Gabriel Gwynne

Name: Gabriel Gwynne
AKA: Gabe, Super Gromitt
Current Sponsors: Fishing, gabephotobro

Disclaimer: These pages have been maintained to celebrate the OG Hopkin Skate Team 2006 - 2013. If any information (current sponsorships) needs updating, please let us know, if you want this page taken down please contact Hop.

 

The photo above, sums up Gabe, and reminds me of a lot of fun times at the original Hopshop.

Gabe was the original grom on the Hopkin Team, we use to call him the Super Grommit. The most striking thing about Gabe, was he was a total original and stayed true to who he was, no matter the pressure we put on him. I didn't have any favourites in the team, but Gabe would come close.

Gabe was from Coogie, the valley of gnar. I can not remember when we met, or how, all the stories are bluring into one, but it would have been his stand out skating that made me take notice. I was into racing, he was into skating. Gabe could do things on a board that others could not, basically every type of slide possible, that was unusual back then. I think it was from skating big hills, with lots of traffic in the eastern suburbs, the need to slow down or stop at T intersections at the bottom of steep hills.

I saw that talent, and imagined we could make him into this super star downhill racer. And much to Gabe's credit, he did race, I don't think his heart was in it, and many people that know Gabe now would be laughing at the thought of Gabe lining up in a leather suit, putting on the race face, and battling to be first down the bottom of the hill. That is just not Gabe, he was always styling, sliding and last down the hill, but having the most fun.

Gabe was the soul of the Hopkin team. Everything he did was out of a love of skateboarding. I always felt it was never a sport for Gabe, but an art form.

Hop's favourite Gabe stories 

First is the grom board. Gabe found a plank of wood in the old Hopshop, it really was like a piece of fence paling. It had  grooves on one side, which made it grippy. He then found trucks and wheels, and made the grom board. The skateboard lived in the shop for a long time, and would always come out when Gabe was around for crazy skating in the neighbourhood. Gabe's other early talent was flat spotting wheels. We use to keep a range of evaluation boards for customers to try. Gabe was notorious for taking these boards out and flatspotting the wheels. To his credit he did try and fix the flatspots, by just sliding them more. He'd come back with a board and say, the wheels aren't flatspotted anymore! I'd look at them and think, no they are just cored :-)!!

When I think about Gabe on the team, I think about the emails I would get when he travelled. Gabe's has got the gift of writing, if there was one complaint, I'd always want him writing more. When he travelled, he would send me these emails about his adventures, events or new products he had found. They were always so well written, and usually all I did was copy and paste them on the blog. 

What Gabe excels at more than skating is filming, video edits and photography. He edited one of my favourite Hopkin videos Grom Bomb, and at the time I did a blog post and said this is who we are:

The Grom Bomb from Hopkin Skate on Vimeo.

 

What see what Gabe is up to now? Check out his instagram