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Epicly Later’d has released part 3 with Oakland’s Max Schaaf. Have a seat and sit back for nine and a half minutes as Max discusses his early collaborations with the Gonz’, his roots in vert skating at the Widow Maker, and “weighing his options” with his first and only board sponsor, Real Skateboards as he takes his style and skill beyond Oakland.
This episode is certainly worth a good look and brings back some great memories to those of us who skated with Max during those important and formative years in his life. Part 4 drops next week.

Skateistan is Afghanistan’s first skateboarding school dedicated to teaching both male and female students. For two years they have been working towards building indoor and outdoor skateboarding facilities for Afghan youth. Today the skateboarders of Kabul will celebrate the official opening of the city’s largest indoor sports facility today. You can read more about it here.

Orchard Skateshop’s presents their first full length video entitled ‘Out Of Body Experience.’ It will be premiering Friday night November 6th at the Tower Auditorium Theater at Mass Art, in Boston. The premiere is all ages. For those 21 and over there will be an after party sponsored by Red Bull + PBR at Game On! on Landsdowne street.

We are happy to pass along the news that the RocCity Park Citizen Planning Group had a major breakthrough in their effort to get a world-class skatepark in the city of Rochester.
The Department of Parks has submitted the park as a capital improvement project for next year’s budget (2010). While we all know that municipal and state operating budgets have been slashed in recent years, capital improvement budgets have remained level or even increased.
It is our understanding that the $2M budget request will go through a series of internal vetting processes from now until April, 2010. At this point, the project will go to city council for final approval.
The skate community will have the opportunity to participate in this process and leverage whatever political capital is available. For the skater’s part, the RocCity Park Citizen Planning Group will be providing all city council members with information about the benefits of the park in writing and, hopefully, in subsequent meetings.
If you have opportunities between now and April to relay the benefits of a skatepark with any policy maker at any level, please do so.

Newly formed skate wheel company Small Wheels has started to roll into skate shops near you and their team roster includes James Craig, Austyn Gillette and Raymond Molinar among a few others. I recently just set up a set of Small Wheels and was quite impressed with how they rode. Generally, I am not a huge fan of skinny, hard wheels, but riding this set really surprised me. They seemed damn near impossible to flat spot (believe me, I tried) and I swear I was able to lipslide at least an extra foot on ledges. Yet while skating the nearby indoor wooded skate park, I was able to maintain traction regardless of their hardness.
Although their current range of wheels is limited to…well, their namesake of smaller sizes (50mm to 52mm), Small Wheels uses top quality urethane formulas compared to some of the top wheel companies out there. There’s nothing more frustrating than shelling out $30.00 on a set of wheels and then have them flat spot within the first couple days. So the next time you’re eyeing the assortment of wheels at your local skate shop, try out a set of Smalls; you won’t be disappointed.
- Garric

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Chicago’s Chaz Ortiz has been enlisted as an official endorser with P-rod’s skate boutique, Primitive with this short, yet impressive video piece. A name that you will surely be hearing more and more of in the future, Brazil’s Pedro Barros, is featured on Pocket Pistol’s new website with an introduction video. And lastly, we’re a bit late with this bit of news, but nonetheless, Manny Santiago laced up with the re-sparked Axion shoe brand. Check his assorted rail chomps in his “Welcome” video right here.

Shut Skates rider and ‘WE’ activist Tony Manfre has an interview posted up at 48 Blocks. Check it out here.

Looks like the skaters in Durham, NC will have a brand new concrete park to skate. Ujamaa Boardhouse will be presenting the park’s grand opening festivities on November 7 th. You can check out some sneak pics of the park over at the SKATENC site.

Wanna know who it is? You and all your friends are welcome to attend the Toy Machine/Active Halloween demo this Saturday to find out. Costumes are must and the best one gets a Toy Machine package. So if you are in the vicinity of Long Beach, head over and meet the team, watch the demo, get free stuff and see who the new team rider is.