Fingerboarding in Puerto Rico | SXL Fingerboard Ramps | S4 E155

On this week’s episode of the USAFBL Fingerboard Podcast, we welcome a very special guest, Frankie from SXL Fingerboard Ramps @sxl.fb in Puerto Rico! We dive into the Puerto Rico fingerboarding scene and why the vibes are “calentón,” including weekly meetups, public fingerparks, and how local skate shops help power events across the island. We also get into team video projects, bridging fingerboarding with art and music through Culture on Wheels, and what SXL has planned for 2026. If you enjoy the show, please like, follow, and share!

If you enjoy the show, please like, follow, and share!

If you haven’t been keeping track, we have weekly episodes! Audio versions out on Wednesday and video version out on Thursdays!

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Instagram ➜ https://www.instagram.com/sxl.fb

Website ➜ https://www.skatexl.com/

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Transcript

speaker-0 (00:01)
the screen from the windows. There's like a metal there. You can strip it. So I took my mom's from the windows and took it.

speaker-1 (00:10)
All the bugs in just so you can fingerboard. Yeah, so I love it. I don't think your mom loved it, but I love it

Welcome to USAFL Fingerboard Podcast, the official voice of fingerboarding culture from league news to community stories with real insight, writer interviews and heart of the scene. Please follow and turn on notifications for us. And now let's get into fingerboarding. I'm your host, Levine Cunningham. Today I've got Frankie. Frankie is xxlfingerboardramps, also known as xxl.fb on Instagram. Frankie, welcome to the pod. How you been?

speaker-0 (00:48)
⁓ been good, been good. Thank you. Been a long time in the making doing this podcast with you.

speaker-1 (00:54)
I know. feel like this definitely should have happened a lot sooner for sure. And I don't get too many people that are further East than me. Like you're all the way East. We're talking Puerto Rico. Yeah. Popical paradise. We're out here with snow and you got sun and beach and waves and nature. love it.

speaker-0 (01:13)
Yeah, enjoying this.

speaker-1 (01:15)
Puerto Rico just seems super far away, but the reality is it's ⁓ just an island not too far off the Eastern Seaboard.

speaker-0 (01:24)
Yeah, we're like one hour away from from Florida.

speaker-1 (01:28)
All right, so I know like when I travel, there's just like every scene, every location kind of has its own vibe, but everybody that I've known from Puerto Rico tells me the vibes, the culture, it's unmatched. Like tell us about just Puerto Rico within itself and then kind of tell us like, you know, what the scene in Puerto Rico looks like for finger boarding.

speaker-0 (01:52)
Another

word that is being used a lot lately is calentón. It is heated. So the culture here is heated. And when I say that, it's like brothers. All the small groups in different areas, the west, the north, the south, all travel. We're like one hour distant from each other. So you can go any place in the island in one hour.

So we get a lot of meetups and weekly get-togethers. We do a lot of events. Last year, we did two events every month. We got burned out a little bit there. And we're learning how to do the events so more people can visit. The main focus right now is letting more people know about

the scenes and the events. We have a lot of finger parks all over the island that are public. You can go anywhere anytime they want. So that's something very good. And we're just having fun, enjoying having a great time, looking forward to having visitors from the mainland.

speaker-1 (03:14)
two finger boarding events a month. That's a lot. That's amazing. I can kind of see how that might burn you guys out. If you guys thought about maybe, I wouldn't say like downgrade, like, you know, like just downgrade them more into like meetups where there's not so much pressure on sponsors and all the other stuff and maybe just like, you know, more casual sessions instead of like official like events type situation.

speaker-0 (03:42)
yes, but ⁓ it was crazy because it wasn't us ⁓ making the events. Yeah, so the skateboard scene is very tight with the fingerboard scene here. So maybe the skate shop is doing an event and they want a side ⁓ event for the fingerboarders. So they put up the prices and the stuff and

speaker-1 (03:50)
it's a collection of people.

speaker-0 (04:11)
They just want us to bring the parts. We got some in Rincon. It's place that a lot of mainlanders visited. So he has this indoor skate park and we brought like five or seven skate parks, mini figure board parks for events.

speaker-1 (04:33)
So you guys got a lot of contributors. You got any people that you want to give a shout out that's hosting those events and setting up the apps that are contributing all that.

speaker-0 (04:39)
yeah. For

the skate shops I have, so Skate Hub is in my West, that's in the West. We got Rincon with Patinetero. That's like a foundation for kids to learn ⁓ the basics of skateboarding and he does a lot of community work. And we have on the North, have ⁓ Armando with Rollin.

and all the skate shop and all of them have given us space for making events or putting our products on their store.

speaker-1 (05:19)
Okay, so I'm actually a little bit jealous of the weather. You guys have beautiful weather all year round. You make concrete. like for us here in the state, especially like us up north, like concretes and cold weather, absolutely no bueno. So.

speaker-0 (05:37)
Why not? Yeah.

speaker-1 (05:40)
For you guys, you guys can build stuff all year round, no issues. And it's like a tropical paradise where you got perfect weather to do so in. Like you can do it in shorts and a t-shirt in the winter time. And like, I love it. I'm in the garage, like bundled up, a hoodie, a coat, gloves, like just struggling. And you guys are just out here thriving and I'm jealous and I love it.

speaker-0 (06:04)
Yeah, where I do everything is open. I only have the roof.

speaker-1 (06:12)
Just getting the tropical air just flowing through. That's life.

speaker-0 (06:17)
everything outside ⁓ and it's perfect for only you got to like the rain sometimes and and hurricane sometimes but after that everything is perfect for making obstacles.

speaker-1 (06:33)
All right. So tell us about XXL. That's the finger boarding brand that you run and operate. Tell us the name and then kind of roll us into like, you know, the history of the brand.

speaker-0 (06:47)
So before doing ⁓ fingerboard ⁓ obstacles, I used to do props. So a helmet, swords, everything, Star Wars, and anime. And I acquired a few pretty printers, a few of them. Maybe my wife can say a lot of them. And was teaching a friend of mine a skateboarder, a skateboarder.

Jensen, I think one of the best in the island. And he wanted to integrate into 3D printing. So I was teaching him and something that we have in common is skateboarding. So I thought I had to make a ⁓ curve, simple obstacle in 3D model and just went and printed and was like, ⁓ this is something. And he

He told me, I think there's a few people, like, finger boarding. I was doing only TED Tech. I've been doing TED Tech for 25, 26 years and never, like, been in a community before. So I was like, they're doing finger boarding here. And he just introduced me to them. We started there, like, going every...

every week ⁓ we went there and I started making another one. Then I did a box, then I did a ramp, stairs. in a month we have a small skate park for us and we're just doing it for fun. ⁓ No intention of making a run out of it, but it started escalating fast. And I used to... ⁓

with the, with the props I used to do studio SL that is, is extra layer, like layers of the print. Okay. So that's when the name came and I just ⁓ use it for, for, so let's do skate and extra layer of layers of ⁓ the print. that's how it was weird. And we started there and I, I already,

speaker-1 (08:53)
and

That's unique.

speaker-0 (09:13)
knew about ⁓ all the brands in the mainland and about Black River and stuff like that. I was like, okay, they have the wood ⁓ and the concrete and the steel. Let me see if it is a market for 3D printing and it's cheaper to ship and to get around. It's easier. It's a good entry for

for persons that want stuff that look real, but it's not, it's gonna break their bank. So that's how we started that.

speaker-1 (09:52)
Man, all so when did you guys start this? Like how far back does that go?

speaker-0 (09:56)
⁓ It's been three years already. ⁓ We went all in on the making of products after Fingerboard Con. We went there to see for ourselves ⁓ what's the scenes in the US and it's a monster. It was overwhelming.

speaker-1 (10:21)
It is absolutely crazy for you to come in mainland and finger boarding con is like the first like real event that you went to. Like that's a lot. That's a lot to like, that's very overwhelming, especially for a weekend too, like a three day weekend. I'm like, wow. Okay. So that got you inspired and seeing the scene, seeing the people, like how did events change the path of XXL?

speaker-0 (10:43)
that.

everything, ⁓ not only the event, but the building onto the event. And I can say your magazine make the first step. ⁓ So ⁓ I'm honored that you reached out a few months earlier before Finger or Con to be in the magazine. And I saw potential. I saw what your team is doing.

I did a prediction for a forecast for five years. I see a lot of your content and I have the same mindset about stuff is not right now is what is going to be in five years. So I saw that I have to step up the game. So I started creating more products, concrete, steel, wood.

start creating merch and just making the brand in general before going to Finger or Con. And then when we did a purpose to meet everybody, try to talk to many people as I can. ⁓ I brought a few gifts for a of you and I enjoy it. I enjoy the trip.

It was very good.

speaker-1 (12:19)
is a lot to take in. There's so much going on. There's vendors, there's parks, there's just like, it's a massive just hang shred, chill. If you're a brand, like you can network with other brands. You can also meet all kinds of writers. There's people that are out there like looking to just be more in tune with what's going on in the scene of stuff like that. Like there's so many just brands and deals and products and just like

people just introducing things to the, it's just a giant trade show. And like, there's just so much that happens out in that weekend. And like, no matter like where you're coming from, everybody's experiences are basically kind of sort of the same. Like they're all really, really great experiences, but no one has the exact experience at the same event, which is interesting. Like whenever I talked to other people, like, yeah, dude, me and this one guy and this other guy hanged out and I saw like these new like deck and like, it was like,

completely different than anything I ever seen. And I'm like, dude, I don't even know who you're talking about. Who is that guy? And like, what product are you talking about? Like, how did I miss that? And so like, there's just a lot going on there for sure. And it's coming up quick. think Fingerboard and Con's got about, you know, probably a month after this podcast gets released and stuff like that. Unfortunately, it is a sold out event already, which is kind of crazy.

speaker-0 (13:38)
It's all out so fast. I was like, like 30 minutes before the launch and it took me like 20 minutes to get tickets.

speaker-1 (13:48)
You got your tickets and stuff as well. Right on. Yeah. I got mine as well. I'm definitely, I'm definitely going to go. I'm a little sad that some of my friends that I know couldn't get a ticket. I'm kind of waiting to see if a bunch of them are able to like get tickets or not. there's kind of like a whole thing going on there, but I think that finger boarding events, finger boarding con, it is growing. is. Yeah. It's amplified. It's gotten to a point now where.

We have hype events now, like used to just be hype brands, but now we've got hype events where you don't get your tickets and stuff early. Like they sell out and that's it. we're entering a new world for sure.

speaker-0 (14:29)
Yeah, it's a new era, think. I've been watching from the sidelines all these years how the fingerboard ⁓ community has going up and down. All the time it was like the Black River event. It was the big main event. Now we have a few big main events that you can go and enjoy. I'm looking forward to going one of them.

So I'm picking to see where I can go that is closer to us and I can go there and enjoy. I think that event is important in the Fingerboard community. It's posing to more people. So you're doing a great job there.

speaker-1 (15:21)
Well, thank you. Yeah. The events I feel like is the most productive way of growing the scene, having people meet up in one place and everybody's passionate about finger boarding. So many ideas, so many collaborations, so much inspiration happens at events and the more events that are happening for the scene, like the more people get connected and

Connections is what makes finger boarding so great. It's the fact that, you know, most people now have met at least a handful of good friends from finger boarding and stuff. We may not have friends within our personal lives, but I know like in finger boarding, like, you know, we all have a good set of good friends and stuff like that. And that's important. But one thing I did want to touch base on, if you did mention this, which like, you know, thinking five years out for me, you know, I always talk about, you know,

speaker-0 (16:04)
Definitely, definitely.

speaker-1 (16:15)
I, when I do something, I do it for seven years and then I reevaluate it after seven years. And so the fact that you're listening to, you know, the content, you're listening to the pod and you're hearing these things and thinking more long-term instead of short-term. Cause that's where a lot of beginner smaller brands, that's where like their path just dies because they're looking at right now. Like, let me build these decks.

bring in the market, see how it goes. If it doesn't go very well, maybe I do it. Maybe I don't do it. They start second guessing themselves. But if they just did it for two years, they have a completely different outlook after a year, year and a half. And so when you start looking further down the road, you're no longer like concerned about what happens today, because, know, you've got plenty of time to grow into something great.

speaker-0 (17:04)
Yeah, definitely. That's a mindset that you got to go through. Like you see month to month, like you're spending X on the brand and X on the events and you see sales and you're like, ⁓ should I keep or should I let go of some stops? So for me, I'm just making a roadmap and

counting on the roadmap is going to be a success. this is a roadmap getting in the podcast is part of the thing that I was aiming for a year ago. So here we are, so success.

speaker-1 (17:50)
right on. mean, you've been very, very active in the

scene. You've got events, you've got the brand, you're now on the pod, you've been featured in the magazine, you've got your actual advertisers and stuff like that with the magazine and stuff like that as well. So if you guys are trying to figure out where you've seen this brand, chances are you probably saw it in Ply's magazine, which you can see for free at Ply's mag.com. And I definitely appreciate the love and support for sure. Like this is a, it's been a passion project. And like I said, when we started the mag, my goal was, you know, five, seven years from now. like before we started the

mag. I'm like, can we do this for five or seven years? And I'm like, yeah, we can do it for five or seven years. And so like, we just rolled with it. And people really, really was really feeling the magazine, like they were like, this is awesome. And like,

keep it going and for us like consistency is like the very it's really important to us is making sure that the magazine is made every month that goes out on time. People can see it for free on the first people are getting physical copies on their hands and every month you know rinse wash repeat just making sure that we're to continue to do that stuff for the scene.

speaker-0 (18:58)
It is a must. We need to have something that glue the scene together. So the magazine is part of events, magazine, brands and communities. It's a combination of everything to make the scene grow bigger.

speaker-1 (19:15)
But the

craziest part of the magazine that a lot of people don't actually notice or maybe they do is that we now have written documentation of the finger boarding scene every single month. So before Plies Mag, it was YouTube and YouTube was kind of like our encyclopedia for finger boarding, but it's not really done very well. It's like it's videos can go, channels can get taken down. ⁓

YouTube might not even be around forever. Like, who knows? Like, you just don't know. like YouTube is a great resource right now to kind of document what's going on through Pacific channels. But like when you have like a magazine that focuses on the scene directly every single month, showing those park bills, those riders coming up, the events, the brands that are like advertising and putting themselves into.

a historian type role, you can look back to issue number one and be like, wow, I forgot about this brand or, I forgot about that event or, yeah, those podcast episodes. And like, there's just so much you can look back and be like, yeah, I remember when tiny ramps made that park. yeah. I remember when the artist of the month was, you know, out here doing the graffiti and stuff like that all over the place. And I was like, yeah, so you can kind of look back at all of those resources and every single month now for a year and a half or going strong and be able to collectively be able to look back at, you know, finger boarding as a whole.

which is very, hard to do, think, until Plies Mac showed up.

speaker-0 (20:41)
yeah, yeah, and we're grateful that we have been on the magazine with ⁓ each or five people from Puerto Rico.

speaker-1 (20:53)
Yeah, we got a couple artists, yeah.

speaker-0 (20:56)
from Saba Saba great fingerboarder great skateboarder great artist and great mindset like he got all set up already

speaker-1 (21:09)
I was stoked when I finally got to meet him in real life at the Fingerboarding Con. I don't know which one it was. Maybe it was the first one or the second one, but it was cool meeting him in person.

speaker-0 (21:19)
Yeah, his mind ⁓ is, you gotta pick it up. He's always focused on what he's doing.

speaker-1 (21:30)
Definitely, he seems driven very focused.

speaker-0 (21:32)
Yeah, yeah. I like to surround myself with people like that.

speaker-1 (21:37)
No, definitely. I think that people that are driven and focused and they know what they're wanting and they're actively working towards it. That energy is so intoxicating. I love it. Like it's hard to find, but when you find those people, like you got to keep them close.

speaker-0 (21:54)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

speaker-1 (21:55)
All right, so let's talk about the stuff that XXL makes, like walk us through the product line of everything that you guys got going on.

speaker-0 (22:07)
So first we did a lot of stuff that never see the light. We have made so many products that never see the light. We use it on our meetups. So if you're local, you have tried some stuff that never gets sell for ⁓ different reasons. Maybe it is too expensive to produce or to replicate.

Or are we seeing is too basic if we see is the basic we kind of like each it out and we are trying to make ⁓ products that look like real stuff. I something that I will skate. So right now ⁓ we're doing a cleanup on the inventory that we have from this.

past three years, so that's gonna go and new series are coming in. More crates, more ramps, some more props. like to do ⁓ fire hydrants and dumpsters and stuff like that. I like to build my setups for the clips. I'm very visual on that.

part and we're working on a video part for the team. It's been almost eight months of on and off of filming still still looking to get more clips so we can present ourselves to the the world as a team. ⁓ the merch, the merch we're trying to get into that area. I think it's the area that's ⁓

EU brands are only doing and I think it's very important to grow the brand. So March is another big factor of the focus and target that we're doing.

speaker-1 (24:20)
So a couple of things here, let's, merch is something that a lot of brands, think, don't utilize enough. There is a serious lack of fingerboard and clothing. I think we can count them on like maybe both finger, like both hands, like probably a dozen companies that are like, I mean, there's a ton of companies out there for reference. So like, you know,

There's probably a dozen brands that have their own shirts and hoodies and just the merch and the swag and the hats and stuff like that. There's not really too much out there for finger boarding. so.

We're talking about like, want to get in like high fashion, like lifestyle type stuff, or, know, finger boarding is like a way of life. It's like you wear it, you breathe it. Like that's just like who you are. And so like we're starting to get there, but I think we still got a long way to go before we kind of start getting more into finger boarding, being a lifestyle and having those lifestyle brains and stuff like that out there.

speaker-0 (25:18)
So yeah, I can mention two of them that are doing it. I'm focused on viewing what they're doing and go like, how can I do my stuff ⁓ without copying? But focus like them. Black River, a lot of time, they have their legends. So of course, their merch is going to go in every finger. And Slushcall was merch. ⁓

brand before our finger printing. So those two are the main ones that I'm looking at what they're doing and how they're doing it, trying to improve what we're doing.

speaker-1 (25:57)
No, definitely those two brands slush and Black River. They've been.

doing it for quite some time. So that helps them for sure. So they've had time to build up the brand, build up their own culture behind their brand and getting people like really excited about representing that brand. I think that that has a lot to do with the merch aspect. You know, anybody can produce merch, but if you haven't built up that culture behind your brand and what that brand actually means and stuff like that, it does make it a little bit more difficult to sell that march and stand behind that merch.

speaker-0 (26:31)
Of course.

speaker-1 (26:32)
So let's

get back to this team full length video edits. I mean, you just kind of like casually drop that and I'm like, all right, all right, Frankie.

speaker-0 (26:41)
Yeah, so we have one writer for the first two years ⁓ and then I was like, I need a team. I saw the magazine and the events of the teams and I was like, I want see if we can someday ⁓ be in the competition. So I tried to...

make it in to represent. But then it turned into a family and very close family and started like throwing ideas like we should do this and that and started like making films like small clips, but we didn't release the clip. So we have a bunch of clips. are archive and we got to put it somewhere. So YouTube.

It used to be a platform where all the finger boarders were watching content there. Now we have all the social media's short content and stuff. But we're looking forward to make a long part so we can put it in YouTube. we're going to see when we're going to have. I don't have any date, but we're filming every weekend. We're trying to stop.

on clips to see when we're going to release a video part for the team.

speaker-1 (28:14)
definitely glad, happy and like very impressed with like the fact that you're doing a full length video edit for your team and the community. There's a lot of brands that have teams, but there's very few full length video edits. And if we really want to kind of take a page from skateboarding culture, like I feel like at least once a year, like every brand that has a team should be pushing out full length video edits.

speaker-0 (28:43)
Definitely, definitely.

speaker-1 (28:44)
We need to see a lot more of that because we see like a lot of people doing individual clips. You can find that like all day long, but as far as like, you know, those flat face, like, ⁓ you do like the full montage, like Christmas edits, you got the knife edits, like the full length stuff like that. You just don't see a lot of that stuff. Like, you know, most count them on one him as far as like all the full links that went down last year. And that's a travesty. Like we need to keep the art form of finger boarding alive.

speaker-0 (29:10)
Yeah, I enjoy the place videos from all the teams. ⁓

speaker-1 (29:15)
King of the Plies, yeah.

speaker-0 (29:17)
We did a meetup just to watch all the clips and we put a big screen ⁓ where we have the parts. We put a big screen and we watched every clip.

speaker-1 (29:29)
One of the reasons why we did King of the Plies was to keep the art of finger boarding alive. For those that don't know, we're actually getting ready to start up King of the Plies, but it's a multi-team outdoor street team event, finger boarding team events. So basically last year we had 13 teams. Each team has to be like between like three and seven people roster. We have a list of challenges. And so basically you would go out, film those challenges.

tell your story behind those challenges and then submit a final video edit. And from there, we had a panel of judges that would basically judge all of the video edits. put them on YouTube for everybody also to view and also be able to judge as well. And then we would basically crown all of our winners. And so we basically set up a competition with a $1,500 cash prize, by the way. There's two grand total that was being... ⁓

awarded for first, second and third. So there's like money prizes. There's a lot at stake here and people take it very, very seriously. And the videos that these teams put together are phenomenal. So if you guys are liking the knife style edit stuff like that, you guys got to watch the 13 videos from last year. And there was 10 videos from 2024 as well. You can find them at USAFBL. There's a playlist for them as well.

on YouTube and you can check them all out. But those video edits from all of those teams, those brands, they're phenomenal. Like some of the best finger boarding edits you will ever see.

speaker-0 (31:03)
Yeah, you can see the work they put on some of them. ⁓ The edits, the selection. You can see the inspiration in skateboarding in some of them. You can define which one is skate based. watching the... Like I'm watching a skate video, but with fingerboarding.

speaker-1 (31:30)
And it's getting better. 2024 was really good. 2025 videos were the bar was so high that they left it. So we're rolling this into 2026, which we're actually planning all that stuff out as we speak. We'll be announcing and King of the Ply stuff here in probably the next three weeks, maybe a month. And I mean, the bar for 2026 in comparison to 2025 has got to be so high because no one wants to

do less than what they did last year. so we pushing finger boarding forward on the art form side so hard and I love it.

speaker-0 (32:06)
Yeah, it's great. I'm looking forward to watching every part.

speaker-1 (32:10)
Definitely definitely. All right, so you've got a team of writers Shot him out. Tell them tell us tell us what's going on

speaker-0 (32:19)
So we have Jensen. Jensen is one of my best friends. He's the one that we started the brand. this is made because of him. It's crazy, three years and still going. It's very cool. first writer was Jonathan. Just started two, three.

Lboy.fboy. We got Elo, ⁓ our engineer, is ⁓ mastermind in some of the new products that coming out. And we even have a girl in the team, is Nelly, Poquetina. So ⁓ we have, everybody is bringing something to the team. We're very tight. We almost, ⁓

fingerboard every week together.

speaker-1 (33:24)
So everybody's local, right? See, that's what's up. I like that. I like having a local team where you guys can collab and talk ideas and test out products and test out just thoughts and theories and stuff. Like I think the in-person teams, the local teams, I think that's like definitely the way to go.

speaker-0 (33:25)
Yeah, everybody's level.

Yeah, I'm not dissing any neutral teams. I think that it's great to have teams in different parts of the world. But you need a core team that can do inputs in what you're doing with the brand. I have a few meetings and I go everything I do with the team to see the feedback and if they will use it.

or ⁓ if it's aligned with what we're doing. So I try to be very vocal with them to get feedback and stuff.

speaker-1 (34:26)
Right on. All right, so let's talk more about your background. You were a skateboarder first or a fingerboarder first? tell us, walk us through the skateboarding journey and how you got introduced into fingerboarding.

speaker-0 (34:35)
A boarder first.

⁓ 96 started skateboarding. ⁓ Got a old school skate. It was very, very bad in shape, but I used to skate on that all the time. ⁓ Then got me a mini logo for Christmas. It was my first skateboard. I did ⁓

a few years of skateboarding there. And I think a year before Ted Tech show up, ⁓ there was like this keychains, ⁓ plastic skateboard. Yeah, but it was so, yeah, it was different. And we used to buy those and ⁓ put grid tape from the skateboarding on them.

speaker-1 (35:26)
Yeah, like the McDonald's Different.

speaker-0 (35:39)
And we tried to ⁓ how we do on the skate. So I learned to do ollies on those stuff. No, the wheels never roll. you got to use like a ⁓ polished surface to get the rolling. And we used to do like three fingers going back and forward. So it's some friction there to get the ollie there.

speaker-1 (35:49)
That's impressive.

I am one of those is absolutely wild and especially before you even knew that I lean on those were even possible. So that's a very, very impressive.

speaker-0 (36:17)
Yeah, we did.

We did. I think we all got like a few of our close friends. We bought them. There was like in a gift shop kind of nothing to do with skateboarding. We saw them and we bought them and we ⁓ rapidly made some cardboard ⁓ obstacles. Like the first day we did a kicker and a

and a phone box and we start, we even did a rail. used ⁓ the screen from the windows. ⁓ There's like a metal there. You can strip it. So I took my mom's from the windows and took it out.

speaker-1 (37:02)
all the bugs and just so you can fingerboard. So I love it. I don't think your mom loved it, but I love it.

speaker-0 (37:09)
Yeah, mom didn't love it. So we took it out and there's like a, like a scene in there so you can cut it and put it in. You have like a rail. So you have glue on it, duct tape, and we have a, we have a skate bar in a few days. And we used to ride that all the time before our finger, before the era.

speaker-1 (37:35)
That's awesome. That's crazy.

speaker-0 (37:37)
Then we got

the TED Tech came to all the stores and for Christmas I asked for all TED Tech. So I got like a few phone bots and a good collection there. So every Christmas I only asked for ramps.

speaker-1 (37:56)
I could never really get my hands on those. It was like Christmas. Like I had to go to, man, that ages me quite really crazy. But yeah, the only place I could find the tech deck ramps in the wild was at Toys R Us. I think, I think they had them at Kmart back in the day too, but you could never find them at Kmart. Kmart used to be like the Walmart before Walmart was really kind of cool. And it was very hard to find for sure with Toys R Us.

Almost always had them in stock. And that's like the only other place you can find them, but they were pricey, like really pricey for us back then.

speaker-0 (38:32)
Yeah,

very pricey, so it's only for birthdays and Christmas. So I waited all year and was scouting for the parks. I was not very into the tech decks, the decks. I was more into the, always into the parks. if I saw a Funbox and I already have it, I tried to get another one.

speaker-1 (38:38)
Basically,

speaker-0 (39:01)
combine them so in one time I used to have three or four fanbots so I made mega parts.

speaker-1 (39:09)
man, that was always the dream was to have like two grand worth of just like connectable tech deck ramps and the half pipes. And you just made like your own just full blown park. And when Tony Hawk Pro Skater came out and you can design your own park and stuff like that, like I would try to be like, all right, how much money would it cost me to do this with tech deck ramps and stuff?

speaker-0 (39:33)
Funny that you mentioned that when Tony Hawk first came the second one the one that have the park built so I used to be hours just making parks there and Replicating every part or every spot in in the videos. I tried to make it I even I remember in one of the version I think it's Tony Hawk 3 you can disable auto

pushing so I have to do the pushing. ⁓ yeah. So that open up ⁓ a window so I can make smaller obstacle more scalable. I used to make every skate park, Kona, Tampa, 401 videos park when they have stairs, love park. I used to make all those parks in those games.

speaker-1 (40:07)
Yeah.

So you really just fell in love with the replication of all of those famous spots. I can kind of tell when I'm looking through some of the stuff that you offer and stuff like that, like the detail behind a lot of the stuff that you guys produce.

speaker-0 (40:35)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ then, ⁓ when skate, ⁓ came with the park, ⁓ builder, I immediately start making all this, the famous spots and, and, and start getting, ⁓ hundreds and hundreds of downloads from the parts that I was putting out. It was crazy. So I got hooked on, on making parks. So it translates into now making real parts.

speaker-1 (41:13)
I want to talk about that because I've seen some pictures of your a couple builds. I don't know how many builds you've really kind of gotten into, but they are so detailed as far as like, I mean, they look like miniature spots, like, like miniature storefronts and like miniature, like,

Like this is a city block and this is what the corner of that block looks like. It's got, you know, street facing stuff and curbs and sidewalks. And like, there's just a lot of attention to detail to that kind of walk us through what got you into building these realistic spots.

speaker-0 (41:51)
So yes, ⁓ that's my favorite part. I want to be able to translate that into products in the future so I can make replicas in small scale to sell. So that's the main purpose. Right now, we're building a part right now. We're going to finish this and I'm going to go and paint and do some

some welding on some rails right now. So I enjoy that part. That's like, that about it in some aspect. So I get the inspiration from a lot of real parts that I love to skate, different cities. I scouted the internet for spots. Maybe sometimes I design stuff and make sketch.

two ideas and three years later I'm building that. So the first one that we did without any knowledge, I don't know how to, how to work in or in OPC working. I knew how to create a model and how to draw, but that's it. So these three years has been a learning curve on everything. So learning how to cut.

put out of the welding and throughout the year I'm being stacking in tools to perfect or make it more realistic, faster, building faster the parts. So it's been a journey. We have made already think like six big parts now working on another one now and hoping I can get something

I was thinking on getting a small ⁓ park for the event for finger boarding con. So I can ⁓ like Lego build it and put it in a table outside in the lobby. before the event people can skate it and enjoy it. So I'm thinking about doing that. And I take every inspiration from skateboard videos, log our ⁓ streets that I see and take a picture.

I do that a lot so I'll be driving and see a spot that I think it will be good and stop to take a picture. And that's how I make the park look realistic.

speaker-1 (44:31)
Art is definitely being heavily incorporated into your inspiration and your visit, your visions and stuff. Walk us through culture on wheels.

speaker-0 (44:42)
That's my baby. That's a great project I think ⁓ that everybody should try to replicate. We're trying to close the bridge between finger boarders and regular people that doesn't know what finger boarding is or look at like a toy or waste of time. And we're bringing it into more of an artistic ⁓ point of view.

⁓ So last year we did our first one. We had a gallery that reached out to us. We put out five artists with different background mediums and techniques. Saba was one of them with his graffiti and medium of how he makes art. And we presented with a few ⁓

projects from each artist. And we combine that with all around outside of the gallery with finger parts. So all the brands that have parts in Puerto Rico ⁓ join the project and brought all the parts. We have a event there and we have this position for five months. So anybody can go. We had a ramp there.

so they can fingerboard with a few fingerboards. So it's an art gallery, but it's an interactive gallery. On the event, we did some kids events so the kids can paint, ⁓ draw their own brand, and then we finish up the event with a band. Sometimes we have two bands. And it's a fun time. It's a family time, a family environment, ⁓ very friendly.

We do raffles, we do contests, do game of skate, we do ⁓ beginner level ⁓ contests, then we do the big guys with the big guns doing the tricks. We have some people here that can do some good tricks. They're hiding, but you know who you are, you're very good at it.

speaker-1 (47:02)
You guys got some shredders.

Like we got some sleepers out there for sure. Man. All right. So you talk. All right. So culture on wheels is basically probably just the best vibes. So you're talking about food, music, you got bands, there's artists, finger boarding, you got parks. Like this sounds like an awesome event. Is this like a yearly event or like, how does that work?

speaker-0 (47:32)
Yeah, that's the main focus is to do one of them a year is it has to be with the with the municipality. So we have to arrange the for a public place to be a safe place because we're to put some some artwork out there. So we're looking to put it in different cities and have them by ⁓ help us. ⁓

distribute the information so people that doesn't know about skateboarding, art, music, fingerboarding, ⁓ modeling can go to a place and just enjoy the vibe or the artwork.

speaker-1 (48:24)
I think this is a good time to do our Listen to Win contest. I don't think we've done too many of those in the past, but you're looking at the second Listen to Win of the year. You want to tell them the challenge or you want me to...

speaker-0 (48:38)
You can tell the challenge and I can show what the challenge is going to get.

speaker-1 (48:42)
All right, so we are looking for the best, the most desiest, the most authentic looking switch flip, just a switch flip, but it's gotta be steasy. It's gotta be clean. I wanna see a good catch. Like I wanna see the best switch flip out there. Now post to Instagram. You're gonna need to tag.

XXL.fb on Instagram, USAFBL and USAFBL underscore FBP. Podcast comes out Wednesday. Contest ends Friday, 5 p.m. Eastern. So it gives you a couple days to warm up, get that camera ready, get the angles ready, get the lighting ready. I want to see the best switch flip out there. Tell them what they're gonna win.

speaker-0 (49:33)
they're getting that this small concrete.

⁓ It's very good. I love it because you can hit it from everywhere. You don't have to know how to ollie to ride it. That's another aspect of these obstacles. I made it so beginners can enjoy finger boarding too. But the tech people can get very nasty on.

speaker-1 (49:41)
Buttery.

Definitely. So we got a coffin block made from concrete. It's got multiple different angles. So it's not like your traditional loaf. It's got some slants. It's got a little bit of everything for this thing for just being a coffin ledge. So kind of interesting to see who wins this and what kind of, what kind of tricks are you going to do on that thing? You can get real tech on it.

speaker-0 (50:31)
Yeah, we're going to get you two so you can keep one and credit.

speaker-1 (50:36)
I that. that. I'm not the, got to get my video editing game. Like I haven't been posting any clay. I'm busy with a lot of projects, but like, was literally just thinking like, you know, for my news resolutions and stuff, I'm like, I need to start filming more clips and putting clips out there into the world for sure.

speaker-0 (50:40)
Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. You should make it like a goal every week. Make ⁓ one trick and maybe progress out there.

speaker-1 (51:00)
I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to start doing that. I've looked back at some people and you can see like people's progress and stuff. And I'm like, I got like probably a whole year, year and a half, or like, I don't even think I pushed out a single like clip edit or anything. And I'm like, that's sad. Super sad, sad Panda.

Yeah, I, I use that as a justification, but it's not, mean, I, I need to, I need to tap back into the art form of fingerboard. I think it worked for me, but it's, it is nice to be like, Hey, look what I'm doing or look at what trick I'm working on stuff like that. So I need to get really back into that for sure. Man. All So you've got a finger boarding full length and the works. got a couple of events and the works, the parks, like walk us through a

some of the upcoming projects that you got coming in for 2026, anything you can leak on the podcast.

speaker-0 (51:54)
We're going to have two divisions. Not going to talk about the products, but they're not frames. ⁓ We're making ⁓ our annual Peter a meetup. That's an event that we use and we do every year. We usually do it for Halloween. So it is the dress up event that we do. ⁓ The full length or making.

two new parts so people can shred for free. And we're introducing the pro series. This was the first pro series ⁓ obstacles. We're going to do two more with the drops. I hope we can do it this year. Testing a lot about the obstacles that we're bringing now. ⁓ Like we're letting go of entry-level obstacles. ⁓

minimum on that one and bring it more for the tech people for the more people that want the painted with stained blackwash and have little items on the on the obstacle so we're going in that direction right now and just enjoying enjoying the trick and looking forward to have our products in the mainland in some skate shop or finger chop

We're looking forward to that.

speaker-1 (53:20)
Right on, that's a nice little list. You got some stuff going on. Do you have any current distributors right now that's carrying your products?

speaker-0 (53:26)
⁓ Right now we're doing ⁓ the skate shop in the west skate hub is that the main ⁓ If you want to find something from our brides that be there

speaker-1 (53:40)
Okay, okay. Walk us through someone, for someone that's looking to pick up some of your pieces, like, is there any ⁓ advice or anything that you can point them towards that they would be, you know, be a good fit?

speaker-0 (53:55)
So there be two types. It'd be the type that has already have a lot of ramps. So for a person that has a lot of ramps, we have the prop area. There's more getting stuff like this, like hydrants. So you can ambient your area. Stuff like this or stuff like.

Banner.

So there are people that only get stuff like this so they can make the clips more realistic. And then we have the beginners that can get ⁓ an obstacle for $10.

speaker-1 (54:39)
That's a deal right there.

speaker-0 (54:41)
so they can get that and start learning if they don't want to detect that style ramps and want something that look more realistic, but still is good on their pocket. And a lot of moms love that kind of stuff. So I always bring to the events a table with stuff, those are the ones that always go and get sold out.

speaker-1 (55:09)
love it. What other hobbies do you have besides finger boarding that people might not know about you?

speaker-0 (55:15)
Well, I do cosplay. ⁓ I love ⁓ prop making. ⁓ I do that with my wife. ⁓ So I do a lot of programming and graphic design. That's the other job and hobby that I do. I call it a hobby too because I do a lot of side projects. That's a project that maybe we can talk about out of the podcast that we're on.

speaker-1 (55:43)
right on.

speaker-0 (55:44)
Maybe we get it for the event. We don't know. The time is crunching. So I have a lot of ⁓ ideas that I want to put out. And I'm doing a list to see how many I can conquer this year.

speaker-1 (56:05)
Man, all right, so I'm sure you got a nice sized list of shout outs. Any people you want to recognize?

speaker-0 (56:12)
Yes. So first of all, my family and wife, I have to shout out them and my team writers, they are always encouraging me to do new stuff and keep going. ⁓ Saba, Saba is a big ⁓ important figure in the fingerboard scene in Puerto Rico. He ⁓ is, I think the link.

between the skateboarders and fingerboarders Jose from Benescape Skatecraft is an amazing recycle skateboard crafter. do amazing stuff. ⁓ Icelander Rambs, he's a good buddy of mine on the north, always collaborating and stuff. ⁓ Tony from Bulleck, ⁓ he does ⁓

awesome molds of text with different concave and bodily smooth. All the local brands and local finger boarders and Patinetero for letting us do events with him and always ⁓ bringing us to different events. We even did an event in the museum with him, so appreciate it.

Rolling for letting us do Mayhem on his tour with two big session events. Skate Hub for always supporting us as a brand and letting us do events. Flat Spot, my friend, he does the Flat Spot series. It's a skate game. I think soon we're gonna hear from him on that event. We got

Tite, Tite and the community in here in the south. And we have 17 dagger. That's one of the secret weapon that do a lot of our graphics and help us a lot in getting merch like this. Great artist. all the shout out to all the finger boarders around the world.

speaker-1 (58:37)
Right on. That's a good list.

Where can people find you on the internet?

speaker-0 (58:44)
⁓ In all platform SSL.fb. We're everywhere right now. ⁓ Only place I have been joining is TikTok because I think it's a lot to handle. So I'm looking how I can get one of the team writers to run the TikTok.

speaker-1 (59:07)
Okay, okay. Yeah. Delegated out. That's one of the things about having a team. It's like, all right, if I can't figure it out, one of these guys is going to be able to figure it out. Awesome. Juan Levine Cunningham at USAFBL on all platforms. Frankie, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for coming on the pod.

speaker-0 (59:15)
Yeah.

Thank you, thank you for having us.

speaker-1 (59:27)
Until next time.

speaker-0 (59:28)
With every flick I write my story

in the state

I'm sorry like a bird every trick a story every slide a word grinding on the edge I'm breaking the mold fingerboard and dreams with the weight in gold ⁓

speaker-1 (1:00:02)
In this think-a-boarding

train! Think-a-boarding!

⁓

speaker-0 (1:00:37)
as they scream in this finger-bombing dream

speaker-1 (1:00:43)
You