End of Another Wake
Sep 03 2006 / Los Angeles, CAThe Year in Wake
Most people have never heard of wakeskating. But for a sport that’s been around for less than ten years, that’s pretty typical. So to be safe, wakeskating is like wakeboarding, but you’re not attached to the board. The board is shaped like a wakeboard, but slightly smaller, and thinner. You wear shoes, you get pulled by a boat, jet ski or winch (we’ll get to that in a minute), hold on to a handle, and do tricks similar to skateboarding.
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2006 was really about one thing: wakeskating in parking lots. No, seriously. Building a couple pools connected by rails and having people throw themselves down them was all the rage. X Games (which wakeskating made its debut in the same year wakeboarding was cut as a medal sport), the Liquid Force Slideshow series and events like Black Top Oasis brought wakeskating to dry land, and made it a much friendlier spectator sport.
Speaking of riding in ridiculous places, Kyle Walton and his “homeless crew” took it to a whole new level. Thanks to the winch, a device which is basically a rope attached to a motor that is portable and pulls up to 25 miles per hour, Walton’s crew trekked around the country finding spillways, fountains and other things that were never meant to be shredded, and did just that. Winching may be changing the face of the sport, since it cuts down on costs like gas, and boat ownership.
Some events went down on actual bodies of water though. Like Byerly’s Third Annual Toe Jam, where Brandon Thomas swept all three events, and Aaron Rathy (a wakeboarder by reputation) showed he could ride unstrapped. The level of riding was at an all time high, and tricks like a backside lipslide down a serious metal handrail were only good enough for second place.
Since we just mentioned Scott Byerly, the legend continued to push the sport with his contest Volume Wakeskate Videos, featuring the best of the best of wakeskating. The old guys should be nervous though, since a new crop of riders such as Nick Taylor, Reed Hansen and Matt Manzari brought flip tricks to a whole new level this season: tre flips, varial flips, heelflips, you name it.
But riding-wise, it was Aaron Reed who earned the most acclaim. Arguably the best all-around wakeskater out there, Reed’s part in the video Innuendo (http://www.alliancewake.com/innuendomovie/ ) made the wakeboarders in the movie look silly and people question why you would need to be attached at all. Of course, he’s been doing that for years.
-Brooke Geery
