As part of our Old School box we were proud to include the Tummy Stick Rails by Enjoi.
Let’s start with a bit of history for the younger ones among us: in the early and mid 80’s almost every skateboarder used board rails. Some of the old rats even argue that “it was considered more punk/hardcore to not use rails, for example none of the Alva guys had them”. The rails went out of fashion in the early 90’s and from there we haven’t really experienced any comeback… until now.
enjoi Tummy Stick Rails
There are basically two main reasons for using rails: it feels way better for your board slides (and we can tell these ones slide very well) and it’s nice for grabs. You have to keep in mind the rationale behind them: back in the days, skateboarders were mostly sliding some concrete coping (and you can imagine that pool coping was not as smooth as the angle iron and waxed granite curbs we have nowadays).
But try for yourself. Put the rails on and everything will feel slick. And like Louie Barletta told us himself in one of our discussions, “we here at enjoi are all about fun, fun, fun!! Caswell knows there’s nothing more fun than slappin’ on a set of enjoi tummy sticks rails and getting down with some long slick board slides!”
We quickly caught up with enjoi rider Didrik Gallaso to understand why he seems to be so in love with his board rails. Slide on, k.
In most of the pics I’ve seen, you have some boards rails, do you always skate with them or is it just sometimes?
I always skate with them, never gonna take them off! I’m in love 🙂
When did you start using rails?
I think I’ve been skating rails now for around 6 months straight.
And how did you start? Tell us the story. Was it due to someone in particular, or out of curiosity or…?
I can’t really remember, but I think I just started skating them since it looked really cool and seemed like a lot of fun sliding real good and you don’t really need to wax anything, you can pretty much boardslide anything 🙂
Didrik Galasso
What’s the main reason you keep skating with them now?
The main reason is that it’s so much fun boardsliding with them and you can grab your board real good.
If you had to convince a kid right now to give it a try, what would you say to her/him?
That she/he is gonna have a lot of fun with them, that you can slide forever! The graphic is always fresh 🙂 And you can always take them off.
Do you get some bad jokes from other people? Like they’re laughing at you or something?
No not really, I mean they don’t even know what they are missing out on!
Caswell Berry
Would you say that board rails are making a comeback? Like getting hype again?
I feel like they getting a little hype right now, I can see a lot of people are trying it out, there will always be a place for them 🙂
Thanks Deedz!
Cover image: Didrik Galasso. Photo: Alex Papke