GX1000

GX1000 didn’t start as a board company. It started as a video series. Around 2008 Ryan Garshell was filming San Francisco for Slap Magazine’s website, and the name comes from his surname crossed with the Sony VX1000, the camera half a century of street footage was shot on. The clips were never about impossible tricks — they were about riding down the city’s hills at a speed that hurts to watch. The boards and the clothing came much later.

History

The push from video series to actual company came from Stephen McClintock, a longtime friend who suggested Garshell put out product to go with the edits. Per the 2024 Hypebeast Magazine interview, the first tees land around 2014, and McClintock has handled design and production since. Thrasher was already posting GX edits in 2014 — “Living in the Bay” in March, “Road Kill” in July — and 2015 brought trips to Chile and Taiwan.

April 2016 is the founding moment: “The GX1000 Video” premieres at The Chapel in San Francisco and, five days later, at the Sunshine Cinema in New York. That same May, the Habitat x GX1000 collab decks drop. In 2018 came “Roll Up”, and Thrasher ran a print feature on the crew, “Urethane in the Membrane”, shot by Zaslavsky, Palozzolo and Mehring riding down the hills alongside them.

In 2022 they released “Right Here for Pablo”, a full-length made by the friends and family of Pablo “Spliff” Ramirez, a crew member who passed away and who now has a foundation in his name. In January 2025 SFMOMA programmed 40 minutes of Garshell’s footage plus a talk with curator Adrian Martinez — not many skate brands end up in a modern art museum.

The crew

Garshell deliberately keeps rider names off the screen, so GX publishes no official roster. Going by Thrasher’s credits, the classic era runs through Jake Johnson, Brian Delatorre, Al Davis, Ben Gore, Yonnie Cruz, Stevie Perez, Marius Syvanen, Tony Manfre, Andrew Torralvo, Taylor Nida, Sean Greene, Matt Finley and even Mark Gonzales. The recent videos (Bilbao and Vigo, Japan, “Yabai”, Colombia) are carried by Eddie Cernicky, Nile Gibbs, Jeff Carlyle, Zack Krull, Robby Bootes, Chris Athans, JP Escobar, Taihou “T4” Tokura and Germany’s Willow Voges Fernandes.

Boards and clothing

GX makes popsicle decks and four apparel collections a year, with graphics by artists like Jonathan Yarolem and Joe Roberts (LSD Worldpeace). The catalogue is small and the pace is that of an independent: what you’re really buying is a stake in a project that has spent twenty years documenting one specific city.

Who it’s for

Anyone who has seen the videos and wants the board because of them. This isn’t a brand with dozens of shapes or steady European stock, and the graphics tend to be plain. If you need a specific width and guaranteed availability, start with the sizing guide and then the full deck catalog.