LlandSlide 2016 – Event Recap
Written by: Rikky Raven
Photo by: Mark Callanan Photography
Llandslide 2016. What an event! Like every other Llandslide event, it was hosted on the same day as the Argus Cycle Tour, which is notorious for closing our roads down here in Cape Town. Since the route of the Argus uses the M6, there is no getting in or out of Llandudno for most of the day. Meaning that everybody who did not live in Llandudno had to wake up at about 5am to beat the cyclists, this was almost torture as we were to be skating for about 10 hours.
After a quick nap in the car, I slapped on some slidier wheels due to the smooth and sticky tar and got skating. Everyone had a good few runs down the hill before the rider’s meeting. Short and sweet. Just the way riders’ meetings should be in order to not waste any skating time. It was only had to explain the rules of the road and prizes which were to be handed out later.
Every one was killing it, from the big names out there to all the groms who just pushed themselves harder than they probably ever had before, I even saw a couple of children around the age of six doing stand-up slides and toesides!
The course of Llandslide was very different from what I’m used to, to say the least. For the most part, it was a surprisingly mellow hill but just before the first corner, a right-hand hairpin, there was quite a steep drop which then flattened out onto the corner itself. Everybody started the day at this corner if they weren’t taking the full runs. From here it was full tuck over about four or so speed bumps and then to end it all a very slippery left hairpin, which was just perfect for big stand-up slides or even min angle hand down slides. For the second part of the day, most people made their way down to the bottom left hairpin. One of the highlights of the day was definitely watching goofy stanced riders stand up toecheck or Roman candling that corner.
Although there was about ten hours of skating within the day, it was over far too soon with the amount of fun everybody was having! We definitely need more events like this down in Cape Town.
A huge thanks to all those who helped organise Llandslide 2016 and obviously BoardHub, who I think did most of the work if not all, and also for their swag lift shuttles. Let’s try to keep Llandslide happening annually and if not at least bi-annually.
Click here for more pics by Mark Callanan.
Rikky Raven
