Guillaume Dulout
November 16, 2007 @ 3:28 PM
What makes a skateboarder enjoyable to watch? The ability to adapt to any terrain, the desire to try any terrain, or the selection of terrains he chooses in the end?
What makes Guillaume Dulout a good skateboarder is all of the above, spiced up with technical mastership. Now you would think he might have grown up in some large town, slaloming through traffic all the way to some good cement park where he polished his transition skills. Well, not really…
“I come from a small village close to the Pyrenees on the South of France. Friends who already skated gave me the desire to try, but here I was standing with my rollers, just like an idiot! I had to wait for six months before I could get a board, and when I started, I just couldn’t stop. I had to refrain for so long, I got super focused on trying to roll over everything with that piece of wood under my feet. I was 14.”
Guillaume pushed that green ATM Click until it finally gave up. He was hooked, and angry…
“When you live in the countryside, there’s always the notion of distance to take in. Everything is a bit more complicated, when you are 20 km away from a smooth path of macadam… You need a vehicle! So you deal with skating shitty spots and finding equipment. Thanks god, it’s a lot easier now for the beginners, with Internet…”
For Guillaume and his friends, it would be many years of skating a deserted tennis court, where they could do as they pleased. Somehow growing up in that environment neither killed his motivation, nor narrowed his views on skateboarding.
“When I started I had neither ledges nor transitions. More like rough spots, with no run-up and shitty ground. I learned to adapt to what was under my wheels. I like to skate everything, really.
I was chilling with the cows. But, I wasn’t eating herbs like them… Not too much money, so I would build things to skate or just skate what was in the streets. There was no park…”
Building obstacles for the tennis court would come to an end, as bigger goals started to get closer:
‘I knew that moving to a big city was mandatory to live my passion, and I think that even motivated me to graduate, in order to leave my small town. I did all I could to do my Graphic Design studies in Bordeaux. I even managed to change academy, thanks to the kindness of the director of my local council, who pulled some strings for me. That avoided me finishing my studies in Massif Central [a rather deserted area of France that is far being urbanized! NDR]!”
Guillaume, then, moved from a village to a big town, which once had quite a reputation for skateboarding, and then was going through a renaissance type of phase. This is where he expended as a skateboarder and even got involved in the local board company, Lyrics skateboards. Riding for them and helping doing some design for them until the company died a couple years ago, Guillaume has since established his name in France as a versatile skater, that never get twice the same type of photo or line. He still lives in Bordeaux, enjoying its newest offers.
‘The Bordeaux scene is amazing at the moment! Many spots got build along the lines of the new tramway. And a new park with its own skateboard classes has got kids picking up skateboarding and old timers coming out again. The Octopus association is organizing many small comps. We’re having fun, and a good share of the kids is into skating the streets, so we all skate together. There isn’t much clans, rally…
I don’t teach any class at the park, because I don’t think that’s really me. I don’t see skateboarding as an activity that you need to train for, but more as a way to express yourself. But to each his own, I respect that, also.”
“Well, I’m 26 now which puts me in the group of grumpy old men that don’t understand the point of sliding a handrail over more and more stairs!”
The good things for him is, first he got a lot more skills than your next-door handrail champ, but also recently got to visit one of his dream destination, getting the insider treatment sometimes only skateboarders can give.
“Well, I’ve been in touch with Nozbone in Paris who does the distribution for 5Boro and they asked me to come along for a trip to meet the team. Since, they had come to France last year, it was our turn to pay a visit to their city. It was great to skate with all this guys that I’ve been following for years, through videos. Their style of skating has been a great influence, I must admit.
I would recognize my own situation in their style of skating, having to adapt and evolve in environments that were not meant to be skated. That’s why I have always been drawn to the East Coast scene more. Enjoying the atmosphere of New York, and the kindness of the local was even greater, therefore.”
Now riding for 5Boro, and back in Bordeaux, what odes he make of this trip?
“New Yorkers deserve their reputation of being 4x4, when you see some of the spots. They are just skaters, very far from the West Coast big industry…
It’s cool to meet skaters from somewhere else, because on top of sharing a passion, it’s enlightening to find out about other ways to skate, over visions, over paths…”
And, now, what!?
“Good question! The dole… Hmm, Joker!”
The truth is you’ll probably see more of Guillaume Dulout, doing the unexpected on some new spot, soon, and that’s all you and him could care about.
Guillaume rides for DVS Shoes (dist.), Redsand Clothing (dist.), 5Boro skateboards and Workshop skateshop. He would like to thank Franck, Olive, Mathiew, Antoine and Luidgi for it.
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