2. Jeff Carlyle – ‘Right Here for Pablo’

Debates raged across skate shop counters in the early days of the big gap era over how the precision and finesse required for tech tricks compared to those needed to get the right pop/flick/spin off the top of a big drop, and the confidence to hang on til impact. The GX1000 dudes have added a new and white-knuckled dimension over the past decade, mainly in the sense that past a certain point on some of their hills, there’s no kicking out or bailing. “Fuck that shit, it’s all mental,” Jeff Carlyle states, maybe to himself, nursing a charlie horse and a beat-to-shit board before nosegrinding a bump to bar towards the end of ‘Right Here for Pablo.’ He expresses the sweary comment after already having featured in some of the more intense and pressurized clips in the video, boardsliding a kinked handrail mid-kick out, jumping fakie down the China Banks tiles and riding all the way down after the fence backside smith grind. Jeff Carlyle’s backside lipslide on the rail at the top of Mason Street and the bomb down is the craziest trick in a heavy video, and he ripped all over town, from the wallride 180 50-50 180 out and the nosegrind grab over the bench, plus he got to back up Jake Johnson.

Tags: bearded intensity, Bennett grind, GX1000, Jeff Carlyle, mental control, Right Here for Pablo, scary tricks to try into the Union Square block, the faster blade, Theragun, Top of Mason for real