Photo: Transworld Cover – November 2010
Dave Chami

Skater: Silas Baxter-Neal
Trick: Frontside 180 Fakie 5-0 Revert
Spot:
Bilbao, Biscay
Spain

Footage: Habitat, “Origin” (2010)

Additional Notes:
Transworld – In This Issue – November 2010

Trick/Cover is mentioned in a 2014 Transworld Interview with Silas Baxter-Neal;
“So next was November 2010. I think the next three were all (Dave) Chami. But this one was the front 180 fakie 5-0 in Spain on that huge bank to bar thing.
That one was in Bilbao. We were on a trip—it was kind of a crazy trip. We all flew into Barcelona, then flew to Bilbao, spent a couple of days there, then flew back to Barcelona. I think we flew to Bilbao like the third day we were there. In Barcelona we had met up with Roberto Aleman, who just happened to be heading out to Bilbao so he kind of took us under his wing. He took us to Alicante, Murcia and these other towns too. The day we were flying to Bilbao, we were at Sants train station super early and Brennan (Conroy) ended up getting his camera bag stolen. We had already filmed a trick or two the previous few days and the tape was in there so we lost that. Chami’s wife (Samantha, AKA Suziie Wang) was out in Barcelona and had a VX-2000 with her so we ended up borrowing that and finishing the trip with it. Anyways, back to the photo—we were in Bilbao and that spot is just amazing. It’s like a wonderland—just all these roller bumps and banks everywhere—like a Dr. Seuss looking skatespot.

Had you been there before?
No. This was my first time there and I had been wanting to go for a super long time. It was just one of those things were you get there and are just in awe. It’s jaw-dropping, like “Oh my God!” And you’re skating around like a little kid. We were skating the bump to bar finally and I back 50-50’d it and was still super hyped and wanted to do something else. I started playing around and seeing what I could get up there and that trick ended up looking like it was going to work out. It took me a while though to finally do it.

That spot looks so gnarly. Is it as gnarly as it looks?
It’s pretty gnarly. That bank you come out of is like really steep and then coming back in is really scary. Since the bank doesn’t go flush to the wall too, you kind of have to make it over that little lip. It’s super smooth though, except for the tiles are fragile and some of them are broken. So you’ll be rolling super smooth and then all of a sudden hit a broken one and eat shit.

It looks like that hip is rounded too, like it would be hard to know where to pop off of.
Yeah. It took a while to figure out where the right spot would be to get the right upward momentum and trajectory. Like instead of just spitting you outward. So it was a battle but it was super fun because that spot is just so cool. It’s in this really big beautiful park. Everyone told us like, “That spot’s a bust, you’re only going to get like ten minutes there before you get kicked out.” But we skated it for like an hour. I got the back 50 and the front 180 fakie 5-0 and Marius (Syvanen) got the frontside 5-0 too (Which became the DVD cover photo of Origin [‘10]). Pretty much right after I landed the front 180 fakie 5-0, I rolled away and just kept going to the corner store across the street and bought some beers. We were skating back with the beer and right then the cops rolled up. They were like; “You gotta leave”, and we were just like, “Cool!” (Laughs.) It was a pretty epic day. Cool trip too.

I feel like I haven’t seen any tricks on that thing since then.
I think it really is a big bust and we just got lucky. I think usually the neighbors call the cops for the noise, but that one day it was a Sunday and they just let it go.

I think you shut it down.
(Laughs.) No. But there are so many other things to skate there too. There are all these other banks and hips and this one bank-to-ledge thing you can hit. There is just so much shit in Spain and that one is kind of a far out location.”