Bruno ‘Pini’ Aballay

June 01, 2007 @ 8:29 AM

Frontside Blunt

Txt & photos by Gaston Francisco

There are people that you only see once and you’ll remember them forever. Bruno “Pini” Aballay is one of them. Whether you meet him in person and have a conversation with him, just share a couple of drinks or simply see him skate somewhere, chances are he’ll leave an impression on you hard to forget. His persona is covered by some special aura, some type of charisma that most of us mortals don’t have.
Pini was born 22 years ago in the Argentinian province of Córdoba located in the centre of the country. Its capital, Córdoba City, is the second most populated city of the country with around 3 million people. It is surrounded by beautiful hills that host in its womb the most amazing landscapes, with beautiful small rivers running down the hills with their clear waters filled with fish.

Frontside Nollie Flip

Besides its celestial geography, Córdoba also has a human quality hard to find elsewhere. Cordobeses are famous for their kindness, their good humour and their accent. Specially their accent, different from any other spanish, spoken cordobes is really hard to understand even for the people who live in neighbouring provinces, and Pini is a good example for this.

Switch 360 Flip

Bruno started standing out in the skate scene when he was only a kid. His father, who has the same kind of magical charisma as his son, would drive him 800 km in their van to the contests in Buenos Aires when he was only 12. In the crowd he was the loudest and most cheerful of them all, applauding and shouting to every trick his son would land. Of course his effort was also rewarded when Pini would end up in the first 3 positions at every contest.
Sponsors didn’t take long to arrive and Cristobal Colón, the biggest chain of stores in Argentina, got him on their team. Since then, he’s always been a sponsored guy. Thanks to his great skating, they’d already heard about him in the Brazilian market by the time he was 15, and Urgh skateboards put him on their team. From then on this 15 year old from a province in Argentina was travelling on his own to Brazil to skate the contests and shoot photos for Brazilian mags. His Brazilian adventure didn’t last very long though. The contest orientated mentality of Brazilian companies didn’t convince him, so by the age of 17 he quit his Brazilian sponsors and got back fully in the Argentinian market. This didn’t turn out to be a set back on his career, completely the opposite. Feeling comfortable with his new reality he kept travelling around Argentina and skating better and better. His body started stretching and he got tall, which changed his skating substantially. His new dimensions took his polished technical skills to new heights.
When he was about 20 years old he travelled to Italy with the help of the Italian clothing company Anhima. They had heard about him through Pini’s friend from back home, Facundo Stricker. With the help from Anhima and Stranger board company these two friends travelled up and down Italy and got to know a bit more of the world. This relationship with the Italian scene lasted 2 good years and kickstarted Pini’s career in Europe. The distributors gave him Lakai shoes as well, which he has been wearing for a good time now.

Noseblunt slide

Not long ago the excellent Spanish board company Alai crossed his path. Their team manager-filmer-skater Eduardo Muñoz had met Pini in Córdoba on the same trip where he met Marcos “Chami”. The company was just starting out so they could only offer sponsorship to one of them. Luckily the company grew larger and a couple of months ago they asked Pini to skate for them. They got him to come over from Italy to Barcelona and in 10 days he filmed and shot most of the tricks you see on these pages. He tried to get the most out of those 10 days to film for the upcoming Alai video in which he’ll have a part. And that’s just how Bruno functions: Whenever he feels comfortable, skating with friends in spots he likes and having fun he can do whatever goes through his mind.
Without a doubt Pini is on the right path. And I say the right path because he walks his own path, he moulds it according to his preference and he never forgets his values, his home, his friends and his family. The power and the charisma are still intact. Expect only the best things from him because he is one of the best things around.

Nollie Crooked