be sure to check the site in a bit and then subscribe to the new one.

Thanks for visiting Curb Debris,

Paul.

Sunday Skate

2009-01-02T08:49:00.003Z

Last Sunday I skated in Chelmsford with Russ, Channon and Macy, good skating plus good spots meant it was possible to ignore the cold, just.

Wine & Cheese

2009-01-02T08:24:00.003Z

Some photos from the MN wine & cheese party:

New Spot Progress

2008-12-31T07:41:00.002Z

New Deck

2008-12-24T09:50:00.001Z

Paraguay Window

2008-12-23T10:51:00.002Z

It'll soon be 10 years ago since I spent 6 months in Brazil and Paraguay so I've dug out the old photos and will be putting them up here over the next couple of weeks.

These first ones are from the window of the apartment I lived in in Asunción, the capital city of Paraguay. The area was called Mercado Cuatro (roughly translated to 'Four Markets') and was the central area for farmers from the countryside to bring their crops and goods in to the city to sell. It was a little strange at night in the summer as the wives and children of the farmers would sleep rough in the street and each morning the farmer would bring in the crop for them to sell...the whole area became a cardboard city.

Last From Frankfurt

2008-12-22T09:45:00.002Z

What's Under

2008-12-18T10:39:00.000Z

Emsworth

2008-12-17T14:39:00.002Z

Love Life Quiz

2008-12-12T10:32:00.002Z

Bored/Strong Island Party

2008-12-11T09:48:00.002Z

New Spot? Maybe

2008-12-09T11:02:00.002Z

New Mobile

2008-12-08T12:26:00.003Z

King of Vert 1990

2008-12-04T10:23:00.002Z

I found this the other day and it brought back fond memories. A coach load of us came down to Portsmouth from Essex, the coach picked up a bunch of us in Chelmsford and the rest in Southend (due to the skateshop Reckless Erics being in Southend but having strong ties to Chelmsford). I now pity the coach driver, I'm sure we were all nightmares...imagine 4 or so hours driving each way with 40 odd teenage skateboarders...hell. The event was cool, we ate packed lunches, got to see loads of sick skating (ironically on a ramp with no vert) and saw our friend Sean Ward compete. On the way back he fell asleep on the coach and his Mambo board bag was changed to '100% Black Mamba' by Jim. No idea if Sean ever noticed.

It's a little weird remembering back now that I actually have such strong ties with Portsmouth. Wish I'd taken some photos back then.

Flights & Airports

2008-12-03T13:06:00.000Z

Frankfurt Ledge Comp

2008-12-02T10:32:00.001Z

The last of them

Havana, Friday Night

2008-12-01T08:53:00.002Z

Corridor

2008-11-28T11:15:00.001Z

Around

2008-11-27T13:13:00.000Z

Straight Up

2008-11-26T10:15:00.000Z

Bowl it Up

2008-11-25T08:47:00.002Z

Wind On Wind Up

2008-11-21T08:57:00.001Z

One f my cameas has a problem winding on sometimes, can result in some nice multiple exposure accidents sometimes.

Channel & The Thames

2008-11-20T09:01:00.002Z

Hiding From the Winter Night

2008-11-19T09:14:00.000Z

Night Trees

2008-11-18T10:32:00.003Z

TR2N

2008-11-17T13:31:00.001Z

Tron 2 teaser, looks amazing! Can't wait for this to come out.

Dusk

2008-11-14T09:31:00.002Z

Ditch

2008-11-13T09:52:00.002Z

Ramp Doodles

2008-11-12T11:08:00.001Z

An old doodle...I had/have miniramps on my mind.

German Bowl and Alien Workshop

2008-11-11T07:30:00.001Z

Bowling

2008-11-10T09:13:00.003Z

Fireworks

2008-11-07T09:33:00.002Z

SF Phone Randoms

2008-11-06T09:21:00.002Z

Frankfurt Derelict Windows

2008-11-05T11:24:00.000Z

Frankfurt Wasteland Spot

2008-11-04T10:00:00.003Z

Krooked Collection

2008-10-31T09:10:00.002Z

Saw these at a house party in SF, very jealous

More Rear Window

2008-10-30T09:49:00.000Z

Rear Window

2008-10-28T12:09:00.000Z

Kev's Stag-Don't

2008-10-23T08:34:00.003+01:00

One of my oldest friends is about to get married so we threw an informal party on Saturday night.

Tweaker Freaker

2008-10-21T11:36:00.002+01:00

The Tweaker Zine show Tweaker Freaker opened in Slam City in that there London back on Thursday night. Everyone involved was super stoked on the turn out, it even included the Matix team. The show is on for a few more weeks if you want to go have a look (specially because my photos of the work are so piss poor due to my camera having a tantrum).

Charlie's 30th

2008-10-16T09:36:00.002+01:00

Ramble On

2008-10-01T10:07:00.003+01:00

Second part of Saturday afternoon's South Downs ramble was shot in digi because I school boy errored it up and forgot to pack a second roll of film. Can you spy the deer?

Dartford Tunnel

2008-09-25T11:09:00.001+01:00

Reservour

2008-09-24T09:27:00.002+01:00

Old Haunts Pt 4

2008-09-23T10:49:00.002+01:00

The last part of the old haunts is 'The Field'. Some time in 89 the local youth club we used to go to and play on the BBC micro and table tennis table bought us an old wooden quarterpipe. If I remember right it came from a BMXer who lived in Danbury and had it in his front garden and we used to be able to catch glimpses of it as we passed on the school bus. Anyway, for some reason they decided to place it in the corner of the playing field.

The ramp was in this corner, as you can see here:

For some reason they originally put the ramp on the grass, not so good for skateboards. Luckily for us (although not the developers) they were building a housing estate around one side of the field so we 'borrowed' loads of wood and nails and made a runway up to it. After a while we added a flat banks and quarterpipe opposite, it was like the Chin ramp. Kinda. I think we got sick of nailing the warping chipboard runway in to the grass so as soon as they built the new carpark we pretty much took that over. As a sidebar story, they were going to build a concrete park back in the corner where the original ramp was placed and asked for people to submit designs...nothing ever came of it and they ended up just tarmacing it with a basketball hoop. You can see it in the first photo with the banked dirt...I guess they were close to making the bowl at some point and then bailed.

The surface back then was smooth concrete and we cut down the original quarter and over a period of months built driveways, jump ramps, banks, rails...loads of things. People used to travel from Chelmsford down to skate the street course. Sadly the neighbours started to complain and one day the council came down and took almost all the ramps, end of an era.

Long after everyone moved away or quit skating the parish council built a perfect mini ramp that many of the old Bicknacre locals have since come back and skated. It's weird to go there and skate a ramp you would have killed for back then but to be honest, no matter how sketchy the ramps were, we built them and made something happen from nothing. Amazing times.

Old Haunts Pt 3

2008-09-19T08:26:00.003+01:00

Another very important skate spot when we were growing up was our old school which was just across the main road. Years later it I would skate out front whilst waiting to be picked up by Kev on the way to go skate Chelmsford or wherever in the Dogmobile. I digress. Anyway, back then schools weren't prisons with paranoid caretakers assuming everyone had evil deeds planned when trespassing so we would skate there all the time.

That smooth bit out the front gate, nollie pressure flips, hello.

The stairs were probably the most skated aspect of the school, I know, me, skating stairs. Go figure that one out. But yeah, we all learnt a tonne of tricks down the 2 and then down the 3.

Steve Wilson recently sent me this old photo I hadn't seen in forever, it shows how the stairs were originally. No idea what I'm doing but the G&S Heinzman board dates this as about 1990.

This was the ledge spot, really. I remember learning a bunch of stuff on here and it was fun because it went from high to low. I remember someone had stolen a huge candle from church one time, it was like a canon shell, and spent the day waxing it to the point of doom. There were also some flat bars around the back where the bins were.

Another non-spot but this was fun for learning nosebumps and ollie over to pivot tricks.

To th right is the library and hall entrance, the hall where we would dance to Wham at school discos. Beyond that is the playground.

The playground was where we learnt to skate flat ground plus we used to bring over ramps or old lockers to skate as ledges. I remember we invented a great game, it was a mix of S.K.A.T.E. and British Bulldog. The person in the middle would do a trick, anyone who could land it would get to go over to the other side and anyone who didn't had to 'run' to the other side without getting tagged. Although in this game 'run' was changed for tic-tacing. You weren't allowed to touch the floor. Cue hilarious scenes of swarming tic-tacers. We need to play that game again.

Old Haunts Pt 2

2008-09-16T11:24:00.003+01:00

Once Jim and I were bitten by the skate bug we would skate almost every day, our BMXs quickly forgotten. We had a few regular spots we would skate and begin to figure out our first tricks.

The bridge was where we pretty much learnt to push, carve and tictac. I guess it was a little smoother than the rest of the estate or something.

One of our main spots was the shops, we would always swerve round the bollards on the way there from out street.

The shops was a heavy, regular spot back in the day. There used to be ledges and walls outside that were great for learning tricks. More importantly, the shops was where I first learnt to ollie. We would take turns lying on the floor and the other person would try to ollie and the person on the floor would give you height measurements! We would also buy our skate magazines here and had a love/hate relationship with the owner of the newsagents who would routinely ban us from the shop and try to kick us out. Our continuing battles even made it in to the Essex Chronicle newspaper.

After a while we would learn how to skate curbs, the curb outside my old house was, back then, heavily waxed and skated all the time.

Old Haunts Part 1

2008-09-15T10:20:00.004+01:00

Between 1984 and 1993 I lived in a small village in Essex called Bicknacre. All of my teenage years were spent there and it's where some of my life long friends come from and it's also where I learnt to skateboard.

This was my old house (the one on the left), I suspect there are still Star Wars figures in the hedges

This is the entrance to the street

The Westerings. There is a stream by those trees where we used to play and where I first met my oldest friend, who I learnt to skate with back in 1986

This bend was the location of our first experience with a skateboard, we started off jumping out of the curb cut, then we tried to roll around the corner and do the little jump and by the end of the day we learnt to bomb the hill, carve the bend and hop out of the curb cut on to the rough street. We were hooked.

Beach Bits

2008-09-13T10:35:00.001+01:00

Phone Randoms

2008-09-10T13:14:00.003+01:00

Russ' Birthday

2008-09-09T09:37:00.002+01:00

Frankfurt Architecture

2008-09-04T10:04:00.002+01:00

2am

2008-09-01T13:13:00.002+01:00

Southsea beach, bike, bottle of wine and camera

Boats in the Channel

2008-08-29T13:17:00.002+01:00

Germany

2008-08-28T11:47:00.000+01:00

Swimmers

2008-08-27T09:18:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the Autobahn

2008-08-22T16:18:00.000+01:00

Chingford

2008-08-21T16:14:00.003+01:00

Two things about this old video section abut Chingford ramp from 1989 mean a lot to me:

1) Paul Wright made the first Chelmsford ramp that used to tour the town's parks. On the opening day he fell and his board went skyward before returning to earth and clocking the wife of the owner of Two Wheeler (then local skateshop) in the side of her head. It was harsh.

2) My first pro board was one of Dave Crabb's, back before this when he was on Brand-X.

Southsea

2008-08-20T09:32:00.002+01:00

Some recent film photos from Southsea bike rides...this is one big reason why I love living here.

Weekend

2008-08-19T08:03:00.002+01:00

Police

2008-08-15T11:40:00.000+01:00

Frankfurt's old police station

Bright Bowl

2008-08-14T08:27:00.003+01:00

The Bright Bowl in Frankfurt was amazing, these are a couple of left over skate photos.

Dylan Rieder, tailslide around the corner

Kevin Wenzke, mayday

Wet Frankfurt Street

2008-08-13T07:29:00.000+01:00

Tower

2008-08-12T12:44:00.001+01:00

And Repeat

2008-08-11T08:49:00.000+01:00

Danbury

2008-08-08T09:11:00.004+01:00

Visited the village of Danbury the other day as part of a drive through old haunts in Essex.

Hayling Bike & Skate

2008-08-07T11:03:00.003+01:00

Cycled over to Hayling Island last night (via the ferry) to skate with Tristan at the little metal park, good fun. Post-skate pint next to the beach was decent too.

Champagne Hazard

2008-08-06T09:33:00.000+01:00

Friendly Faces in Frankfurt

2008-08-05T09:39:00.001+01:00

Cubic, Colin, Gorm, Ches and Badger

Hole in the Wall

2008-07-30T08:38:00.001+01:00

Good Old Albert Road

2008-07-25T07:12:00.001+01:00

Entrance Pier

2008-07-24T08:09:00.002+01:00

This pier is at Langstone Harbour entrance but only appears went the tide is at it's lowest.

Gorm

2008-07-23T08:33:00.002+01:00

I caught Gorm in action taking photos of a derelict building in Frankfurt. Gorm takes nice pictures, check his Flickr or Gorminator.

Smooth Mike & Rob

2008-07-22T09:24:00.001+01:00

Fire in the Sky

2008-07-21T08:00:00.001+01:00

Saturday night.

Simon's Cat

2008-07-18T10:39:00.002+01:00

By Simon Tofield, seriously the best thing on YouTube. From a heads-up over at It's Nice That.

Cat Man Do

Let Me In

TV Dinner

Hotel Window

2008-07-18T08:14:00.000+01:00

I do love looking out of hotel windows on down time.

Breakdance The Movie

2008-07-17T14:27:00.005+01:00

I can't begin to explain how important this film was for me as a kid. Everyone wanted to be Turbo.

No stopping us

Diss and muscles from Brussels

Turbo and broom

Battle? Ooooooo, burned

Revenge

Pop Swatch

2008-07-17T13:27:00.001+01:00

Found this in my old skate crap shoebox, cut from a Pop Swatch magazine advert back in the 80s. I remember they were the thing to have at school, bonus points for clipping them to your school jumper rather than wearing on the wrist...

Southend-on-Sea

2008-07-16T08:58:00.002+01:00

The Pier

2008-07-10T08:48:00.002+01:00

A few on or from.

All Nighter

2008-07-08T08:32:00.002+01:00

These were from a recent all nighter, poor old Saffron broke her nose after a piggyback incident resulting in her using her face as a break on the pavement. Not so good when you have a wedding to go to the next day.

Shut

2008-07-07T09:35:00.001+01:00

Found a photo (light leaked to crap) of an old Shut tee I had back in 89. Somewhere
along the line I managed to lose it, pity.

Bike Ride No. Whatever

2008-07-04T07:42:00.002+01:00

Cycled along the length of the seafront, explored under the pier, the end of the pier and down by the entrance of the harbour and the radar stations. Got to get a pile of film developed, I shot colour and was going to experiment developing it with B&W chemicals but it was such a nice day it would be a shame to lose all the blues and greens. I shot a few digis too:

Brian Jonestown Massacre

2008-07-02T10:11:00.003+01:00

Saturday was Brian Jonestown Massacre plus afternoon shots, one lost wallet, one lost phone, one long walk to the pier at midnight and finally one passing out on the floor. Winner!

And a Few More

2008-07-01T10:33:00.001+01:00

Also

2008-06-30T17:00:00.001+01:00

On another film I got developed were a couple of photos from the recent Albert Road event

Pub/Friends/Film

2008-06-28T06:58:00.001+01:00

Euroskate 88

2008-06-27T00:45:00.002+01:00

I've been trying to hunt down a recording of this competition for years with no luck. So far the closest is this trailer.

The competition was shown on satellite and we watched it around a friends house. What made it unusual was that it was held in Prague yet at the time the city was still behind the iron curtain.

Medusa Has A Skip Outside Her House

2008-06-23T09:41:00.001+01:00

Sea Randoms

2008-06-20T09:02:00.001+01:00

Tall Ship

2008-06-18T11:18:00.001+01:00

One of the tall ships currently residing in the harbour coming in to dock.

Low Sun

2008-06-17T08:54:00.000+01:00

So low it lit the underside of the wires

Streets of Southsea

2008-06-16T09:01:00.004+01:00

Russ, Jay, Dave and Gorm stayed over for the weekend

Tim

2008-06-13T10:44:00.002+01:00

From The Ferry

2008-06-12T12:43:00.001+01:00

Old House Bits & Pieces

2008-06-10T09:20:00.002+01:00

Natural Harbours & Hayling Island

2008-06-09T07:15:00.003+01:00

On Friday I went on a solo bike ride around Langstone Harbour and then Hayling Island before getting the ferry back. Just under 20 miles and a load of sunburn.

Old Garden

2008-06-06T06:45:00.003+01:00

Indeed

2008-06-05T08:26:00.001+01:00

I've been looking at new bike bits on the Internet again...this was a message from my wallet