My thoughts on a few subjects.

Over on the fuzion forums someone asked what a TIC rat is, the following is my response, and a response to some questions Nextsport asked.

basically, a lil scooter kid who goes to TIC everyday, and is more likely to learn backflips and briflips before learning double tailwhips. They also do wayy too many briflips and flyout tricks. Usually have day videos with really gross and sketchy riding, and terrible music. Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvZWCFbrMQM&feature=related


"are double tailwhips considered harder to learn/do than backflips and briflips? just curious. In your opinion, what is the "best" or "hardest" trick on a scooter? or is it not about tricks, but more your style of riding that's categorized as good or bad? thanks for your input." - Nextsport

no, double tailwhips are like one of the basic tricks every rider should learn. Backflips used to be a sick trick, like it would get you on Razor back in the day, but now...a plain flip, especially flyout, is something nobody wants to see.

there cannot be a "best" or "hardest" trick on scooters. the sport is ever progressing, and what was not thought possible yesterday is being thrown with a late whip, or early barspin today. These days, for a majority of people, it is about style. Pete Pachota sums it up with this comic strip: http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/2584/progression.jpg

Personally, I don't think doing "style" tricks such as tables, inverts, tuck no handers, etc, makes you stylish. Being stylish involves making what you do look natural, like you are part of the scooter. Or just making it look good.

I am also more of a trick-oriented person. I would rather see a tech grind combo (ie, matt mckeen doing 270 back board) than someone boost a turndown 6 feet out of a quarter.

Which brings me to another thing- street versus park. IMO park has been way overdone in scooter videos, rarely am i impressed by a park video nowadays. Instead, I prefer watching and riding street. Street forces you to be more creative, to look at things differently than you would in a park, where everything's just laid out for you. Street videos just tend to be more original and fun to watch. Street is what gets the respect from outsiders to the sport. If a skater sees a scooter rider do doublewhip over a pyramid, they probably wouldn't be impressed. But if he sees him do that doublewhip over a 6 set, he'll probably give the scooter rider some props.

/endrant.