#TBT Wade Speyer Dedication

Wade Speyer came from the same school of skateboarding as Alan Peterson, John Cardiel, and Phil Shao. 90s pros that were less focused on coaxing their boards into flips and dips than were on barging everything in their path, personal welfare be damned. Here’s Wade’s part from Think’s Dedication (1998), and you should notice a couple of things: There doesn’t look to be much in the way of 100th try makes happening here, just Wade out ripping the way he ripped. And from vert to spine mini to street to park, Wade could manhandle it all. It should be noted that the 90s weren’t a fertile time for the ATV ripper, so anyone who got anywhere with the approach was beyond cutting edge. I feel like Wade sort of missed his window by being born 20 years too soon. -Paul Zitzer