Being a sad old twat in my forties, I’m of the generation that is used to skateboard wheels being soft. Now, for those of you born later than 1985, you will have no concept of what a soft skateboard wheel is all about.
Well, as you may recall from history classes at school, the first skateboard wheels were clay, which meant they were rock hard and tended to freeze if you hit a stone. This kept skateboarding from developing further until Frank Nasworthy decided to apply then-new urethane technology to the skateboard wheel. He created a wheel that was smooth and grippy, and this led to the skateboard explosion of the 1970s.
A big part of skating in the 70s was just cruising: no flip tricks or ledge nonsense, just the sheer fun of cruisng down a hill or along a pavement. The soft wheels meant that the skateboard could actually be a mode of transport – you could ride through town quickly and without fear of bumps. But as skateparks developed, the need for soft wheels became less and wheels became harder, until we have arrived at today’s rock hard formulations.
Riding hard wheels is fine as long as you are in a skatepark, but if you are not, they render the skateboard completely useless, hence the sight of kids walking around town with their board under their arms. In my day, they would have been skating the pavement getting on everybody’s nerves.
Now, I always thought the pay-off was as follows: on skatepark surfaces, soft wheels are slow, hard wheels are fast So to test this, I went to my local concrete park in Corsham Wiltshire with two set-ups: one with 78A soft wheels and one with 99A hard wheels. In terms of speed, I was amazed that I was able to reach coping just as easily with the soft wheels as the hard., and the soft wheels enabled me to pump harder as they were more grippy so less likely to slip out from under me. So I guess the real issue with hard wheels is that they slide, thus enabling you to perform a wider range of “tricks”. But here is some advice from an old fart: sometimes the best trick of all is to just cruise along, enjoying the stoke of the wind in your hair. So next time you’re looking for a set of new wheels, why not throw on some ABEC 11 Retro wheels and see how much fun they can be? Why should the skateboard cameraman be the only one who enjoys wheels as they should be?
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
A Platform for Art
All hail skateboarding! If nothing else, skateboards give artists an outlet for their talent. And if you think about it, there are precious few outlets for art in this day and age. When was the last time you went to a gallery? When was the last time you were impressed by a piece of grafitti? But if you look at the underside of a skateboard, chances are you’re going to see something truly amazing. Catching my eye at the moment are the Mike Giant boards for Santa Cruz Veterans Division. Giant is a San Fran-based tattoo artist, and his mastery of black and white comic-book style art is something to be seen.
I guess the first skateboard art would be the “Dogtown” grafitti’d cross circa 1976, and following that, the board art by Wes Humpson for Dogtown Skates. For a long time, it was just logos adorning the boards, with perhaps a pro signature as well. Then artists like V Courtland Johnson (VCJ) came along and gave boards a truly original voice, doing for skateboarding what artists like Gilbert Shelton, Robert Crumb or Daniel Clowes did for the comic book. World Industries (as ever) took the whole thing too far and parodied every logo, poster or comic strip they could think of. Who can forget their Natas 666 deck? Too offensive! It way have been way out there, but at least it was original and thought-provoking. Now a lot of these boards are highly collectable, and that is a good thing: skateboards are works of art whether they are hanging on a wall or sliding down a rail.
So the next time you’re choosing a deck, don’t just think of the brand or the pro, but think of the artist as well: by buying their work you are supporting the arts in a very real way.
I guess the first skateboard art would be the “Dogtown” grafitti’d cross circa 1976, and following that, the board art by Wes Humpson for Dogtown Skates. For a long time, it was just logos adorning the boards, with perhaps a pro signature as well. Then artists like V Courtland Johnson (VCJ) came along and gave boards a truly original voice, doing for skateboarding what artists like Gilbert Shelton, Robert Crumb or Daniel Clowes did for the comic book. World Industries (as ever) took the whole thing too far and parodied every logo, poster or comic strip they could think of. Who can forget their Natas 666 deck? Too offensive! It way have been way out there, but at least it was original and thought-provoking. Now a lot of these boards are highly collectable, and that is a good thing: skateboards are works of art whether they are hanging on a wall or sliding down a rail.
So the next time you’re choosing a deck, don’t just think of the brand or the pro, but think of the artist as well: by buying their work you are supporting the arts in a very real way.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Middle Age Shred
I’m sure a lot of the people who visit my website skateboardsofchoice.co.uk already know of Middle Age Shred. If not, go here now: http://www.middle-age-shred.com/. It’s a forum for older skaters based in the North of England set up by Carl Arnfield and Tim Walker.
It’s a perfect example of what the web does best – putting like-minded people in touch with eachother. Anybody who witnessed the fall of skateboarding in the late seventies will appreciate how important it is to be able to stay in touch with fellow skaters. MAS is an excellent place to hook up with fellow skaters and arrange skate safaris to many of the excellent concrete parks that are springing up all over the place.
What’s also fun about it is seeing grown men finally getting to fulfill childhood fantasies: your mum wouldn’t let you build a ramp in the back garden? No worries; now you’re grown up you can build your very own half-pipe in the garage. Middle Age Shred is a goldmine of useful info on ramp building and trick mastering. And the great thing is that everyone is supportive of everyone else – a truly web-based utopia. Oh, and you don’t have to be too old to visit – many of the Shredders are only in their twenties.
Go there now and realize what it was that you liked about skateboarding in the first place.
It’s a perfect example of what the web does best – putting like-minded people in touch with eachother. Anybody who witnessed the fall of skateboarding in the late seventies will appreciate how important it is to be able to stay in touch with fellow skaters. MAS is an excellent place to hook up with fellow skaters and arrange skate safaris to many of the excellent concrete parks that are springing up all over the place.
What’s also fun about it is seeing grown men finally getting to fulfill childhood fantasies: your mum wouldn’t let you build a ramp in the back garden? No worries; now you’re grown up you can build your very own half-pipe in the garage. Middle Age Shred is a goldmine of useful info on ramp building and trick mastering. And the great thing is that everyone is supportive of everyone else – a truly web-based utopia. Oh, and you don’t have to be too old to visit – many of the Shredders are only in their twenties.
Go there now and realize what it was that you liked about skateboarding in the first place.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Get Padded!
That young skaters don't wear pads continually amazes me. Not least because pads and helmets could be a valuable revenue stream for hardware manufacturers. Surely manufacturers could increase their sales simply by adding a protection line to their output. I guess the whiff of the uncool lingers over padding. After all, Tony Hawk and Rodney Mullen wear pads, Tony Trujillo and Bam don't, and I guess we all know who sells the most boards.
I hear that in some competitions in the US, skaters are marked down for wearing pads, the implication being that their tricks aren't as dangerous as those done by non-pad wearing contestants. All I'd like to say is, try doing a run with pads and then do the same run without - you'll find that it's actually harder with pads than without, as the padding restricts movement.
And another thing: you need your body to be in good nick to skate, and the best way to make sure this happens is to wear padding. You will be able to skate for longer and you won't ache as much.
There is a downside however: when I arrive at a park, the first thing I do is pad up. This takes about 5 minutes, and during this time, other park users start to form the impression that I must be pretty damned good. Once I set foot on the board however, they know how wrong they were. Once I had someone shout out at me: "my sofa has more padding than you!". Good shout kid, let's hope your knees are still working when you hit puberty.
I hear that in some competitions in the US, skaters are marked down for wearing pads, the implication being that their tricks aren't as dangerous as those done by non-pad wearing contestants. All I'd like to say is, try doing a run with pads and then do the same run without - you'll find that it's actually harder with pads than without, as the padding restricts movement.
And another thing: you need your body to be in good nick to skate, and the best way to make sure this happens is to wear padding. You will be able to skate for longer and you won't ache as much.
There is a downside however: when I arrive at a park, the first thing I do is pad up. This takes about 5 minutes, and during this time, other park users start to form the impression that I must be pretty damned good. Once I set foot on the board however, they know how wrong they were. Once I had someone shout out at me: "my sofa has more padding than you!". Good shout kid, let's hope your knees are still working when you hit puberty.
Why 40 somethings like to skate
The first wave of skateboarding hit the Uk in 1975. Skateboarding was, simply, an on-land version of surfing, and it's appeal was the same as surfing: the freedom of expression, the physical dexterity, the coolness, and most importantly for young urban Brits stuck in the grim mid-seventies, the glamour of sunny California.
The trick was to emulate surfing on dry land, so we carved up and down hills, created ramps and downhill runs, and after a few years there were parks, real concrete parks like the ones we saw in the magazines available to us. The rise of skating also coincided with a couple of long hot summers, so it was easy for us 10-year olds to pretend we were in California.
But then it all went away, suddenly and completely. If you're a young skater reading this, you will have no comprehension of what I mean. Over night, skateboarding was gone. the parks shut down, the magazines folded, the shops stopped stocking boards. All your friends stopped skating and bought BMX or rollerblades or got into computers. We were left high and dry. I carried on into the early eighties, and I'd travel 15 miles to my nearest park, and I would be the ONLY skater there - everyone else was on roller skates or bikes.
This wouldn't happen today. The internet keeps cults alive. If skating takes a tumble, you will still be able to find forums online and skate websites shipping products all over the world. But if you were an eleven year old boy living in the West of England in 1980 these options didn't exist. It was like being chucked by a girlfriend you still loved. I'm guessing that's why skateboarding is so precious to people of my generation - we can reignite the old flame. We never wanted to leave skateboarding. It left us.
The trick was to emulate surfing on dry land, so we carved up and down hills, created ramps and downhill runs, and after a few years there were parks, real concrete parks like the ones we saw in the magazines available to us. The rise of skating also coincided with a couple of long hot summers, so it was easy for us 10-year olds to pretend we were in California.
But then it all went away, suddenly and completely. If you're a young skater reading this, you will have no comprehension of what I mean. Over night, skateboarding was gone. the parks shut down, the magazines folded, the shops stopped stocking boards. All your friends stopped skating and bought BMX or rollerblades or got into computers. We were left high and dry. I carried on into the early eighties, and I'd travel 15 miles to my nearest park, and I would be the ONLY skater there - everyone else was on roller skates or bikes.
This wouldn't happen today. The internet keeps cults alive. If skating takes a tumble, you will still be able to find forums online and skate websites shipping products all over the world. But if you were an eleven year old boy living in the West of England in 1980 these options didn't exist. It was like being chucked by a girlfriend you still loved. I'm guessing that's why skateboarding is so precious to people of my generation - we can reignite the old flame. We never wanted to leave skateboarding. It left us.
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