Skateboarding

I can't help but bring this up here having seen eso's latest exploits in Facebook. It looks like you are really enjoying getting back in to it, which reminds me a bit of the pleasure I am getting out of skiing again. Some of the photos posted from back in the day are pretty amazing, and totally reminds me of when I was skateboarding back in the late 70's early 80's.

I don't think it ever was as popular here in Switzerland as it was in California, but when I was in high school it was pretty damn popular. Like with windsurfing and skiing, I did get in to it big time as well. Nothing like eso though! My favourite was slaloms, and I did a few competitions with some serious downhill runs until I had a pretty bad fall.

Anyway, we have been cleaning out a storage room we have over the last few weekends, and I came across one of my old boards. I had saved a long time to get that board; a Gordon & Smith Fibreflex board with BennetPro trucks and Tunnel V wheels. Nice vintage stuff that brought back a lot of good memories hanging out at the skate park. Kinda like with the old K2 Ballet skis I also found...

G&S Fibreflex. That's a vintage deck.

Yes, I've been having a blast. A fall my second week in slightly strained a ligament in my right knee so I've been doing only the downhill run for a few weeks and staying off the banks. The knee's been feeling 100% for the last week and a half, so this weekend I'll probably start hitting some of the parks again.

I was rabid from about 17-20 and skated 8-10 hours almost every day. I rode for the Sims team as a slalom racer, and then turned Pro for a skatepark doing downhill and slalom. But truthfully I wasn't that good. At best I was always a strong b grade compared to the really good guys, and by the really good guys I mean the Dogtown Crew and a few others. I skated with all of them on several occaions. One time I had Tony Alva nearly paralyzed on good weed at my condo... but I digress.

Once I got the sponsorship I just used the clout to get into the good skate spots and spent all of my time skating pools so my racing suffered. I didn't really care about the racing anyway: I liked smoking stupid amounts of weed and skating pools and big pipes.

Lots of the cities around here have built skateparks. There's some really nice ones. I've got to pick up a helmet though. At my age I really don't want to hurt myself I just want to skate and destroy...

The run we've been taking is on a Bike path that runs through several cities. There's some spots where you can hit 30-35mph, and others where you have to push quite a bit. Still, doing a 9-12 mile run is a great workout and really good for my head. The great thing about this run is that there are no cars to contend with, just a few bikes and runners. I realized that since I stopped performing music live I really haven't had a good adrenalin source in my life. Skating gives me that I realized it's what's been missing.

Back when I was racing, there was a spot where I routinely went over 65mph. Going that fast a couple inches off the ground on 3" wheels is a special kind of a rush...

eso

It's good to get back in to sports like that. The adrenaline rush helps clear the mind!

I know what you are saying about the speed. When you are young, you don't seem to notice or care. I know I don't ski as fast as I used, and I do wear a helmet now as well. Must say I'm pretty happy about that because you can hurt yourself pretty easily. Always makes me wonder how we avoided serious injuries as kids though...

I was too young the first time around and too old the second time around. Skateboarding missed me completely.

Damn.
I was going to use the "Da Silva Defence" as well.
Looks like that's a bust.

Roller-Skating on the other hand...

Henrik wrote:

da silva wrote:I was too young the first time around and too old the second time around. Skateboarding missed me completely.

You were not too young first time around! You're not fooling anybody with your age, and you are not too old now either... At least you got into karting!

Doh!