story

My name is Seb, and I'm from Riot Skateshop in Bordeaux. I've been running this skateshop for the last 20 years

The skatepark is right here, and this is Riot Skateshop. I opened the skateshop 20 years ago as a boardsport store. A few years later, it became exclusively focused on skateboarding, and that's when the name 'Riot' came about.

It's a social place for people to come to. You see kids growing up—12-year-olds starting skateboarding, and 20 years later, some are in their 30s with kids of their own. You follow their lives through skateboarding.

The skate community is really, really big in Bordeaux. The city is small, so you can really feel there are a lot of people skating. We've been working with Nike for 15 years. One day, we got a phone call: 'We want to make a shoe with you and the store.

Back in 1997, I started Cliché Skateboards to push European skateboarders. Nowadays, we have to support our local skateshops.

It's really great that Nike brings a shoe to a skateshop. I'm the delivery man, and I'm pretty much always at the shop. He's become a very good friend of mine because of my love for shoes.

In a skateshop, you always have to find what's next and what's going to be important. Don't follow trends—just catch them at the store, then move on to the next thing. It's a great feeling having a dog at the shop. It creates a good connection with the people.

I've been skating for Nike for 8 years. Here in Bordeaux, everything is like a plaza. It's so welcoming for skating, and everything happens naturally—you don’t have to force anything. There is actually skate tourism in Bordeaux.

You can see plenty of groups of people in the summer, coming from all over Europe, Japan, and the States, just because they've seen Bordeaux in videos and want to skate. Skateboarding is my life. You want to be part of a community.

The shop is doing a collab. It's cool that they're doing all this. We've been skating around the city all day. It seems like there's a really tight skateboarding scene.

They found it interesting to have a girl on their skate team, so they decided to support me by filming together and collaborating. Many of the guys who work here, I’ve known since they were teenagers.

Seb is really, really nice to everyone, so I think I got lucky. He’s done a lot for all of us. Even for skateboarding in Bordeaux, he's a great person. It’s nice; yeah, I consider them part of the family for sure.

It changed my life, so thank you, skateboarding!

Talking Shop

Riot Skateshop