Talkin' With The Team #7 - Tyler Geurts

How old are you and who are you sponsored by?

A month shy of 30 years young. Sk8 Skates.

How long have you been on Sk8 Skates?

Something like 8 or 9 years total?

How did you get on the Sk8 Skates team?

By busting. I'd already filmed about five full video parts at the time, I was skating with my bros on the team everyday, and also skating in lots of Sk8 Skates demos.

What made you want to ride for Sk8 Skates?

It's been the best shop around since well before I ever stepped on a skateboard and all my bros have always rode for the shop. It was no question that I wanted to represent Sk8.

What’s the gnarliest trick to go down in Winnipeg?

Jimbo lipslide motel rail, Colin wallride Art Gallery, and Sascha kickflip into law courts bank, twice.

Who would you want to put on the team next?

Rosie and Kev. Cause they rule at both skateboarding and at being straight up awesome dudes. Plus Rosie was already on Sk8 for years and we still haven't been able to fill his void. We miss you being around more dawg.

*OPEN LETTER TO PEOPLE WHO WANT TO RIDE FOR SK8:

Leave the skatepark more often. Not to say you can never skate a park, that shit is super fun. But you've gotta make yourselves get out in the streets and kill yourselves trying your tricks. Film a few real street video parts. That's what we've always done. If you think you're Sk8 Skates material, but you've never even filmed a single part then start there. Not that you have to film a million parts, but just to give you some context, Colin, Cain, and I have EACH filmed at least 10 full video parts. That's hundreds of real street clips we killed ourselves for. You know how many thousands of hours that is? We've spent so much time going out trying to get tricks, and way more often than not we just end up getting super beat and not even landing our tricks, but we put in a fucking ton of work. Nobody is gonna give you anything for free, certainly not any undeserved cred or props. You've gotta earn that shit. So worry less about working on your steezy push and go to your local stair set and skate until you're bleeding, you can barely walk, and your board is broken. Then repeat daily. That's real-ass skateboarding and that's the kind of skateboarders that the Sk8 Skates team has always been comprised of.

Or don't do any of that. I mean fuck it, cause after all you're just playing with a kid's toy.

Favorite Winnipeg skateboarder?

Bill Acheson and Nick Serduletz.

Bill is a great example that you can get tech without having to skate slow and sloppy. Everything Bill does is fast and stomped. Watch any Bill part and you'll notice he does his tricks way better than any of us. But because he's been sidelined with serious injuries for the last handful of years Bill's had to settle for being an awesome filmer. It's pretty funny when the guy filming me try some piece of shit line for hours on end is so much better at skateboarding than me, and could have done my line in half the time while also flipping into all my tricks.

Despite the fact that he's technically a Kenoran, Nick is the gnarliest dude to ever skate the Winnipeg streets. Go to any gnarly spot, be it giant gap, handrail, or crusty whatever, and there's about a 90% chance that Jimbo has done the sickest trick there, if not the three sickest tricks. He's stepped to some of the sketchiest terrain that I've yet to see other people touch. The man frontside noseslid the Pan Am handrail immediately after slamming and legitimately breaking BOTH his fucking wrists!? I've never known anyone else who killed themselves for the love of the game like Nick has. Winnipeg Hall of Fame for sure.

Best Sk8 Skates memory?

There's a ton, every day I hang out and skate with these guys is awesome. But one that stands out was a million years ago at Sk8's old Pembina location, I was pretty young, probably like 17 or 18, and Bill was there. I'd seen him skate a bit before at the Edge, but that was the first time I'd met him. He was a real adult, a Sk8 Skates team dude, and the most genuinely nice guy with no attitude whatsoever. He invited me to go skating with him at library park that day and he destroyed it. He did a god damned switch nose blunt on the ledge that I was probably struggling to crooked grind.

Besides watching him obviously kill it on a board, it was great that Bill who was in a position to possibly "cool guy" me, some fucking kid, didn't do that at all. He was just down for skateboarding. These days I know I can come off as a real crotchety old asshole, so it's good that there's people like Bill in Winnipeg's skateboard scene for kids to look up to.

Tyler Geurts @tyler_geurts

Photos by Anders Homenick @friendshipfilms and Alex Doyle @alexdoyle