My friend Chris and I went out to a few very mild hills yesterday evening. Mostly backpaths, sidewalks, and parking lots. We did a little video taping. Just riding around. My speed board was surely overkill for this kind of skating, but it rides smooth and is nice and low, so I just dig riding it.
No tricks. Sometimes tricks are over rated…
Some Carving from Texas Longboarder on Vimeo.
I went down to Belton, Texas, and skated with Mike “Grumpy Ol’ Bastard” Moore yesterday. Some ditch skating and a nice little hill. Shot lots of video of him and he shot of a couple of my runs too. Was fun. This vid is mostly Mike — but if you watch carefully you’ll see me doing the same run a twice, haha.
Left a few small school stickers in Mike’s guest house.
For those who care, I’m riding a 36″ Big Red X Ditchdigger, with Indys and some 56mm Bones Softcores. The wheels are smooth and fast, but I found that the soft formula really deformed a lot when I cranked through a carve. I could really feel it — like riding on marshmellows.
With all the skateparks around, this is actually the first time I’ve skated a ditch in about 3 years. Funny, because back in Austin that’s all I used to skate. I actually prefer it to parks — its a lot more fun.
Anyway — here’s the video. Nothing too amazing. Just two old guys skating a ditch.
GOB & Lord Bob from Bob Loftin on Vimeo.
Let me preface this post by admitting that I’m not really a downhill skater. Not even close. I’m not a complete spaz — I’ve gone down hills before, but it has never been my thing.
That being said, yesterday I took my new downhill board out to a nearby neighborhood and skated some hills. Nothing too steep, but around here the streets aren’t nice asphalt. They are somewhat OK concrete, with a lot of patches and seams between the sections. Since they are neighborhood streets, of course there are cars parked against the curb, so you’ve gotta keep you wits about you. Don’t want to get doored by someone as you pass by at 20mph. That could hurt.
Now, I think I probably only got up to a max speed of 25, and was probably at 20mph most of the way on these runs of about 1/4 mile each. The 2nd run I scouted out has ends in a T-bone intersection, requiring a 90 degree turn one way or the other. Luckily there is room to see if there’s a car coming. I figured if I spoted one I could just put the slider gloves down and skid to a stop.
Like many such intersections, the pavement there is pretty choppy. They tend to dig things up and then do bad patch jobs. Having walked the hill first, I knew it would be at least a little challenging to not lose my line turning through that spot. No matter what you are riding — even on a great downhill board with big, grippy wheels — If you are turning on choppy pavement you are going to drift and bounce a bit.
At any rate, the first part of that hill was fun. I carved back and forth to control my speed and just enjoyed the flow. But on crappy surface, when you reach a certain speed, carving can be a little harder due to the aforementioned drifting. So at that point I just pointed the nose toward the bottom and picked up speed.
The bottom turn came up a lot faster than I expected. I spoted an SUV down the street I was going to turn into, but it was plenty far away. When I saw that bumpy-ass surface down there, I actually thought about foot braking, but decided to man-up and just plow through. The new board was rad — it did drift a bit, and I wondered if I was about to go down. So I dropped my stance just a bit for a lower center of gravity through the frontside turn, front hand ready to slide if need be.
I shot through the turn, passing the SUV and waving to the driver, who looked a little freaked out.
This was probably the first real surge of adrenalin and fear I’ve felt skating in a long time. Downhill is no joke. Looking back to that crazy bottom turn, I think I could have picked a much better line to set up for the turn. Streets like this, with 90 degree turns, are not the ideal place to learn, but you work with what you have, eh? I have a lot to learn about this kind of skating.
Oh — yes — I did have a helmet on.
I found these old flyers this weekend, and posted them on my flickr account. Sorta cool to find 20+ year old skate contest flyers.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bibliosk8/sets/72157611394058699/
It has been a busy and stressful couple of months, yet I still persist. Cold nights and early sunsets have not been skateboarding friendly, but I have been bike commuting to maintain my boyish figure. Here’s a shot from tonight’s ride home. Note: the small school is properly represented on my fork. 
Today I once again had good fortune to skate with Gary Holl, Christian Opperman, and others of the Bay Area sk8kings.com crew at Rengstorff Park, in Mountain View, California. And like usual, Gary managed to get some nice pictures of me. Please ignore the Forrest Gump haircut. Gary is just a great guy, and he rips. I watched him whip out 30 - 40 360s a number of times. Fellow freestyler Wally let me use his 360 board, with some very hard urethane spinning wheels. I’m in the process, after 32 years of skating, of learning proper 360s technique — in other words frontside spins. It has never felt natural to me. I never get more than 1.5 or 2 going frontside. On Wally’s board, I got up to 4, which amazingly is a big accomplishment for me. So I doubled my record, and let me tell you frontside 360s are the way to go. No tail scraping, no lost energy, just power. I will keep practicing. Lots of fun.
A few clips from my first session on the Mega Freestyle deck. Set up with Tracker 149 darts, 60mm 81a ABEC-11 Noskoolz, and 1/4″ risers. Great, great ride. While it will take some getting used to, I’m very happy with the board. Takes about 3 times the leg muscle to work the board, but it is worth it. Once rolling, the inertia of the board creates an unstoppable rolling flow. Massive. Anyway, this is just me fooling around with walk-the-dogs, step-walks, step-spins, and some wheelies. A little shaky but practice will eliminate the weakness, leaving only strength, power, and flow.
Had a morning practice session and an evening session today, about an hour each. Morning went pretty well, but legs still felt a little rubbery. Evening went well. Legs felt normal, tricks worked well. I’m about back to my normal level.
Finally went skating tonight, after quite a few months of not skating, trying to get my old-man-knee well.The knee feels pretty good. I went to the skatepark and did freestyle for about 45 minutes. I was somewhat stoked — didn’t skate too bad. Not great, but not bad. Made my 360 shoveits pretty nice and my fingerflips. Legs felt like noodles, even after months of serious bicycle riding. But they felt better toward the end. We’ll see how the knee holds up.
EDIT: by the way — the Sarge model that J-Dawg sent me performs really well. I think I like the longer wheelbase (longer than the Monkey Bar). Longer wheelbases = better flow for me.
Got a package from J-Dawg today.It’s on.
