SIDEWALK SURFING- discussions

[surf1ng]

Hey Brian, I was out in your neck of the woods last week and had another shot at that tight little bowl with the brick coping. It always looks so much gnarlier in person than in pictures. I worked up the nerve to drop in on the deep end and found a few decent lines. Pretty fun! I'm far from good at riding it, but I felt good about getting a little something going in it. Looking forward to giving it another shot sometime.

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Awesome @Chilly Willy - that looks rad! Well done.

Agreed... pics and vids never do justice to speed, size, slope, condition etc.

Brick c-o-o-o-o-o-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-i-i-i-i-i-i-n-n-n-n-n-n-g-g-g-g-g-g-g - yikers, grinding would be like skating on pavers except harder.
I can feel the vibrations from here , not that I'd be grinding hehe.

 

[surf1ng]

Speaking of tricks or no tricks, I've been largely avoiding coping tricks but did start tinkering with some on the micro quarter that we have at our local skatepark. Last week, I relearned rock to fakie and nose stalls for the first time since back in the day. I debated rock to fakie for months (fear of hanging up), but I worked up to it gradually on some flat/curved banks before finally trying it on this little quarter with coping and am so stoked to have finally revived it. Nose stalls were my favorite trick back in the day, so to face the fear and attempt one, and actually start making them again was a pretty big deal for this old man (controlling my arms would be a whole separate trick). The rush that you get from a new learn seems pretty unique to skateboarding -- a weird mix of adrenaline and endorphins. But man, this one really put me in a good mood.

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Well done, you nailed it. That trick pic looks ace!

 

[ShipFixer]

Yeah, that's awesome @Chilly Willy !

So, finally my experiment is real...medium bushings and Riptide pivot cups in both, slightly bigger wheels (70mm vs. 65mm) but also slightly harder (86a vs 83a) on the Carver :-D

If "loose" = "moves easily," my C7 is actually looser than the Yow even though it's got an obviously slightly longer wheelbase. But that's with the Riptide cups and the spring turned back a bit...stock would be a different story.

I guess like anything, setup matters as much as anything else. There's less air between these two boards than my 32" ones, where I like the Yow a lot more.

 

[surf1ng]

Along those lines, you might like this video. A pretty neat snake run in the woods. Looks scary and rough though! I did a little research and discovered that it's actually not terribly far from me. Not sure if I'll ever take the initiative to go, but it looks like it would be fun with big, soft wheels.

Magic!!! Absolutely love that. Beautiful vid.

They skated that so well and on little wheels - the concrete looked rough as. I'm with you - I would be rocking (as per normal) big soft wheels - and pads .

I would have taken my leaf blower to get rid of some more of the hidden obstacles but it looked like they cleared the right spots for their lines.

Like mentioned above, I don't think the camera did the speed, slope, size etc justice. No doubt it is much bigger and faster and steeper and harder to ride than it looked. Super impressive skating. Nice!

 

[surf1ng]

Over the weekend I changed the wheels on my Carver from the well used 70mm 80A Orangutang Stimulus set to the original unused 65mm 78A Carver set that came with the board...
...and ate it on my first gumnut* stack in aeons (*small bell shaped pods that fall off gum trees - it might be an Australia only thing?).

Nothing major but dohhhhh!

It was at a "half open" / "looks like the budget ran out" skatepark and I was concentrating on a carving line and not paying attention for gumnuts. I was just doing a micro session to check the potential for surfskate lines and I wasn't wearing any pads. Talk about a brain fade. Concrete is as hard as I remember .

Not sure if I would have been able to roll out of the stack on the bigger 70mm's - probably not, it was most likely a coincidence with the wheel change and letting my guard down in a park.

That will learn me.

 

[surf1ng]

This looks like a super fun "ramp bowl" for a surfskate. I would love to session this for figure 8's and "circlework" on the Carver .

Check from 5:01...

Check from 2:47...

 

[Chilly Willy]

Brick c-o-o-o-o-o-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-i-i-i-i-i-i-n-n-n-n-n-n-g-g-g-g-g-g-g - yikers, grinding would be like skating on pavers except harder.

I haven't gotten any grinds on it yet, but I'll report back when I do. The bricks are surprisingly smooth/slick, but those little gaps between the bricks are bound to do some clacking.

A leaf blower is a great idea. I recently got a battery powered one -- hmmm! I guess if I ever get a wild streak and feel like a road trip I can bring it along. And yeah, same here -- I wouldn't consider tackling that thing without full pads. Even at that, it looks like the kind of rough concrete that would love to rip your pads right off and chew you up. I saw some other vids of bikes rolling down it and it was FAST!!! A surfskate could be a decent option because I feel like you could speed check a little better with more of a gradual half pipe approach instead of ripping it more downhill like those guys were hitting it.

Sorry to hear about the gumnut slam! Concrete can be such a cruel mistress. I guess you can chalk it up to paying your dues.

 

[surf1ng]

I haven't gotten any grinds on it yet, but I'll report back when I do. The bricks are surprisingly smooth/slick, but those little gaps between the bricks are bound to do some clacking.

A leaf blower is a great idea. I recently got a battery powered one -- hmmm! I guess if I ever get a wild streak and feel like a road trip I can bring it along. And yeah, same here -- I wouldn't consider tackling that thing without full pads. Even at that, it looks like the kind of rough concrete that would love to rip your pads right off and chew you up. I saw some other vids of bikes rolling down it and it was FAST!!! A surfskate could be a decent option because I feel like you could speed check a little better with more of a gradual half pipe approach instead of ripping it more downhill like those guys were hitting it.

Sorry to hear about the gumnut slam! Concrete can be such a cruel mistress. I guess you can chalk it up to paying your dues.

Nice. I presume the gaps would make slow speed grinding super tricky without catching / bailing. No doubt there’s some mystical art to it.

Perfect, that would do it. I agree, that definitely looks like pad eating concrete, yikers. Wow! Even more props to the skaters in that vid. Nice, I reckon that’s how I’d tackle it too.

Hehe yep. It wasn’t too bad a stack in the scheme of things, just wasn’t ready. Happened in slow motion. Hopefully that is my last slam… ever

Have fun.

 

[West81]

Been riding my new Carver swallow for the past two weeks during my vacation in France.
My greenroom feels massive now.

Felt like I was missing some flow and applied grease to the bushings. That feels epic but needs redoing after about a week.

Also already messed up the bearings on the Swallow, while the Greenroom has been going strong for 3 years now.

Going to order some Zealous ceramics when I get home

 

[Chilly Willy]

Love that ditch. I've always liked the aspect of searching out and skating odd little spots. Always wished we had ditches like that where I live.

This one's for @longboardkook since you're a ditch guy. Circling back around to my post almost a year ago to the day... I'm happy to say that I finally skated a proper ditch. My cousin took me to this spot sometime in the 80s when we were kids. They called it "Pipeline" -- it has a new name now, but it will always be Pipeline to me. It was a long ditch that ran downhill, around a curve, and terminated at a board-gobbling pipe that ran underneath a busy road. I wasn't yet a skater at that time, but we rode our bikes in it for a bit. It was always in the back of my mind as a spot that I'd like to skate someday. Doing some recon over the years, I saw that they chopped off half of it to build a retention pond, but it still looked worthy of a session. Fast forward to yesterday: I took a day off of work to try out a nearby DIY park that was only 5 minutes away from Pipeline, so I popped in to take a few runs for old time's sake and to finally get my shot at it. Of course, it looks a bit much smaller as an adult than when we were kids. I'm sure it's a cardinal sin to wear pads in a ditch, but I'm old and don't care.

I'm not a really great crust skater, but I did pretty good and had a lot of fun finally checking that one off my list.

I was delighted to see that some of the old graffiti was actually still there. I remember seeing this as a kid -- it was the first time I ever heard of Twisted Sister. Ha!

The DIY park has a bonus ditch tucked away in the back of the park. You'd need a snow shovel to fully clear it, so I just swept a small path so I could at least take a couple runs. It was actually more fun than I expected and could probably be fun if the whole thing was cleared. Nice scenery, too.