adidas Skate Copa at New York City

Rodrigo is here with the adidas team warming up at LES before they hit the streets. Check the sequence of this bolts nollie backside flip.

Rodrigo's got it bolts both ways. What do you say? Nollie frontside flip or nollie half Cab flip? I say nollie half Cab flip to give Cab the credit.

What would you guess a New York City parking ticket is? It's more than an American skateboard deck in Europe. Porpe landed us this orange flag here.

It's always nice to catch up and have a chat with Billy Rohan.

Coffee break.

Staring up like a tourist.

Jascha Muller looks like he's just sitting on that dude's head.

Connor Champion, connoisseur of fine hip hop sounds.

Andrew Valencia front bluntslides for Belief Skate Shop.

A friend of ours told us about this burning ritual where you write down your biggest goals for the future, then set them on fire. Clements is giving it a try. I wonder if it will work. We'll check back here in about five years and we'll see.

Today I put my first wristband from The Boardr on someone in our event. Aww, another baby milestone for us.

We're on site at 7am and working around the rain.

HiDefJoe is putting together a quick coverage edit for the day. adidas and The Berrics are coming soon with edits going more in depth in each city that we go to.

The can collection business is booming here in the city.

It was not looking good when there was still this lake at 8am on the course.

Thanks adidas for hooking up so many kids with shirts, hats, and 125 pairs of shoes.

Vern and Dan are on the crew today announcing and judging.

Ryan realized you can't really ask anyone to go into that sketchy water and dig through the drain, so he went Huck Finn and did it himself. Two drains cleared of cans, bags, sticks, and other sketchy garbage, and the course is on its way to being dry. Thanks, Ryan!

Things don't dry up as quick as Florida here, but by the time the Contest started, we were all good.

Vern and Tim on the mic with DJ Wade on the jams.

Thanks ya'll for piling into LES to check out the Contest.

Hooked up.

Markin' out on Mark, part one. Thanks Suciu for rolling around a bit all day.

Pause for a gear check.

Mark looks like a college professor that can front feeble. He's as smart as one.

Check-in was a little busy with most people getting here Saturday morning so I didn't have too much time for skate photos. I snuck in a few here and there, though. That's Keith Hardy with a frontside nosegrind.

Luis got it done on that super plank.

Judges on this one were Jason Rothmeyere, Pat Stiener, and Dan Pensyl. Jason has a nice interview on Jenkem about judging skateboarding contests.

Gonz is here with his new baby, just two months old and already lurkin' the skateboard shindigs. Congrats, Mark! That's Jascha from adidas and Tia his girlfriend with him.

Piro is a recent resident of NYC. We seem to have the same schedule of bouncing around from northeast to southeast lately.

Skateboarding's mayor of NYC, Steve Rodriguez, and Jim Anfuso from adidas are long time friends that caught up here in the city. Being in NYC, especially at a skate event, gets you back together with a lot of old friends.

Markin' out on Mark, part two. Someone brought an old Gonz Vision board for him to sign.

I can't resist getting a photo with Mark.

Lui Elliott, thanks for stopping by. Red Dragons?

Ryan Clements and Billy Rohan in a nice circle of skateboard business chatter. Billy has a million ideas on new ventures.

My new friend Umberto took $50 for a switch hardflip over the apple in the open Best Trick Contest. After each one, there's a Best Trick Contest that anyone can skate in, even if you weren't in the Contest.

Mark was carrying a fake hand in his pocket and entertaining us all with it.

Richie Rizzo with NJ Skate Shop has an alley oop fakie 5-0 here.

Play the sequence to see how popped that exit is on Mark Schwartz' feeble 360 flip out. At each stop, we're picking a few special award winners to get $250 for things like this. Mark came up on one for this trick.

Jimmy Larsen with Homebase nollie flips into the quarter.

Ah man, I forgot who this is on the pivot kickflip out.

Jordan Gesko with NJ did this 360 flip 50-50 a few times as they advanced through the Finals brackets.

Gonz joined us for the awards.

Some of the special awards we give include random things we'll make up as the day goes on. Nate Jackson got Best Old Dude and $250.

Second Nature came in at 3rd at this stop.

Labor Skate Shop right around the corner in Chinatown won it at this stop. They get all expenses paid for a trip to the series Finals at The Berrics on July 11.

NJ Skate Shop came in second.

Skate break for some pie.

All photographers had to stop what they were doing when Gonz started skating the tranny to fence with his fake hand.

Gonz rock and rolled it like only Mark Gonzales can.

Jake Keenan got the Skate Better than you Look Award. They were saying he's like the Euro Ryan Clements that can skate good.

Thanks adidas for buying this pizza tower for not just the skaters in the Contest, but everyone on site hanging out. Thanks Porpe for all the help not just today, but in the pre-planning for setting all this up. He has amazing stories on dealing with cities for permits and all the other gub'ment red tape you deal with in having an event like this.

We're hoping to have Tim on the mic at every one of these stops. Get the full schedule here.

Later that night, we randomly ran into Austyn on the streets of NYC. It seems New York has a real small town feel to it when things happen like that.

If you're flying in or out of Laguardia, make sure to get a seat on the left side of the plane. The view is pretty amazing. Thanks everyone for coming and thanks adidas for putting together this super fun shop vs shop event for the whole country to participate in. By the time we're done, we'll have met and skated with over 100 shops across America. Next round should be Earth, not just America.

Here's how the head to head bracket matches went down for Labor getting to the end and winning it today.

Thanks to all these shops in the northeast that were part of adidas Skate Copa NYC.