Nicolas Eustache.

October 02, 2007 @ 12:02 PM

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.
“Plus my friends were seventeen, eighteen. I was twelve. They all left with girls! And it was the beginning of the rave era. We lost a few.”
All this led to more changes in Nico’s life: “skating on your own is impossible…”
If he wasn’t skateboarding, Nicolas never forgot about the magic, and waited for something to happen, maybe.
“And then, at the end of high school, some guy came to me: ‘I heard you can skate, I want to try it!’ I have no idea where he got that from; I would never speak about it [laughs]. I got motivated again with that guy. And I met all the guys I still skate with on Sundays. They all got a bit of a belly now, but they still rip.”
Boards shapes were changing, tricks were too, and Nico was thrilled by it all: “When I quit, it was all about Powell Peralta, when I came back, the boards only said Powell! I though Peralta might have died; I even started with a board from a brand I never heard of, a Mad Circle that must have been 7’2, because it was so thin.”
And as if starting again was not enough, this second chance came with a surprise.

“It was like this strange click: for three years I had that desire, and when it came, I had developed some calves and grown up. I was skating completely differently. Thats when I started to try to pop my tricks as high as I could. It was 1995.”
Nico has since gotten famous in France for his major pop. This led to eventually getting sponsored, but never changed much of his life. It was all about the local scenes getting together at the local skatepark, and gathering to explore the world.
“We were all skating together. We were going on holidays together. When one got his license, he took everybody with him. He does all the driving and all, but he’s enjoying it nonetheless.”

Driving around France, meeting people and slowly growing up also meant craving for new things.

“It started as a drunken talk: ‘hey, but you’re doing business school. And you’re studying design, and, you, you are sponsored!’ It was a joke until one said: ‘Oh, I just found out how to create a company!’ and another goes: ‘Well, I just designed some boards…’ and me: ‘I know a shop that’d be interested.’ So, we ended up doing it.”

With Benjamin Penon, Aurélien Meynié and Tristan Badoual, Nico started Rare skateboards in 2002, a company that has gone through all the ups and down of small skateboarding businesses to slowly carve its little niche- to some extent…
“It never generated money… I make 357 Euros a month —working in a skateshop, close to where I live. You might wonder how it’s possible to live with so little. But I don’t have rent to pay, I inherited a place, so I can make do! I live with less than if I was claiming welfare, but working 50 hours a week [laughter]”
Nico is now the only one running Rare, with design help from Tristan who now works full time at Publicis, a big advertising agency.
“The connection between all of us has been replaced by the riders’ motivation”
Because this is what makes Rare skateboards alive in those hard times: a team that travels all over, even, and mostly, to those countryside plastic skateparks, and films videos that are worth a look or two. In other words, following Nico’s idea of a good time. And, if you want to find out about them, have a look at:
rareskatenews
But only expect real life events on this one. Because, at the end of the day, skateboarding does not need much extra gloss to shine, does it!?

“What I really like, when you go on a trip, or to spot to film a trick, is that potential for unlikely things to happen. I live in the countryside, the same things always happen. But you know that if you give a bit of time to a certain place that you don’t know, something will happen. That’s part of skateboarding. Something always happens. When you get back home, you tell about the tricks, but mostly you speak about what came with it: ‘And then, the bus load of Portuguese footballers bought us a drink!’ That’s probably my favourite part of skateboarding.”

Nicolas Eustache ride for Rare skateboards, Globe shoes, Skatecrew hardware and Woodland skateshop.