Nico Cook and the Farside crew

What can I say about Nico? I’ve known him for half of my life. For me, he’s a teacher. He’s not trying to teach me anything in particular. It’s simply his attitude about life and the clarity with which he sees things. Nothing is complicated with him. He is a very important person for me. I’ve grown a lot, in skateboarding as well as in life, since I’ve known him. He is aware that whoever wants something, has to work for it. He has the energy and the positivity to do it. I met him at the skatepark when I was little. He was one of the older guys and I used to look at them thinking, “They’re so cool!”. But I was never able to say hello, cause I was very shy. Slowly we started talking to each other, until one day he suggested that I should skate for a local skate shop, Rokipa. I still remember the excitement! I felt great and motivated to have a “sponsor”. And from there, little by little we got closer and closer. There was a time when we were the same height and shoe size (now I’m a head taller than him and two foot sizes up [laughing]) and he was giving me some of his shoes and skate gear, so I could skate. I always needed it cause I was really destroying all my stuff. My family wasn’t the wealthiest and apart from that, they didn’t even like skateboarding. Later we started filming and I remember hearing from him and his friends the phrase: “Skate fast, skate safe”, and I took it literally. He was always glued to me with the camera, I didn’t even notice, it’s like we were one. Because he knows me perfectly, he knows if I can skate a spot and what I can do there even before I see it. He’s pretty crazy, always looking for and finding spots. I have to say that it was difficult for me to find other people that I like to film with. Not everyone moves like him, he is like your shadow. And he encourages me to try new things that I never do, things I hadn’t thought I could do. All of this is largely the reason I am where I am today. I know that he is always looking out for my good and will not hesitate for a second to tell me the truth, no matter how bad it can be. Sometimes it’s a slap in the face, but in a constructive way. I learned from him that things are neither black nor white, that no matter how complicated everything may seem, sometimes it’s simply a matter of attitude, and that we should value everything we already have.

Everybody is talking about traveling, looking for spots or camping, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. If you just take a few pieces of clothing with you, your skateboard, and Nico, it really is! It’s as if you returned to that time of your curious childhood, looking at the atlas and looking on Google Earth for weird shapes in the streets to skate, a piece of beach or grass to spend the night. Sometimes it’s just walking around and looking, any time and any place, and getting lost a little. The last walk at night I remember was in Cap de Creus, seeing absolutely nothing, we ended up camping on an esplanade that turned out to be some old bunkers with an unbeatable view in front of a prickly pear garden that became our breakfast, while a bath in the impressive cove gave us energy to look for new spots, which you will not see in any other videos or skate photos. This only happens if a group of good friends is with you – especially Nico!

The simplest way to start describing Nico is by highlighting one of the facets that characterizes him the most: the gift of professionalism. It’s not the professionalism typical for someone who has been doing something for a long time and knows how to do it very well. It’s more the special touch that he gives his projects. His outstanding love, passion, and dedication will give you goosebumps, either because of the quality of the shot or because of what the edits transmit to you. With my brother we experienced many things, from a Kool & the Gang concert in Shanghai to smoking in Wonderland. Even so, one of our most precious moments was our trip to Gambia, where we were lucky enough to be able to build a small DIY skatepark in a school in the countryside. We made new friends and experienced unforgettable moments, like the one night on Sanyang beach where we went to a dancehall party, danced under the stars, and ended up drinking with the owner of the hostel. Of course, we also went on a mission to towns, where asphalt is a rare good. Love you, my tubab!

I first met Nico when I was 15, in The Bunkers, a place we used to go in El Masnou. Soon we were going on a motorbike to random places looking for raves, without GPS or any of today’s technologies, till the moment we spoke about skating and learned we both did it when we were kids. Somehow we picked it back up together and went on endless night sessions at the local mini ramp or taking the train and getting lost street skating in some town. We’ve been everywhere. Two years after we met we spent Christmas in Prague to skate. It was cold as fuck, our camera batteries didn’t even work, and our gloves would freeze shortly after we took them off… but still we skated a lot. We went out in the morning and spent the whole day in the cold streets, eating crackers with ham, cause it was the cheapest thing to get. It was a trip where we spent great moments like opening our first beers on the corners of the furniture or the bunk beds – in the end they were all fucked up from that… Or smoking hashish joints that Nico had hidden inside the wheels and traveled with from Spain. All this happened in 2006, and it’s just a small story of what we experienced together and in fact, here we are. Who knows what will come after but after knowing him for so many years, I can easily say that there will be more and better ones. He’s always been there and pushed me to keep going and do more. I’ve learned a lot by his side. From the first tricks to building the first concrete ramps. He has the insatiable desire to do things and enjoy everything to the fullest, all with a positivity towards life that infects everyone around him.

Since I was little, I have considered Nico a reference on and off the board, and in large parts, the way I understand things today is thanks to him. Since adolescence, he’s taught me values such as doing things well, good taste, patience, trust, motivation… Nico has always had this initiative and entrepreneurship capacity, this motivation to go out and do it. We went on countless missions and trips together. This has made us know each other well. I’ve been filming with him for my whole life. I don’t feel that bond when I record with other people. Many experiences come to mind, whether from youth, when we recorded the Alway skateshop video, from the trips to France with Quota, or the few-day getaways in which we camped anywhere. It is thanks to Nico that I discovered my favorite part of skateboarding, which is the search; getting lost searching for spots in any town you didn’t even know existed. Many days you fail, you can’t find anything, but it’s this “losing” that I love. Suddenly you find a spot, look at Nico and tell him: “Can you imagine doing this here? It would be crazy!” And you end up doing that trick that you didn’t even think you would be able to do. That’s why I named trust as a value of mine, because many times Nico has taught me to trust, he has believed more in me than I did.

Have you ever tried to think of the best experience you’ve had with a friend? It is a difficult question, since there are so many good memories that it’s practically impossible to choose one. It’s funny to think about it and see the connection that skateboarding has given us, enabling a group of friends to simply have a quality time together. Living happily is our philosophy of life – especially for Nico Cook. With Nico, you don’t need to have a concrete plan, since we are great at improvising. I remember one time in Taiwan, with Andrew Verde and David Vivó, we ended up fishing for shrimp in some indoor pools somewhere in Taipei – it was very strange. When we arrived in Taiwan we saw that it was kind of a regular recreational activity there – and we were the only four Westerners lost at the party. After a while the fishing locals invited us for beer and even gave us some of their shrimp that they had caught, when they saw we couldn’t catch many. After surviving the laughter while fishing, we had to survive eating those indoor pool shrimp, definitely an experience to remember.

Last August I went to Chile with Nico, with the mission to build a skatepark. After two months of throwing concrete daily, we decided to stay one more month to see the incredible places that Chile had to offer, like the Atacama Desert. On our first day we decided to rent some bikes and take a route through the desert. After four hours of walking through all kinds of rocks, shapes and incredible colors, we saw some children who were taking advantage of the water from an irrigation canal to use it as a slide. In no time we were in our underwear enjoying a fun swim with the kids. Well deserved after so many hours under the desert sun. On another occasion we weren’t allowed to enter a salt flat because you needed to make a reservation online. So we decided to skate down hills in the surrounding area and enjoy the incredible landscape of Piedras Rojas. The plan turned out to be a thousand times more fun and led us to spend almost the entire trip back skating all the downhills we found. Another day we arrived at a river that was a little far from the road. A friend, who was injured, asked to get the pickup a little closer, because of the desert sand. It only was a ten meter drive but there we were, stuck on a desert road in the middle of nowhere. It was getting dark and the pickup wouldn’t move, no matter what we tried. We couldn’t call the tow truck because the insurance didn’t cover accidents if you drove off the road. Luckily a friendly local appeared with his entire family ready to help us. He told us that the trick was to deflate the tires 3/4 so that they could grip the ground. Once this was done and with the help of wood and logs that we found in the desert, he got into the pickup and stepped on the gas until he finally managed to get it out. This was just a week of experiences on a trip with Nico.