Special task force recovers lost Velo Magic blog pages from 2017
6/24/17
Thus begins a journey at age 52 in quest of long-board skateboarding.
Looking back, I was once able to ride a regular skateboard with
confidence. As a child in the 1970’s
skateboarding was taking on a new generation of urethane wheeled skinny plastic
boards, with Chicago trucks. I have
memories of several of my Elementary School classmates riding these crappy
skinny sticks to school. Well, until the
school banned them from the premises. It
was fun wile it lasted. Thus planting
the seed of skater independence and ones drive to feel the flow of creativity
and the pursuit to carve. I did that,
time and again.
In my late-teens, early 20’s, “Skater-Punk” was a thing. Fast forward, 25 years later, and I’m picking
up the board again. This time a
Longboard, (44”x10”) that I picked out using Holiday Gift Cards for Dick’s
Sporting Goods. I first did some
research on the topic, asked some people questions and came to the decision of
a Quest board (complete) The bottom layer is bamboo, matched with maple, and 7”
run-of-the-mill trucks, and some beefy fat wheels, also branded Quest.
12:noon
Did my first ride on the new board. Took it to the alley and rolled around
some. I only had about 15 minutes to
goof around on it, but that was cool. I
could feel a sense of exhilaration and light footed as I walked back to
that house.
Later that same day, I took the board to a parking lot. I modified the
grip tape as soon as I got started, because there was too much grip. Felt like I couldn’t move my feet into
different positions.
Began rolling and carving making semi-small circles. This quickly led to cruising to the next parking
area that offered circular upper and lower levels. I did several laps, and became more
comfortable with staying forward on the board, crouching down in a speed
position and carving through the upper and lower end of the lot. After about a half -hour, I got brave enough
to try a downhill section. I was a
little nervous but stuck to my commitment of riding to the bottom of the
hill. I figured, it’s like riding a
roller coaster. You have to just chill
and enjoy the ride. I got most of the
way down the hill and the board shook like crazy and I fell off. To my surprise I slid about 5 feet on my butt,
but didn’t get hurt. My pants protected
me from getting what could have been really bad road-rash. I didn’t give up. I got back on and did 2 more laps of the
parking lot circle then drove home.
Fri. 6/30
Afternoon. Kept
thinking about SUP and how it can transfer to Longboarding. Did some YouTube research and watched how
some people are well into developing this type of skating. Looks like great fun, so I fashioned an old
shovel handle into a “Land-Paddle” and cruised the
streets around home. This was way better than
traditional pushing with your feet like a standard size skateboard. The Land-Paddle allows me to continuously
move forward and maintain a flow, or skate-surf motion.
(One note: I like the paddle I made, but it
needs to be about a foot longer.) I like the board set-up it's okay for cruising flat streets, and I
really enjoyed the longer distance rides with the use of the paddle.
8/24
I liked the wider wheels, making it feel more stable as I
rolled alone the flats. I flipped the
Trucks back to the taller position, leaving the wheels wider, and tweaked the
Kingpin for Carving and Cruising.
In this 40-45 minute skate
I felt more confident in my kick-strides, and enjoyed making a large figure-8
that allowed me to tuck down low and power carve at the one end of the
loop. One quick surprise I had was when
I came out from the side of the building and met a car coming from my
left. I reacted by popping off the board
as I quickly took a step to my right, and catching the board with my left to
prevent it from rolling off. I was
pleased that I responded so quickly and without an adverse outcome.
Sunday Aug. 6, 2017
I did it. This is
what I visualized when buying the Longboard.
Taking it to OBX and using it to ride down to the shopping area about
1-mile from the cottage. Shortly after
arriving to the cottage we all walked the beach for about 1.5-2 hours. Then I broke-out the L-b to ride over to the
DQ for ice cream. Yeah, I looked like a
jackass when the group of pre-teen kids passed us going the other way on their long-boards
but so what.
8/28 Monday
Back at my Spot (Shop-N-Save Parking Lot) I carved some turns,
rolled well around the building keeping a low profile so not to be seen as some
old-dude-kook on a skateboard.
But I really did feel my feet on the board, and turning
seemed more natural this ride.
Took some photos on my crappy cellphone and used one to
create my header at the top of this journal.
Friday Sept. 1, 2017
Pulled out my old (Vintage) Santa Cruz Christian Hosi
board. I wanted to know how it felt
different from the long-board I’ve been riding.
WOW! As soon as I dropped it on
the ground it appeared so tiny.
Really! It’s about half the size
of the L-b.
The set-up is sooo stiff that I couldn’t carve, and the
wheels didn’t want to roll over the ruff alley service. It seemed nostalgic to get this board out,
but it only took about 3-minutes to recognize that it was not fun. I took the board back to my office and put it
under my desk where it stays for keepsake.
11/20/17 Monday
Feeling that I have neglected to maintain my land-paddle
skills over the past month, I made a point of using todays fairly sunny and
warm weather to jump on the Longboard.
To my surprise I was fairly stable. In my own defense, I have been physically
active, as this is the middle of my Cyclocross season. With Daylight Savings Time, and the change of
weather conditions my time for kicking around on the Longboard has been
decreased.
That said, on this ride at “the spot”, I
did some carving (with and without the paddle), flipped the board a couple
times to make-up my own trick moves.
Although not very tricky, but fun just the same. After about 20-minutes I packed it in,
satisfied that my skills were status quo for the time being.
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