Nicolas Eustache.

October 02, 2007 @ 11:02 AM

If you follow this thing through the glossy pages of mass-produced society studying magazines such as Teen Vogue, The Source of Men’s Health, you know where the greatest skateboarders come from. The inner city, the downtown scene or, even better, the rawest suburbs the metropolis has to offer. Well, sometimes…
But skateboarding can actually live an enjoyable and healthy life in the wilds. Or, at least, outside the city limits. And Nico is just one example out of many that do the shred, in places no media would never dare to stop at, unless they got a flat tire on the way back from the Big Comp.

Nicolas picked up skateboarding in a town of 5,000 a bit beyond the Paris city limit. Yes, the countryside. But, then again, at the end of the 80’s, he had a concrete dish/bowl to learn to roll, and a giant school parking lot to top it off.
“Every Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday, people would bring their obstacles. When you wanted to skate the bar, you had to call Michel. When you wanted to skate the spine, you had to call Jean-Claude [laughter]… I must have been ten years old. I’d get there at 10 in the morning, and would probably leave at eleven at night, during summer. I don’t remember eating- it was just skating.”

Those idyllic times lasted about three years, until some life changes happened. Moving a few kilometres away can mean a lot when you don’t have a car.