Baseline

New Baseline Store Launch

Baseline — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:28:18 +0000

Baseline officially opened its new store on Kloof Street 1 May. We built the new store in just over a week, which meant a mammoth amount of work, late nights and beers.

People stepped in to help it along and extra thanks need to go to all Baseline staff, Justin Leslie, Pieter Retief, JJ Harris, Hughes and the rest.

Naturally we had a little bash to celebrate.

Battle Of The Benches 2013.

Baseline — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 13:52:44 +0000

In the year that has passed since the first ‘Battle of the Benches’ we’ve constantly had people coming into the shop asking when the next one will be. Well we just did Battle of the Benches 2.

It was kept somewhat under the radar because the format is not really conducive to extremely large groups (the high probability ‘bust’ factor that occurs whenever skateboarders hit the streets). Nevertheless, word spread fairly quickly the day before the event and it ended up being way bigger than last time.

The format:

2 teams drawn at random from an adidas shoe box

2 filmers, Joubert van Staden in team 1 and JJ Harris in team 2

2 Baseline Benches (each team gets a bench)

4 hours to make the best possible edit on the streets of Cape Town

Additional challenges:

We came up with a list of spot, trick and wildcard challenges that each team could complete whilst voyaging through the city. They were not compulsory but rather just a way to keep it interesting and possibly earn some Baseline vouchers. Team coordinators kept each team on course to complete challenges within the designated time and at specific locations (Team 1 captained by Pieter Retief and Team 2 captained by Luke Jackson). Each challenge has a monetary value of R50 in gift vouchers attached to it. The MVP (Most Valued Person) in each team will claim the vouchers.

Challenge checklist:

Spot Challenges:

1. Civic: Do any grind to grind / slide combo on the big orange sculpture across the manny pad to the bench or vice versa.

2. Thibault Square: Do any wallie to grind / slide combo off the sculpture.

3. Thibault Square: Do any grind / slide trick up the bench up the 4 stairs (no 50’s!).

4. Two Step: Do any Ollie over to grind / slide combo over the wheelchair ramp rail to the bench.

5. Clarke’s Bowl: Do a line with the bench in “Your Mom’s” bowl.

Trick Challenges:

1. Hit the bench into or out of a wallride.

2. Hippie jump (board to board) the length of the bench.

3. Stand the bench up on its side by a set of stairs or a drop and ‘nose bonk’ the leg.

4. Do any no-comply trick on the bench.

5. Double 50 grinds from opposite directions on each side of the bench (both on the bench at the same time).

Wild Card Challenges:

1. Make out with a stranger on the bench.

2. Do any trick naked on the bench.

We also changed up how it all began. When skateboarders arrived at the shop on Saturday afternoon the benches weren’t here. Team 1′s bench was placed at Civic Centre with adidas & Baseline team rider Khulu Dlamini and Team 2′s bench was placed at Thibault Square with adidas & Baseline team rider Yann Horowitz. Each team was given a photo of where their bench was waiting and they had to bomb down into town to find it.

It was somewhat chaotic but hey that’s skateboarding, DIY and adaptable. Friends who missed the start joined various teams as they finished work. Some managed to spend time with both teams. Various young kids skated around watching the teams go about their battle.

We had run-ins with security guards but just moved on to the next spots when there were issues. Not everyone got clips in the end as we cut it short by about half an hour when it got very dark and one enormous crew had formed on Loop Street. Most attendees got clips though and everyone cruised the city together. We all bombed down Long Street with our benches and arrived back at Baseline where adidas skateboarding provided free beers for all!

Team 1 photos by Sam Clark and Team 2 photos by Jansen van Staden.

Team 1

Team 2

Team 1 – Filmed and edited by Joubert van Staden

Team 2 – Filmed and edited by Jess James Harris

Vote for your favourite edit and let us know who you thought the MVP in each team was by commenting below. The MVP in each team will receive the Baseline vouchers that each team earned while completing the given challenges.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Koston Golf.

Baseline — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:38:55 +0000

Nike SB Koston 2 IT Quickstrike Golf Shoe

Only 12 pairs in Africa, exclusively available at Baseline.

Koston doesn’t just kill it on a skateboard, he’s pretty damn good at golf too. Nike SB have just released his first limited edition golf shoe and we’ve got it.

The launch included a real working putt-putt course made up of mini-size recreations of famous skate spots. No half measures for Nike SB.

Check out the link below for pics and a full rundown of the LA launch: “Click”

2 DA ROOTS

Baseline — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 09:07:16 +0000

The guys over at Nebula have put together an awesome event happening at the Gugulethu Sports Complex.

“The objectives of the event is to introduce skateboarding to Gugulethu and to get support from the community to have a skatepark built at the Gugulethu Sports Complex.” Sounds good to me.

Baseline will be giving out some prizes at the event also check out the events details here.

If your’e interested in joining in on the fun here’s the registration page.

See you there!

Glassy Sunhaters

Baseline — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 13:53:15 +0000

So you know Mike Mo, right?

The dude started a sunglasses company with his brother called Glassy and now Baseline stocks them.

The list of team riders on this brand is longer than my arm with skaters like Sean Malto, Guy Mariano, Daewon Song, Cory Kennedy, Rick Howard, Stefan Janoski, Riley Hawk, Jaws, Brandon Biebel, Jeron Wilson, Nyjah Huston, Matt Miller, Jose Rojo, Kenny Anderson, Brian Anderson, Dan Drehobl, Mike Mo Capaldi, Mikey Taylor, Davis Torgerson, Mango, David Loy and Shawn Hale.

This is the range we currently have…

MIKE MO – SIGNATURE SUNHATER POLARIZED (R349)

DAEWON – SIGNATURE SUNHATER (R299)

MALTO – SIGNATURE SUNHATER (R299)

JANOSKI – SIGNATURE SUNHATER (R299)

Haroshi Print LTD (R299)

LEONARD – WHITE RED-BLUE MIRROR LENS (R250)

LEONARD – BLACK RED FADE (R250)

LEONARD – BLACK (R250)

HALFY – BLUE BLACK (R250)

DERIC – WOOD (R250)

DERIC – WHITE SILVER MIRROR (R250)

DERIC – BLACK BLUE MIRROR (R250)

Team Edition II Now R699!

Baseline — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 14:02:05 +0000

If you know us then you know we’ve got Nike SBs but not everyone can afford them so we’ve dropped the price on our Team Editions to R699 so that everybody can enjoy that SB freshness.

(Click on the shoe and check out our online store)

Nike SB Team Edition (gorge green/white/black)

Nike SB Team Edition (black/white)

Nike SB Team Edition (anthracite/field brown/sail/black)

Don’s Pics Of The Week

Baseline — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 13:38:21 +0000

We often go rolling around Cape Town after work, around town and into the suburbs to places like Claremont. Donovyn has a Canon film camera and is always shooting random pics. Here are a few of his skate-related photos. Check out Don’s blog to see more of his photos.

Khulu – Kickflip (Downtown)

Adrian – Powerslide (Bridge over Buitengracht)

Khulu – Gap Ollie (Thibault Square)

Loucas – Tailslide pop out (Kloof Nek)

Khulu – Bin to gap wallie (Thibault Square)

Luke – Fakie 360 flip (Downtown)

Justin – Ollie (Thibault Square)

Kanya – Pole Jam front 180 (Claremont)

Baseline 2012 Xmas party

Baseline — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 10:06:18 +0000

December is always a wash with year end functions. From office parties in restaurants to ‘amazing race’ type events designed to boost employee satisfaction. We’re a skate shop so we weren’t about to have our Xmas party in just a random restaurant. We wanted to go skateboarding. We got the whole crew together at the shop after work on Saturday afternoon, piled into cars and drove up to Langebaan. The crew consisted of Adrian, Clint, Warwick, Donovyn, Luke, Khulu, Pieter, Justin, Darren and Loucas. Kanya was away on an Element trip and Yann was at some hippy festival so we subbed in Mark Donaldson and Joubert van Staden to keep the roster at 12.

It was as hot as hell but we managed to skate Langebaan’s fun little concrete park for a couple hours before heading to our backpackers for the evening (near the Saldanha Bay turn-off). This is where the actual party went down! We had a bunch of rooms with bunk beds and a kitchen but we spent the whole time around our fire pit in the woods. A veggie barbecue was followed by wizard staffs and naturally the night descended into drunken debauchery.

We had 5 wizards at the end of the night: Loucas, Khulu, Joubert, Pieter and Darren.

However, the real story of the night was Darren. His staff was at neck height when we ran out of beers and he wasn’t about to lose out on wizard status so he decided to attach a bottle of red wine to his staff and ended up going full-retard!

The hangover squad pulled itself together the following day and headed back to the Langebaan park to skate in the heat for a few hours. Adrian and Mark drank more, Darren was passed out on a mattress and the rest of us sweated in the park.

Finally, we hit the beach briefly and drove back to Cape Town on Sunday evening.

Big thanks to Clint for organising everything from food and drinks to shooting photos and making sure everyone actually survived!

Dennis Busenitz.

Baseline — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:57:55 +0000

The Busenitz Pro has become an instant classic from adidas Skateboarding. With Busenitz on his consistent path of high speed skateboard destruction, adidas have just released two new additions. The Busenitz Vulc and the Busenitz Advanced.

We’ll have them in-store very soon!

Until then check out this new Busenitz clip in which he bangs lines across some of Europe’s finest cities:

The Family.

Baseline — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 11:35:47 +0000

Baseline is not just a retail shop, it’s a group of like-minded individuals who collectively form a skateboard family. We don’t just sell skate products, we cruise the streets of Cape Town together, go on trips and more often than not end up partying together after skateboarding. Owners, staff and team riders – Meet the Baseline family!

(Yann wasn’t in town the day we shot the photo but he comes through with a banger in the video!)