Anyone skateboard?

[balance_fit]

I haven't since I was a kid, but am getting back into board sports (padding board, board sailing, wakeboarding, snowboarding). 
I'll probably pick up a long board skate board and give it a shot. I've never been on one, so will try to demo if any local shops have them.  Any suggestions on what to look for?

SUPlakes, get on to it.

Don't worry about brittle bones or hard falls. Just stay low on your board (low enough to touch the ground) and glide on. Stay away from steep hills and wet roads. Pebbles are not friendly either. Use a helmet, wear slide or wrist protection gloves and exercise caution.

Falls on bicycles, specially road bikes, are way more destructive because of the speed and height off the road. I mountain bike, and even though the trail might be softer, the rocks are not, and stitches, weeks of painful knees/elbows, even cactus spines on a finger joint rendering it useless for a week, are part of the ride. Not to mention other close encounters. Inline skating? Lots of fun, but once down hill, even a lame one, better get your speed in check, no jumping off the skates, which you can do on a LB. All these sports, with their inherent dangers, are practiced by people 60+. Skate boarding, or even mellower, long boarding, IS for us, unless you have early osteoporosis.
 
It's an excellent cross training activity for surfing, and, if you stay off the lame stick (Excuse me land paddlers), your balance will get a great workout, specially, if you work on your off side, regular vs goofy.

I'm just 50. And spoiled for the last few years since i got my LB. Pumping, pushing upwind, carving, easy slides on the floor, unbeatable fun.

Since most all has been said, please allow me just to add a Rx: wedging the front truck to increase it's sensitivity to lean and using soft cone bushings to make it really loose helps to add variety to your setup. On a 40"+ LB, you might strike a set up that allows you to carve up and down any flat street, pump your lungs out and have some serious fun at your doorstep.

Yes, get a quiver, of bushings, wedges and a couple wheels with different durometers.

LB is for everyone, if practiced within the reasonable boundaries of our abilities. NO different from surfing, mountain biking, etc. If one goes big on any sport, better be ready to suffer the consequences.

Just a couple of pictures to show you my favorite setup. First one, my drop deck on a top mount, 43"x 10.5". It's a Kahuna Creations, a land paddler, which i kick or pump only. The other picture show a wedged truck with different colored bushings, meaning they have different durometers (hardness of the urethane). Those bushings are barrel shaped, and recently i got cone shaped bushings which are even more sensitive to lean, on a softer durometer. Currently riding on 78a (rather soft wheel durometer) 70 mm sharp edged wheels. Great for pumping, traction and pebble management.

Have fun !

[standuped]

Those boards back then were crazy small.  Any one remember when this one came out, on a board that small and a coping that nasty was some real shiz.

[SUPlakes]

Here's a great guide explaining different setups - https://www.muirskate.com/longboard-guide/

[TallDude]

Got to have the custom Vans shoes. 

[goodfornothin]

Hey dad, let's go.skate the bowel at volcom,,,sure son,,ill.show you how to.get er done,,,,as I drop in,,stack.at bottom,,break my foot,,,seperate.my shoulder,,,and finish it off with an awesome rasberrys across my whole face,,,,,FUCKskating hahahahahababbabababaajahahahahahahahaha


Stick.to.a.carving board,,,silly dad,,parks are for kids

[surf4food]

Any of you fellow over 50 types remember Greg Weaver?  He was pretty much the first skateboard "star" that I remember.  He did adds for Cadillac wheels.

[Caribsurf]

Greg Weaver was so stylish. Those Cadilac Wheels ads were classic.

[eastbound]

ha--carib--iremeber hitching down from the city to a little park in wildwood--plywood indoor, as i recall--ride home we got picked up by a wackjob in a trans am--scariest drive ive ever been on--guy was playing chicken with oncoming traffic at speed. other early parks were in huntington LI, and then at yawgoo valley in RI--we'd take amtrak up there and camp--always herbal ambassadors, so the locals welcomed us and hung out.

great park late 70's in boulder colo, when i was in college--sweet huge keyhole--then the pipe under cherry creek reservoir in denver--pipe was a bit tight but went on for hundereds of yards under the dam--wired fakeys and fakey flips--two trips west---skated the dog bowl in sm with z boys--actually met tony and jay and others--herbal diplomacy key in this case---then reseda and a new park north in milpitas--

drained a few pools in the hamptons, dodging police action barely a few times--

those were the days--dont know i i fell into work, career, parenting, etc--lucky me, many peers form those days are dead or well damaged.

i get a kick out of borrowing street kids' boards. they mutter to friends to watch this blue hair kill himself--at which point i spacewalk, kick flip and do a few tricks and they say "dude, youre old, who are you?".

my boys and i were featured in an awful book on skating, along with chad mcqueen , in fact, son of PB's pal steve, who lived on my block. this was immediately after road riders came out--i think they were before cadillac--remember when kryptonics came out
?--revelation! i had one of their wide decks with ptex top and bottom, green urethane bumpers--had one of the alva ibeam ply sticks, another great--hard to belioeve the pins we rode in the early days, tho

wonder if i concussed a few times back then--cant remeber!

[Gramps]

Started skateboarding in 1964 in Virginia, of all places.  They were building a new freeway through Roanoke and we rode all the new on and off ramps before they opened.  Rode until 1975 when I moved to the mountains and gravel roads.  I guess what we did would be considered long boarding without the long board.

[standuped]

other early parks were in huntington LI,

--skated the dog bowl in sm with z boys--actually met tony and jay and others

drained a few pools in the hamptons, dodging police action barely a few times--

 i fell into work, career, parenting, etc--lucky me, many peers form those days are dead or well damaged.

--remember when kryptonics came out
?--revelation!

Funny stuff I grew up, in near Oyster Bay.  Was in a Pepsi commercial filmed at the Huntington indoor park about May '77, destined for Brazilian TV though.  I used to ride up those two sections of 1" conduit that went up the wall into the rafters. they were spaced just the distance of those narrow trucks. Got lucky with one of the film crew girls that night, my one and only skate-groupie experience.  Must have been crazy for the Z-boys.  That picture of Alva's front side air is so significant to me because He did it during my freshman year of college and there was no vert to skate for about 4 years for me.  He kept skating and I started towards my career,  very glad I did.  I still remember being in the dorm and getting that copy of Skateboarder and reacting like WTF, is that even real?  Kinda like Lairds Teahupoo cover.

[eastbound]

funny--that huntington park was wild--damned plywood into cinder block walls-- i got on the wall, but there were locals who got up near the ceiling trusses!  bad transition from the plywood to the cinder block--i remember running that out a few times

you still in LI? you got locust valley lockjaw? it was known to spread over to oyster bay! ha!

[eastbound]

i remember seeing a kid from CA do a rock and roll slide at a contest in Boulder--one of were two very young brothers, forget the name--same reaction--wtf--did i really see that?

[standuped]

Well I said  "in/ near" Oyster Bay.  Actually was Locust Valley !!!!  most people don't know what that is.  It's funny there is this little clip in the movie Dog Town and Z-boys that mentions the NY skate scene but it's just a blip and most people don't know how intense it was.  One of the rafter crew was this big dude named Chris Symore,  he was from Levitttown.  He looked like Gregg Allman crossed with a gorilla.  Long blond curly hair down to his ass.  He could blast up into the rafters like no one else and do it front side and with power.  I could get way up in there, but it was only back side and was more of a stall/pivot turn so no where near the energy "Symore" carried.  He used to push off as he went down the roll in ramp, like three times! BAM,BAM,BAM. So loud you could hear it back in the pro shop. That's essentially riding down a roll in on one foot.
          I left the Island for school and never moved back. I'm a snow bird now, 50% Florida/ 50% Oregon.   First job was in Arizona  Lived there for a while when a neighbor kid saw me long boarding down the street.  He said "there's a big ramp in the next neighborhood".  I went over there and it was "Patty's Ramp"  aka "Perfect Ramp"  This was around 1987 I think and many if not all the so-cal parks were closed.  So for some reason many of the pro's would come to the back yard of this wealthy developer and skate this private ramp that the mom " Patty" had built for their 8 year old son.  I got to skate with Tony Magnussen, Tony Hawk, and Christian Hasoi.   You could stand at the edge of the ramp and he would fly out at face level, like 5-6 feet.  I can still hear the sound of the bearings screaming past my ears.  It wasn't just how high he went, he traveled from one edge of the ramp to the other.  Like flying sideways.  Not as cool as getting to hang at the Dog Bowl but I'm still grateful for the experience.  I guess my entre was the exact opposite of yours.  Totally non herbal.  I was 28 and in a clearly zero tolerance profession so when I went up to the house the mom said "oh good, we need some one to keep an eye on these kids!"    This is a pic of the ramp in it's first iteration.  It later doubled in width with a roll-in in the middle.  Christian could clear that full width no problem.  All my old pics are in a box in FL.  Need to get them scanned this winter.

[eastbound]

i think i recall symore--there was a guy who did the rafters like no other--he had a very big wide boards, with exceptionally large wheels. he kicked down the ramp at scary speed and i believe he carved way up there, or at least used a subtle, rolling kick turn at the peak. we were awed. i remember thinking those big wheels were key, given the transition btwn plywood and the wall.

did you go to greenvale--creek--piping? you prolly know my younger cousins

take care

[TallDude]

My first skateboard was a Super Surfer with clay wheels. I saved up a bunch of Popsicle box tops and mailed in my money. That was about 1969. My older brother bought the first urethane skateboard wheels that we had ever seen, Medaflex wheels. I remember bombing a hill and making the turn at the bottom with those brand new black Metaflex wheels. They gripped the road so well it was awesome! We have some serious hills in San Clemente and I've gunned just about every one. I made a board with dual trucks in the back to reduce the dreaded wobbles. Still had some major road rash. We made double wide boards with 4 sets of trucks, and skated them in the skate parks. They felt more like surfing because you had to shift your feet from rail to rail. My favorite park was Big O in orange, ca. I rode for a team from Skateboard Odyssey in Mission Viejo, ca. It was an indoor all concrete park. Broke both my wrists, blew my knee out, and was knocked unconscious a number of times there:) My ortho doc and I were buddies.