The first pro model out of Minnesota... Alva's Justin Lynch. Graphics by Judd P.

Justin Lynch was by far the most powerful skateboarder I'd ever known. He just never stopped. I got to know Justin early on and am still amazed at his abilities. He was the first professional skateboarder to come out of Minnesota and hit the pro scene hard and fast. Keep in mind that this was in the early 90's and vert skating was still the shit. So I'd go skate with Justin and Dave LeRoux, who soon followed Justin and turned pro for SMA, and these two guys were among the top skaters in the world.

Justin is the type of person that can't stand not being able to do something. He'd go fucking nuts if he couldn't land a trick. And that was rare. He'd string together runs that could seriously still contend today. Even if you were the only one skating with him he'd snake you just to get in another run. That's just the way he skated. I saw him get so pissed at himself one time that he didn't just break his board, he walked over to a circular saw and cut his board into pieces.

I'll shut up in a second but I sometimes think back when Justin learned ollies to fakie on vert. I shit you not when I say I've never seen anyone before or since do that trick higher. He would pop off the coping and muscle through a face high ollie to fakie. One day I asked him if he ever tried one footed ollies. He just looked down at his board, probably snaked me, and did a one footed ollie to fakie that was five feet high if it was an inch.

Anyway, I miss skating with Justin. Between him, LeRoux and Woody I got to grow up skating with my skate idols. Here are some old pics & text from Justin with some stories for each. If you don't know your past, you don't know your future.

Gullwing Photo: Was taken in the spring of 1990 at a YMCA. I was skating with Matt Moffit an up and coming AM skater at the time. The ramp had 6 inches of vert so I practically hung or clinked on the way in of all of these tricks.

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The Poweredge Cover shot Was the very last issue of this Magazine before it went out of print. I was interviewed the same day of this shoot for a full spread but the company went into the Red and I blew out my back running into Ben Schroeder a week later. This was a funny session it was on the G&S training ramp for Remy Stratton and all G&S riders. The owner of the ramp was a G&S groupie and came out screaming at me to get the Fuck off of his ramp and started throwing a basketball at me while I tried fast plant fakies off of the extension of pool coping. Notice my swollen face due to snowboarding in 65 degree weather the day before with Christian Hosoi (In Prison) Gator (In prison for Murder) and Dave Swift now chief editor of Transworld. I never knew snow could burn you; hey I’m from fucking Minnesota that never happens!!! This used to be an alternative to Thrasher and Transworld and was an awesome magazine.

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The New School D- Add was in 1991 in the winter at the Twin Cities Skate Oasis- Now the 3rd Lair. The ramp at this time was 40 feet wide. This is a Backside Air to Fakie Not a Stale Fish. *As a footnote, that's me (your editor) standing under Justin in this pick. Nice sweatpants.

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Fort Wayne Frontside Air

This was a cool contest With Dave Leroux, Mike Crum, Eric Froland, Chris Gentry all AMs at the time. The Ramp was Metal and it was 95 degrees, you fall you burn exposed skin. This was back in the H-Street Era. The Coolest tricks back then was revert everything now thought of as weak. There was no revert anything on this ramp of un-painted metal.

*I didn't get a photo for this paragraph but figured I'd add it anyway...