Imagine a surf version of King of the Road? Would lame describe it?
Thrasher is a skateboarding institution. King of the Road is a damn amusing scavenger hunt competition that’s been running for somewhere around a decade.
The concept is pretty simple. Challenges are written up, a couple different skate teams travel around in vans earning points for completing them. Winners get a cover, maybe some money too.
Good fun in the hands of skaters. I’d love to see a surfy take on it. Mainly because it’d be the lamest thing on earth. No “piss your pants in public” challenges. More like “do some sit-ups while eating an acai bowl.”
This year Thrasher decided to try and make some money off the deal. Partnered with Vice Media, gave them first crack at running it.
Because it’s Vice, which used to maybe be kind of cool, but definitely isn’t anymore, they’re making a cash grab. New episodes are free for a moment, then you’ve gotta use your cable subscription to log in. Gotta be a US provider. They go up later on the Thrasher site but are apparently blocked outside the good ol’ US of A. And aren’t the full episodes anyway.
Or so the internet comments lead me to believe. Either way, it’s not too big of a deal. They’re up on some torrent sites if you know where to look. Or you can use a proxy. Always options for bypassing regional restrictions, or just straight up “stealing.”
I can just click and stream, ‘cuz I live in the greatest-ish country on Earth!
The first two episodes are up and worth a watch. Funny, great skating. Andy Roy is present, which is entertaining.
If you’re not familiar with Andy, he’s an amazingly talented skater/cautionary tale/prison rapist who should be long dead. Read his legendary Big Brother interview HERE.
Plus you get to marvel at Jake Phelps, who increasingly looks like he’s only kept mobile by necromantic arts.
Give it a watch. Have a laugh at what amounts to a bunch of middle aged men making money by convincing young boys to do things that are dangerous, humiliating, illegal, or some combination of the three.
Surfing will never have a Jake Phelps and it will never resurrect its Andy Roys.
“for whatever reason (marketing) the spotlight shines on the clean cut dudes” luckily, for skateboarders, the USC MBA’s haven’t infiltrated your pastime yet.
Can we agree that USC MBA’s have infiltrated skate, but they’ve only succeeded at the X-Games/Street League sector? What keeps skate still gritty and real is that dudes still buy local brands and hold it down for their shops and the brands that the shops have history with. Oh yeah, and that not everyone who skates is a white suburbanite, leading to brand diversity and better fashion.
Andy used to terrorize me and my friends, coz he would always skate the half pipe my buddy’s brother built. Fucked up shit like slapping groms with his cock and telling us about all the fun you can have in prison. I was 12 or so. The first time I’d heard about “the Stranger”. If you don’t know what that is look it up on urban dictionary. He’s so rad on this show, good to see he’s lookin good and not strung out (which most probably won’t buy). Surfing, would suck. Unless Nathan Fletcher and Anthony Tashnick were a team. I could see some rad shit goin down there!
there was KOTR of surfing. transworld cali rally. but surfing is fuckin lame and corporate no one wants to expose the true identity of surfing like lost was doing a long while back at this point
it’s funny Rory, I have the same dream.
Three teams – hard to pick..
…lost/mayhem
CI
Astro Deck
maybe the mad hueys for a laugh
Wardo, Dane and JJF would have to be in it and Bruce, Dorian and Hoyo would be the ring-ins for each team….
Who would be the 5 on each team tho??
This shit keeps me up at night.
As lame as I think they are, the Mad Hueys might be the ones that could embody the KOTR ethos the most accurately.