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Old Skateboarders...

Just stumbled on this thread - I used to skateboard in the '70's but was about average and didn't have much spare cash to splash on decent wheels, boards etc.
My son used to do it up to about 10 years ago and was miles better than I ever was - have a couple of boards in the garage somewhere but probably only worth a few squids to be honest.
Had a loverly longboard for cruising but my son split it doing jumps - keep on meaning to make a new one, one day!
 
Tony Hawk - finale to his video work. Age of Hawk = 55 yrs. Some nice footwork on that coping

 
Big Tabs said:
yar, I have seen those. Hawk is an okay chap I reckon. I like how he always appears in the Jackass films even though they Knoxville etc. take the piss out of Hawk relentlessly. I still hate his style, but there is no question about his skill. Proper legend.
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Interesting what do you hate about his style?
 
boneman said:
Interesting what do you hate about his style?
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It’s the shape of his awkward gangly body and arms when he is doing a trick. Ungainly is a way to describe how I see his style.
Mike McGill has a back leg that that has an ugly bend to it when he is pumping a halfpipe…
whereas Lance Mountain has a great style…
Ray Barbee is gangly but has a pleasing lazy style.

‘Style’ within skateboarding is a fascinating subject. A lot to do with the shape the person is making with the whole self.
Some skaters just look better than others when they are doing the same trick, hard to put into words.

I really like the style of Eric Dressen, Bill Danforth and of course, Mark Gonzales and Tommy Guerrero…

Someone like Shaun White blows my mind with his altitude and technical ability, but his style sucks.
Sky Brown has a good style, aggressive.

Subjective I know, but a Smith Grind can look soo good, same as a tweaked Frontside Rock - the same tricks can look less thrilling sometimes - ‘wooden’ or stiff perhaps?

What say you?
 
Big Tabs said:
]are there any old skaters on here? Not 'I owned a skateboard once..' type but actual skateboarders?. I am thinking skated Southbank in the 70's then maintained rolling through the dark days of the early 80's, and the resurgence in the 90's.. I have some good tales to swop... and you never know - I may know you/you may know me... there were not many of us who kept going/keep going'

memory jolters = Alpine sports - Camden banks - Rolling Thunder - ACS 651's - lappers and grab rails - open bearings -Broadmarsh Banks - Powell Peralta - Steve Caballero.... etc

my guess is there must be one other than me!
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Nope, but I did have a scateboard as a young teen and did go to the southbank to use it. The southbank had only just started to be used by skateboarders at the time. Kept it up for a couple of years, then swapped it for a bicycle.
 
Big Tabs said:
It’s the shape of his awkward gangly body and arms when he is doing a trick. Ungainly is a way to describe how I see his style.
Mike McGill has a back leg that that has an ugly bend to it when he is pumping a halfpipe…
whereas Lance Mountain has a great style…
Ray Barbee is gangly but has a pleasing lazy style.

‘Style’ within skateboarding is a fascinating subject. A lot to do with the shape the person is making with the whole self.
Some skaters just look better than others when they are doing the same trick, hard to put into words.

I really like the style of Eric Dressen, Bill Danforth and of course, Mark Gonzales and Tommy Guerrero…

Someone like Shaun White blows my mind with his altitude and technical ability, but his style sucks.
Sky Brown has a good style, aggressive.

Subjective I know, but a Smith Grind can look soo good, same as a tweaked Frontside Rock - the same tricks can look less thrilling sometimes - ‘wooden’ or stiff perhaps?

What say you?
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Interesting and I see what you mean. This ages me of course but I loved Tony Alva. Certainly Mountain too. I think one of my all time faves has to be Sergio Yuppie. His sliding is just otherworldly and I just love his attitude.

 
boneman said:
Interesting and I see what you mean. This ages me of course but I loved Tony Alva. Certainly Mountain too. I think one of my all time faves has to be Sergio Yuppie. His sliding is just otherworldly and I just love his attitude.

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I used to love downhill sliding, not that hard if you have the right durometer wheels.

I learned Backside & Frontside 4-wheel slides, and then 2-wheel Front/Backside slides on the tail or nose.
A Backside Frontwheel slide of 10’ or more is a good feeling.

Then there is sliding wheels on a halfpipe, a ‘360° Cess-slide’ is a gorgeous natural feeling trick.
 
Big Tabs said:
I used to love downhill sliding, not that hard if you have the right durometer wheels.

I learned Backside & Frontside 4-wheel slides, and then 2-wheel Front/Backside slides on the tail or nose.
A Backside Frontwheel slide of 10’ or more is a good feeling.

Then there is sliding wheels on a halfpipe, a ‘360° Cess-slide’ is a gorgeous natural feeling trick.
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sounds like you are a lot better than I am!
 
boneman said:
sounds like you are a lot better than I am!
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I was obsessed for decades. I would be skating now if my Left knee and Right wrist weren’t foocked.
Also I was skateboarding before flatland Ollies existed, so Sliding was commonplace, as was Wheelies/Manuals.
 
I was obsessed with skateboarding between 1977-1981; still have/ride my Stacy Peralta Warptail 2 deck and a Bull Dog Skate deck. Sold stuff along the way (including my Benjyboards, which I rather regret now). Can anyone guess the link between Benjyboard and a band who, I assume, are rather popular with members of this site?

Although I like/admire all forms of skateboarding, I'm still drawn to the classic, aggressive, surfer pool style.
 
radiant_radish said:
Although I like/admire all forms of skateboarding, I'm still drawn to the classic, aggressive, surfer pool style.
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Yup.
I like to see massive Airs, laybacks, Slasher F/Side grinds on rough concrete coping all day.
Romford or Southsea.

Flippy-Street stuff gets a bit boring and it’s hard to tell what happened unless it is in slo-mo. But Matt Hensley /Ray Barbee street style I love.

and there is always Rodney Mullen, as close to a hero as I have ever had.
 
I did a lot of ramp riding when I was young and stupid! A mate's older brother built an 8 foot ramp in his back yard. Had a lot of fun with it. I used to get to the top and get the front off the ramp but air always eluded me. Probably just didn't have the nads to get the proper speed up to do that! Used to do a lot of nose/tail manuals and loved just messing about with made up freestyle moves in the drive. This was also 'pre-ollie' days when the 'Ty Paige' kick flip was the rage! I still have a Sims Hosoi Kamikazi with Indy 159s. The wheels finally hardened over the years so threw on a recent set of Kypt Greenies.

Got into longboards a few years back and really enjoyed using them to do my work commute! Tried slideing a few times and just never got the hang of it. Since COVID and no more commute haven't ridden much. Would still love to be able to some sliding so need to get back out there.
 
boneman said:
Ty Paige' kick flip was the rage!
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:D

Yep. Did you learn the old style no Ollie Kickflip?
I learned it on a polyprop Coyote. If you could do a Double-Decker then it was easier to kickflip off that trick because of the extra height!
‘Spacewalking’ was my first hard trick that I learned properly. I could do it pretty much nonstop, with no tail-scraping.

Getting Air on those early Halfpipes or ramps was hard in the 70’s as there wasn’t always proper coping, or there was no vertical. I always found Frontside Airs /Lein Airs etc straightforward, but Backside Airs I found harder. I could do a reasonable Indy Air, but a straight Backside Air eluded me.
I could do Inverts, but found it scary as shit getting my hand on that coping. Never made an Andrecht but tried many times. I did eventually learn to frontside Ollie on halfpipes, but got injured in the process (broken collar bone from one nasty slam, and a massive black eye another time when my front foot came off the deck mid-f/s Ollie and I landed on the tail and flipped the deck straight into my face, ‘POW,’ I then fell down the 10’ tranny ramp…)

My favourite ramp trick was a Gay Twist. I did make a Half-Cab to Nosepick, Half-Cab out a few times, but that was infrequent.
 
Big Tabs said:
:D

Yep. Did you learn the old style no Ollie Kickflip?
I learned it on a polyprop Coyote. If you could do a Double-Decker then it was easier to kickflip off that trick because of the extra height!
‘Spacewalking’ was my first hard trick that I learned properly. I could do it pretty much nonstop, with no tail-scraping.

Getting Air on those early Halfpipes or ramps was hard in the 70’s as there wasn’t always proper coping, or there was no vertical. I always found Frontside Airs /Lein Airs etc straightforward, but Backside Airs I found harder. I could do a reasonable Indy Air, but a straight Backside Air eluded me.
I could do Inverts, but found it scary as shit getting my hand on that coping. Never made an Andrecht but tried many times. I did eventually learn to frontside Ollie on halfpipes, but got injured in the process (broken collar bone from one nasty slam, and a massive black eye another time when my front foot came off the deck mid-f/s Ollie and I landed on the tail and flipped the deck straight into my face, ‘POW,’ I then fell down the 10’ tranny ramp…)

My favourite ramp trick was a Gay Twist. I did make a Half-Cab to Nosepick, Half-Cab out a few times, but that was infrequent.
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Never did get the no Ollie Kick. You are light years better than I ever was by the sounds of it LOL. I was good at lots of 360s in a row at least, think I did like 6 or 8 once or twice. Air always eluded me but I have to say I never really got myelf into any parks or places with decent vert back then. The ramps we had were pretty rickity! Funny the two broken bones I got skating (one at 10 and one at 53) were completely unspectacular. Broke the left wrist getting the wobs on a hill as a kid and much more seriously did the hip catching the fronts on a hole. Never saw what I hit until I slammed hard on my left side. The most pain I've ever experienced to the point of passing out. Hope never to experience that again!
 
boneman said:
Never did get the no Ollie Kick. You are light years better than I ever was by the sounds of it LOL. I was good at lots of 360s in a row at least, think I did like 6 or 8 once or twice. Air always eluded me but I have to say I never really got myelf into any parks or places with decent vert back then. The ramps we had were pretty rickity! Funny the two broken bones I got skating (one at 10 and one at 53) were completely unspectacular. Broke the left wrist getting the wobs on a hill as a kid and much more seriously did the hip catching the fronts on a hole. Never saw what I hit until I slammed hard on my left side. The most pain I've ever experienced to the point of passing out. Hope never to experience that again!
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I liked 360°s. :cool:
Again, I was better at Frontside 360s rather than Backside. I can’t remember how many I could manage (2 Feet) but I used to spin on ice-skates and rollerskates 2-Feet or 1-Foot, so on a skateboard I could spin one or two footed.
I do recall that it would hurt the ends of my fingers as the centrifugal force shoved more blood than was required into my fingertips. Strange pain!

I did really like High jumps over a raising bar, good discipline getting the landing right.
Same with long jumps - deck to a different deck. That could be painful if you missed the landing as you needed some speed to get past 6’+
Somewhere I have an old exercise book with the tricks that I learned in order from when I was 12-13 ish. I must look for it as I forget the tricks.
 
rocky raccoon said:
I skate. Not nearly enough lately.
Got a new set-up and it's my new year's resolution to get back on vert.
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Good for you. I think as long as your bail method is good and the transition is big enough, then it is safer than Street or mini-ramps.
I often relive various skate sessions as I go to sleep. I can get a sense of the feeling just by remembering stuff.
 
Big Tabs said:
Good for you. I think as long as your bail method is good and the transition is big enough, then it is safer than Street or mini-ramps.
I often relive various skate sessions as I go to sleep. I can get a sense of the feeling just by remembering stuff.
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I think it's the speed that freaks people out. Once you get your head around that, and the drop-in - I think you're right.
Got me some big Pro-Design knee pads too ! Big confidence booster.
 
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