Joseph Biais, The Good Son

February 29, 2008 @ 5:21 PM

Text and photos: Benjamin

Joseph has gone from a slightly cocky teenager that would correct your French- if necessary- to a young man with a good sense of humour, his feet firmly planted in the grounds of reality in a matter of a couple of years. When some seem to find a scene where they are comfortable and never leave it, he is all over France’s spots, skating with different crews every time you see him.
On the other hand, I’m afraid he has not win a major contest in the last months… but nobody cares, right?

Switch Lipslide

When we think of people, they often get associated to their place, or actually the nearest famous place to where they actually live… Joseph is no exception to this rule of laziness, often being mislabeled as a Parisian. When he’s almost the polar opposite of one…
“Viroflay is a small town outside Paris, near Versailles. It’s in the west suburbs, about an hour away by train. A bit further, the countryside starts.”
But if our surroundings have a strong impact of who we become, there is one story that seems to repeat itself amongst our colleagues, the one of the first time.
“Just like everyone, I suppose, I saw a buddy who had a board and was starting to ollie. He showed me and I just went to get a board at Auchan [major French supermarket- Ed]. It must be 8 or 9 years, I must have been 12.”
“In my area and in Versailles, we had those horrible blue obstacles by Cardinaux [infamous Nineties skate obstacles that plagued France for a while - Ed], plus we had that blue mini ramp in Viroflay. There were a lot of people, a lot stopped, but some are still around: your Phillipe Amar, Mackrodt, Fred Constant…”
If Joseph missed out on the last month of the Versailles indoor skatepark, one of France watering holes of the Nineties when parks were rare, he soon got his first taste of the big dish lying so close but so far from him.

Switch Ollie

“First time was at le Dome! It was Winter, I remember, with my first skate friends from Versailles. It was a mission to get there. We were in a panic. It meant 30 minutes on the RER [suburban train system]. When you’re 12 or 13 and you take the RER on your own… [Laughs]. Its different when you live in Paris and you have all the spots around you…”
“I wasn’t going to Paris that much in the end, because it wasn’t that much better. And I had this whole crew in my area. They ended up