Tunnel Rick Blackhart Spring Valley Limited Reissue Deck

The World’s Most Beautiful Skateboard – The Tunnel Blackhart Model

The Tunnel Rick Blackhart Spring Valley Reissue Deck was available in 2014. It was a limited edition model with only 100 available. It retailed for $109.95.

Drilled with Old School Hole Pattern

THE HISTORY

Back in the ‘70s, a skateboarder from Northern California was blazing new ground in parks, pipes and pools. He rolled into pools. He rolled out of pools. He did things on a skateboard nobody had ever seen before. His name was Rick Blackhart, and he skated with reckless abandon and pure aggression.

Blackhart joined up with Tunnel. The Tunnel Team was filled with hardcore vert skaters. Blackhart and Tunnel joining up made perfect sense.

Blackhart was one of a kind. Brash. Outspoken. But unlike most other skaters, he was able to back up his words with action.

Rick Blackhart didn’t ride any old decks. He would design skateboards with his friend and fellow Tunnel Team member Kevin “KT” Thatcher. They would take solid alder, router out the sides, and leave a beam down the middle for strength. They created a skateboard deck with a perfect shape was as much art as it was skateboard.

The result – the most beautiful skateboard ever created, a namesake of the most radical of skaters. Stiff. Light. The Rick Blackhart Model. Tested and perfected in the Hester Pool Riding Series, the world’s first pool riding competition.

These hand-hewn Blackhart Models were put into production by Tunnel Products as the 8½” and 9½” Tunnel Rick Blackhart Models, and skaters around the world were able to ride the same chariot as Rick Blackhart.

Blackhart rode several colorways of his namesake deck. A natural version, showing the beauty of the alder. A black version, cool as &^%@! Finally, there were two multi-colored, pimped-out versions – black with red rails and black with yellow rails.

By reading an old 1978 Tunnel catalog, it was clear everyone knew this deck was as groundbreaking as Blackhart himself….

“This truly unique “Rick Blackhart” design is our competition model. It is constructed of solid alder and features full routing from tail to nose, for wheel clearance and lightness. Other features are full wide nose, extra wide wedge kicktail, a special signature logo.”

NEW BLACKHART MODEL

After 35 years, Tunnel Products is coming out with a limited series of hand-made, solid alder 8½” reissues true to the original.

These are not cheap quickie reissues, but hand-made in the USA with screen printed, not heat-transferred graphics. They are made by another legend in the world of skateboarding, craftsman LongBoardLarry of Oregon.

Larry is a true artist with 15 years of experience making skateboards in Oregon. His factory does not stamp out standard, cookie-cutter decks. Each product is hand-made with care and precision. Larry took this project seriously, making sure the new Tunnel Rick Blackhart Models are worthy of the skater who killed it for Tunnel before designing the Blackhart Wheels, helping develop Independent Trucks and ruining children everywhere with his Ask the Doctor column in Thrasher Magazine.

The new Blackhart reissue comes with the same colorway as the original. They are stamped with a die showing the serial number for each deck. The colorways are named after the skate spots where Rick first skated on that version of the deck.

“The Spring Valley” Natural Wood Grain – 100 total