Great Moments In Noseslide History
The Long Edition: Hard pipe hittin' NBDs and ABDs, safety slides, and going the distance.
A good unadulterated noseslide is hard to find in today’s skate game. Modern clips will undoubtedly feature some variety of shuv, pop-up grind, flip, or body rotation.
Here’s the thing about noseslides: They’re badass. No way around it. As described in great detail by internet skateboard literary, Frozen in Carbonite, “if you see a dude execute a noseslide with speed, nollieing out of that shit like a man, there’s a pretty good chance he knows what he’s doing.”
There are literally dozens of us that view the noseslide as a tasteful and attainable trick. The Hjalte’s, Gino’s, and Marbie’s of the world are exemplaries and guiding lights of holding a slide with your guiding foot.
50/50s down mountains, rotations into walls, and miles worth of front-crooks have won SOTY trophies, but often overlooked is our beloved noseslide. Let’s explore a few of the lengthier moments in noseslide history.
The Handrail
Since the 90s, stock for the handrail noseslide has taken a slight dip. The Muska or Alphonzo Rawls probably reached peak performance with the nose variety pincher on skateboarding’s most meticulous obstacle. It’s a few and far between trick nowadays, but it gets us fans stoked.
Notable handrail noseslides of the past decade include:
Jack O’Grady, Welcome to Melbourne
Windsor James, No Ca$h Value - Vol. 5
Alexey Krasniy, Karelia
Pat Burke, Footage Party
Jon Rowe, Gospel
Many people can’t wrap their heads around balancing in that fashion. I don’t have many gifts, but holding the handrail noseslide is near and dear to my repertoire. In my experience, the steeper a rail, the easier the hold. The less incline of a handrail, the further demonstration of balance and skill.
Those thick pipes like the Gold Rail in DC or the holy grail in Tranquility Park are towards the top of my handrail tier list. Possibly the longest 11-stair in existence, I’ve always hoped to make it to Houston to at least pretend to huck a couple of noseslides at that thing.
All my daydreams lined up to taking the noseslide to that fat bar, but luckily it’s now ABD. Charlie Munro took care of it for us.
“Ahhh, mate, it was scary, to say the least,” says Munro with a laugh, “but it worked pretty good after I stopped trying to play it safe.”
Munro took a wild ride on that one, and there’s no denying the pure skill it took to get down that mountain. Even more impressive is the massive early pop-off and over the last step. Shout out to Charlie. Truly a great moment in noseslide history.
** Bonus Moment**
A weekend cookout had the crew watching shop vids from our youth. These 20+-year-old videos were littered with handrail nosesliders and bingo cards worth of cringes and triumphs.
Predating the release of Yeah Right! by a couple of years, James Frankhouse noseslid the curved rail at Philadelphia’s City Hall in 2001. Wondering if Quartersnacks still has a bounty on the footage?
The Hubba
The hubba ledge is probably the friendliest of skatespots for the humble noseslide—an excellent spot for testing the waters and letting gravity do its thing.
My relationship with the noseslide began here. Between Menikmati and Sorry, giant hubbas and noseslides seemed like a pair ripe for the picking. I probably should have started with boardslides, but they were seldom seen back in those days.
Standout noseslider from the Sorry era, Ali Boulala, recalls a lengthy noseslide going something like this:
“I don’t know what this spot is called, if it’s even called something—maybe ask French Fred. I did this the same day as when I first tried the 25-stair. I wanted to film something before I tried the 25-stair in case I couldn’t skate after.”
Ali was using the noseslide to play 4D chess. I have a hard time going from a curb spot to a ledge session in the same afternoon. Imagine getting ready to do a top ten moment in all of skate history and hedging the bet with a 30-stair noseslide. Legend.
The Ledge
A common gripe of skateparks is the lack of a straight ledge. Not curved, not off a drop, not wrought with angle iron, and certainly not down stairs. A ledge made of hard rock, preferably granite marble or painted concrete, is a gift that belongs to the streets.
The noseslide trend is picking up in the streets again, but a pure noseslide unadulterated by a variation is rare. We have to take our hats off to Australia for holding down the nosey for the last few years. Recall, Shaun Paul? That’s the closest we’re going to get to a noseslide on a ledge being an ender, ender.
Nice To See You came in at a 45 minutes run-time. A film of that magnitude gets a two-night bath premier at Al’s Skate House™. Rounding out the first half of the Austalia section, Adelaide Norris went coast to coast on a nosey that had me cheers-ing and cracking open beer number two of the night.
Adelaide rides for Pass-Port, which is cool as hell. Their crew is steeped in notable nosesliders. Like myself, Adelaide says she was a noseslider first.
“I remember just rolling up straight to them and just stalling them for like a whole year. [I] never learned boardslides, so they were my boardslide ya know?”
She held this great moment in history at a spot called Everest for nearly four seconds. A lifetime in noseslide measure.
“Yeah, been thinking about sliding on that spot for years,” she says. “I just moved near it the year lockdown hit, and I was keen after walking past it with my dog every day.”
Shout out to the editor for including the dog, in the celebratory clip. Good on ya.
Ambitionz Az A Noseslidah
Go out and get yourself a noseslide on your next session. Use the simplicity to your advantage and make them a style all your own. Take matters into your own hands and bless us with the next Great Moment in Noseslide History.