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Okay, you got us! We're not big on keeping you apprised at all our activity. Chock it up to spending our daily days staying on our boards. We session daily, usually by lunchtime we've hit a few spots. Then everyone hits stuff as work and life allow on the second half of the day...

First up, we have developed a flow-level for new riders on fickle. We're building our crew now, and just got back from a 5 day road trip south on 75. These trips are about getting to know each other, even more than they are about marketing Fickle. We visit with locals and shops and stuff, but our focus is on Jelling as a crew. We have three riders on this intro-level, and are looking forward to adding some or all of them to our "team", soon.

next, there are a lot of shops that have expressed levels of support for Fickle. We set 20 shop contacts as our goal for the year, back in January. As of now, we have that and more. These are shops that have said, "yeah, we'll put you on the wall and see if people want you..." not shops that are drinking the Fickle Cool-Aid.

Response to our boards is stellar. They are simply the highest quality wood that you'll find in a lot of areas. Even locally, companies and shops tend to go with wood shops that source their materials from lower-quality vendors. Sadly, the whole wall in some skateshops we visit is covered with wood from non-domestic sources. In one shop in particular we noticed that every single board in the shop was non-domestic! That means made in china or south of the border. Fickle was the only domestic product. And the quality difference is evident.

Matt Simpson just spent a week skating in California. You know matt. He's the broken foot five posts or so down. he's a ripper and we're too busy skating to show you. You go rip some yourself and you'll end up like matt, if you don't wuss out and quit--He's 35 years old and has kids and a wife and everything and still holds it down with beanplant-fakies on vert. Suck it.

anyway, the rippers in Cali went WILD about our 8.5 board. they are ordering from us direct! Do you know how rad it feels to have all this hate going down on you for being new and different--Cincinnati telling you you're a freak, while California is beating on your door for your product? Oh yeah, and by "cincinnati" we mean only the ONE shop of the five relatively local core shops. This shop bills itself as the beating heart of Cincinnati skateboarding--okaaaay. ...beating a dead horse, maybe.

You can sell some wack fashion image of what skateboarding is, or you can sell great quality product, put together in a fully-domestic operation, with a proper local HQ... No matter what brand of sneakers you wear, local is better, domestic is better, cheaper is better, and BETTER is better. By a sheer accident of getting tired of skating punky, cheap wood, We ended up covering all the bases.
Local
Domestic
cheaper
Better.

No matter what kind of wood you want to skate, get out there and skate! Don't line up. Push the limits. Build on strength. progress. Don't show off--grow. And don't let anyone push you around, telling you that you don't wear the right clothes, or have the right hair. Don't let a jock mentality skate-jock you into "Jock Law" living... That'll end up with you as some industry cog. Don't be a cog. Think about what YOU like and live with that. And give wood that lasts a try. Don't settle for less than what you want and who you really are becoming...