How Mosaic started
My name is Tristán Grijalbo, and like the most skaters I know, I started skating because my old brother was a skater.
In the late 80’s, the skaters of my neighbourhood were kind of the badass kids, and I took a liking to that style and attitude. I have been in love with skateboarding ever since.
When I was 12, in the mid 90’s, I was part of a big crew of skateboarders called MPP. We had a lot of fun in those days in San Sebastian. The city we grew up in is very traditional, and we were kind of the rebel kids, jumping stairs and doing something that nobody did at that time.
90’s & Influences
I love the mid 90’s era of skating:
Kareem Campbell, Gino Ianucci, Erik Koston, Heath Kirtchart, Tom Penny, Javier Sarmiento, Ronnie Creager, Jesús Fernández, Axion footwear, Es, Flip, etc.
In fact, some of the pros I grew up loving became good friends later in my life.
1996-99 Raw footage: Tristán, Varo, Josu, Xabi and more
P.S.I BEARINGS COMPANY
I started selling bearings to the skaters around my area in the late 90’s, when I was 15, because my family has a group of bearing companies called P.S.I.
Later on, I started a brand called LamLam bearings. Around the same time, LAX Departure Distributions started to distribute them alongside other brands such as Elwood and Aesthetics. But LamLam didn’t go too far.
Early 2000s in Barcelona
After that, in the early 2000’s, I moved to Barcelona in order to study and skate. Those were super good times because BCN was full of amazing spots, but wasn’t full of skaters yet. I spent 3 years in the authentic skaters’ paradise. Spots such as Sants, Macba, Parallel, etc. were almost virgin to skating still.
I knew some of the most influential skateboarders in Europe like Jimmy Fontecilla, Alex Castañeda, Dani Rubio, and more. Around that time, we were all skating at a pretty decent level, and we ended up doing some skate tours around Spain. Thanks to Jimmy, I got introduced to the DC shoes team.
2000 2003 reedit Suerte video: Tristán, Varo, Campi, Josu, Xabi
The team I put together consisted of some of the best skateboarders I saw around: my friends Jimmy Fontecilla, Jesús Fernández, Syme Jamal (now a famous trap singer), Dani Rubio, and more.
Iñigo Lorenzo
Creator of the Mosaic Original logo.
We spent some months smoking joints and developing it in his store.
Nowadays he is a famous tattoo artist.
This was in 2004, when MOSAIC’s seed was planted…
Nowadays MOSAIC is a big tree and a big family of skateboarders, rich in experiences, friendship, and great skateboarding.
Friends Dope skate video part.
DOPADOS: Tristan Grijalbo video part
The MOCA: MOSAIC & C4RAMELO skate video