Aberventure skateboarding - bmx riding - climbing - cycling - freerunning
CONTENTS Transition Extreme the indoors hall for outdoors sports lovers Self repair guide to rely on yourself whenever and wherever you need How to shoot 10 tips to those that want to capture moments of adrenaline
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Parkour in Aberdeen interview with Ged Vengrauskas and Antanas Misiunas
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Discovering Aberdeen a guide to outdoors sports best spots in the city
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Becycle the bike workshop and secondhand bike market in Aberdeen
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Urban shooting the Aberdeen based best urban shot of the month
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Yosif Pavlov a collection of shots of a Bulgarian RGU student skater
TRANsition extreme T
here is a place in Aberdeen that satisfies outdoors sports lovers - but indoors. The place is called Transition Extreme, and has proved to be the best place for indoors skateboarding, bmx riding, martial arts and climbing.
a great place where to socialise and interact with people that share your same passion. I’ve also met people that eventually became some of my best friends!”
In 2014 only, over 300 people bought a season ticket at Transition. The place is also engaged in different projects, such as Located near the beach area, just next to the Beach Ballroom, workshops for pupils, to introduce them to those sports that it opened its doors to the public on 15th April 2007 and to are less popular but more charged up than others. ■ this day remains true to its conceptual aim – to be a truly modern social enterprise using urban sports and their cultures to attract and engage the local youth population. Transition Extreme aims to increase participation in sport from childhood to adulthood – engaging those not attracted to conventional sports. It has become fairly popular thourghout the years, mainly because it allows people to keep on doing the sports they love even when summer is over and also because of its competitive prices - they offer student discounts and season tickets. Worker at Transition Extreme Paul Morrison said: “I have been into skateboarding for years now. I grew up in Aberdeen, and I don’t understand how I managed to skate in winter time before Transition opened nearly seven years ago. Aberdeen needs a place like Transition, and this is proved by the extreme success the place has gained. People love to come here, and personally I feel so lucky to work here too. It’s
How to self repair your skateboard I
f you have been skateboarding for a little while, you might have to deal with the deterioration of your board. Fixing your skateboard every once in a while, substituting its components, and having to face small repairs, is just part of a skateboarder’s life. And with time you will want to be able to do all this jobs on your own, without the need to rely on other people’s hands and advice. Fixing a skateboard is not even too hard. It’s easier than bicycles, easier than bmxs, easier than most of other sports equipments available out there. We thought about sharing with you a wee list and explanation of the tools you might want to have and be able to use to get the most out of your board whenever and wherever you are. Well, to begin with, it is good to know that a skateboard is make of six different elements: deck, grip tape, trucks, wheels, hardware and bearings. Usually, what happens with skateboards is that the quality of the wheel spin gets worse and worse with time, to the extent where your wheel spins so roughly and hardly that skate rides become a tough and unpleasant activity. The problem lies in the bearings, that deteriorate with time. In addition, skateboarding on rainy days allows water to get into the wheels and get rusty, and that lowers the speed of the wheel’s rotation. Finally, there is nothing you can do about dirt and dust getting into the bearings and plugging the vital space in the wheel mechanism. Other common problems you can encounter are a broken deck, that can only be solved with the purchase of a new one, or deteriorated wheels that as decks just need to be substituted after a while. If you find yourself in the situation in which you are buying new wheels and do not know which kind to choose, always think of where you would use them. For smooth surfaces, hard wheels give better
performances, but on irregular ones, To clean the bearings, there are some easy softer wheels can save you from a lot of steps you can follow: uncomfortable shaking. 1-loose the axle nuts and pull the bearings out. So, there are not actually many tools you 2-take the bearing shields out with a flat need to fix your skateboard. There is ac- screwdriver. tually one that comes with everything 3-spray some WD40 liquid on the ball you need: the T tool. This tool is made bearings. of three wrenches, respectively of 3/8”, 4-wipe the outside of the bearings to re9/16” and 1/2”. The tool also has a small move all the sand and dust that covers it. Allen key and a tiny screwdriver. 5-put the bearings back into the wheels. ■
6 tips on..
SPORTs PHOTOGRAPHY W
hether you want a photo of your son at his first soccer match or a good shot from a hiking excursion, knowing a bit of sports photography can always come useful to you. Sports are definitely not the easiest to shoot, as subjects are often moving very fast and that gives us little time to think about the shot and predict its outcome. But with a few camera settings, you can make sure your photos will reach certain standards - just as the ones you see in magazines and newspapers. We made a research into professional sports photography, and picked up what we think are the ten most useful advice we can give to you to get the
1 - INCREASE THE SHUTTER SPEED Bring the shutter speed up to 1/1000 of a second, to be able to freeze instants perfectly. The lower you go, the blurrier your photos will turn out.
4- LOOK FOR THE EMOTION Don’t bother too much if your subject has got a grim on his face rather than a pretty smile. You want to show what they are feeling while they are playing and not how photogenic they are.
2 - USE THE CONTINOUS SHOOTING OPTION 5- GET A GOOD LENS Set your camera so that you can take several photos in a row. If you are serious about sports photography, than consider the That will allow you to choose the best one at the end of the day. idea of buying a long and powerful lens, like a 300mm or a 400mm. They can be quite expensive, but worth the price. 3 - DON’T WATCH, SHOOT You need to keep your eye in the camera and be ready to click 6- INCREASE THE ISO the button, because sport is unexpected and therefore it is too This comes as a consequence of your increase of the shutter easy to miss out the best moments. Also, don’t forget to bring speed. The faster the photo will be taken, the less light will the extra batteries to allow you to shoot for a very long time. camera manage to capture. You will need a higher ISO to get more light in your photos. ■
PARKOUR in aberdeen
with
s a k s u a r g n
e v s a n i m I and GED
Anta
s a n u i s i m nas
W
hy Parkour? How did you get interested in it? A: Well, when I was 14 years old a few of my classmates told me about it. So after school we went out and started jumping over the fence. Then we tried doing some vaullts. That’s actually the only thing we have been doing for the first year of parkour! G: Before doing parkour I was into martial arts. I have done Aikido and a bit of skateboarding as well, before realising that even parkour is a kind of martial art. There is a lot of mentality involved and it’s not just about physical strength and mixing movements. You need to become a better and stronger person inside too, and that’s what attracted me at first. This was just over six years ago. Do you think there is any difference in being a traceur in Scotland rather than in a country like Lithuania? A: I see a lot of differences. First of all the achitecture. G: Yeah, in fact if you go to a country like Russia or Lithuania traceurs tend to do crazy things, using grass and trees for example. Or also taking advantage of the snow to train. Likewise, in London or Spain, people doing parkour do a lot of stuff like jumping over roofs.
Do you do additional physical training in order to be able to do parkour? G: Not as much as we used to when we first began training, but physical conditioning still has it’s own place. We train our strength by doing what we do. Beginners do need to focus on improving their strength though. A: Also because a better physical condition lowers the risk of injuries. And do you pay attention to nutrition as well? A: Right now, yeah. Even though we ate at Burger King yesterday, haha. G: Yeah, I mean, once in a while it’s okay, but generally speaking if you want do do parkour seriously you get into a certain mindset, you adopt a particular kind of lifestyle.
Do you think parkour is a way to escape the city rules? A: I’m not sure about that, but it feels like being in the forest while you are in town. You feel free, like when you are in the nature. G: Exactly. You start getting this feeling of freedom, as if you were in control on everything. In the end, also when you train, you are on your own, or with whoever you want, and wherever you want. You don’t have an official coach or anyone that tells you what to do. Often in sports you feel What are you focusing on mostly just now? that you need someone to help you use your body A: We try to do pretty much everything. We know correctly, whereas in parkour you have to be much the basics, and what changes are distances and the more in control of it. fluency in the movements. As we get better, we improve the quality of the movements and the way Have you got any particular pro traceurs you got we combine them. inspired by? G: Yes, we mix a bit of everything, acrobatic move- A: At the beginning yeah, I had idols and I tried to ments, vaults and jumps. I think we are mostly try- copy them, learn how to do the things they were ing to be creative about it, to put something from doing. But now it’s about following your own path. our own, something original, unique.
G: When I was younger I tended to look at known traceurs and say “oh, I want to do this and that and train the way he does” and stuff like that. I don’t get that anymore, it’s much more personal now. Is parkour a cost-free sport? Do you need any equipment for it? G: You need a pair of new ankles here and then! Anyway not really, you just want a pair of sneakers, unless you want to be barefoot, as a few people do. A: And you want a pair of baggy trousers too. And actually in parkour there is this tendency that the longer you train the baggier your trousers become! G: Yeah, once you go baggy, you don’t want to go back! I actually bought a sewing machine and make trousers myself. I made two pairs for Antanas too. Have you ever got into trouble with authorities for doing parkour in the city? G: Not really, though I have had some situations when me and my friends had to run away from security guards back when we were younger. This summer though, me, Antanas and 3 other friends got onto the top of an abandoned hotel in my hometown Kaunas. We were taking photos, exploring the building and chilling out. On the very top we saw some teenagers, looked like they were drinking or smoking or something. Anyway, when we decided to go down, on the 3rd floor my friend noticed that there were 5 police officers going up the stairs, we had to quickly change our path and get out using a different exit which involved some climbing, probably a bit challening for the police. We got out of the site safely, realising that those teenagers most likely got caught. Hopefully their weren’t doing anything too bad and the police weren’t too harsh on them! ■
DISCOVERIN G ABERDEEN e city th in s ot sp e it ur vo fa s’ er runn Skaters, bmx riders and free Tranistion is where you will meet the best bmx riders and skaters
Westburn park is the most popular outdoors ramp for bmx riders and skaters
If you like to be creative with the city, Berryden carpark can be a good spot for skateboarding
Seaton carpark can be the perfect place to enjoy both nature and skateboarding
If you are an AU student, you can advantage of their ramp in the spare time between RGU, with its smooth pavement, has revealed to be a great spot for skateboarding Denburn Health Centre has become one of freerunners favourite spots in Aberdeen
When rain falls on Aberdenonians heads, Gallowgate carpark becomes amateurs’ spot At Nicholas Kirk you will always find someone doing parkour or skateborading
1.Transition Extreme 2.Westburn Park skatepark 3.Bedford Road skatepark 4.Denburn Health Centre roof 5.St Nicholas Kirk 6.Berryden Road big carpark 7.Seaton Park carpark 8.RGU facilities 9.Gallowgate carpark
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Becycle All the cycling lovers in Aberdeen have heard of Becycle at least once. Becycle is a bike market that is based on an open-source model. It was launched in November 2006 by three students of the University of Aberdeen that now left the city so today is run solely by enthusiastic volunteers from all walks of life. As such, Becycle belongs entirely to the public domain and operates on minimal funds and resources with a strong re-cycling ethos. Nevertheless, it provides a fully equipped workshop and a free bicycle lending scheme that functions as a centre for a steadily growing network of cyclists across Aberdeenshire. Last year they had over 350 bicycles on the lending scheme and so far roughly 6000 bicycles have undergone repairs or were built from scratch at their workshops. The workshop, currently on Don Street in old Aberdeen, is accessible to anyone and it is an educational space in which knowledge, skills and resources are shared between volunteers and visitors and all other cycling enthusiasts. It is maintained by a lot of hard work and minor grants from the Aberdeen University Student Association, many small private donations and some awards that they manage to win from time to time. The premises are provided by the University of Aberdeen free of charge. Advertisement and promotion of the project is done by volunteers, art students and the local media. The volunteers come from all walks of life: students and staff from both the University of Aberdeen and the Robert Gordon University, youths from around the neighbourhood, people between jobs, pensioners and some that just find some time to spare and support the cause. Some people come regularly, others sporadically. With the workshop, the Thursday Night Ride, the lending scheme and the recycling of spare parts, tools, nuts and bolts and all bits related, the project’s impact on its surrounding environment and beyond seems significant. The bicycle lending scheme provides free bicycles to university students and staff and anyone from the Aberdeen community and beyond (visitors, tourists, back-packers, etc.). Participants can simply borrow a bicycle free of charge in exchange for a fully refundable deposit (mostly ÂŁ40-60). This is especially popular among international students. â–
Becycle is open every Wednesday from 2pm to 8pm and on Saturday from noon to 6pm.
The Urban shot of the month
YOSIF PAVLOV SKATEBOARDING SESSION NOVEMBER 2014