Recently Shortbus and Quadzilla made a trip to Southern California to plant the seeds of the new Antik Skate Boots. What started out as small demo/fitting clinic at Fast Girl Skates in Seattle, has now grown into possibly a nationwide tour that kicked off in San Diego. Team "ShortZilla" began the trip in Huntington Beach, where the likes of Wicked Skatewear, OC Roller Skates, and Fountain Valley Skating Center reside, and with a full size run of complete Antik AR-1 skate packages in tow, they began fitting and educating all of the dealers and potential customers on the features, benefits, and options of the highly anticipated boots.
The trip then went south on I-405 to San Diego, Home of the San Diego Derby Dolls, Sin City Skates and Skateworld. It's quite odd to imagine a roller rink in San Diego (constant sunny weather, beaches, Mexico, etc), and even more odd to see it packed full of 400 screaming kids at 10:45 a.m., but there it was. Speaking with the general manager Brett Stang, he assured us that this was no anomaly, and that it's generally this way all the time. Roller skating has sky-rocketed in popularity, a lot due to roller derby and the interest to do stuff that's now deemed "cool". After spending some time with the guys at Skateworld, we moved to Sin City Skates to hang with Team Awesome skaters extraordinare Isabelle Ringer and Dahmer Natrix. The two girls help run the day-to-day operations and are the 'go-to' for any and all skating gear related questions. After a few hours of Antik fitting and sizing education, we were on our way back north (with lunchtime stop off for some tasty Mexican eatin').
The next 3 days put us in Long Beach, North Hills, and Los Angeles, with visits to Moxi Skates, Valley Surf and Skate, and Wicked L.A. There were HUGE turnouts for the Antik 'fitting/demo parties, with everyone in attendance getting a chance to try on and skate the new AR-1. The first was at a friday night 'gathering' at Wicked L.A., which turned into a 'support Team Legit, and paint your finger/toenails purple', then finished off with a fitting/demo with Team Antik skater Estro Jen, and her league the Long Beach Roller Gals, who by the way, practice and play in one of the sickest venues around. It's some dome that Howard Hughes had built to house his world famous "Spruce Goose" airplane, and to top that, there's this GI-NORMOUS Queen Mary steam liner ship (looks like the Titanic) that's docked next to it, crazy!
Thanks to all the skaters who came out to support Antik at the local skate shops and rinks, and if this is any indication as to how Antik is being received, then we gotta plan a lot more trips. If yo want us at your local skate shop or rink, drop us a line at info@grnmnstr.com. Keep an eye out, we may be in a city near you soon.
Quadzilla and Shortbus
