Old Guys Who Skate

Yeah – so as you know, Ryan and I have been riding the Bonsor Flow Park.  So far it’s been an awesome experience.  The learning curve has been pretty steep – and the worst part seems to be mental.  What I mean is – we have the game to ride it, but there’s something that tweaks in the brain when you’re horizontal on a wall and staring down into a concrete trough.  Granted, we’re only talking about 6 feet at the high point – but 6 feet is still a pretty good fall.  And as Andrew said one day:  “At this age, I really don’t have a lot of pain left in me”. 

Well – it turns out – neither do I.  But apparently I have enough pain left in me to do this to my elbows.  Funnily enough, after the smaller looking injury, I broke down and bought elbow pads – the larger one happend WHILE WEARING them!  Although I think it was more of a burn from the long sleeved T-Shirt I was wearing at the time…

Anyway – just in case you thought I was making it throgh this process unscathed… 

So now that it’s been a couple of times riding the Flow Park section at Bonsor, I thought it was time to take smoe video.  So here’s one of me finally getting a good ride in! 

There’s something that’s super-cool about riding this park.  Now – of obvious note, I’m wearing more pads than RoboCop, and I’m only making heelside turns… but there’s more on the way.  The funny thing is, now that I’m kinda used to the heelside turns, the frontside turns are hard as hell… aint that always the way…

And since I’m in a video-tastic mood – here’s a similar clip of Ryan.  Only notice he’s starting to do some front-side turns as well.  Ryan’s been kickin ass at Bonsor.  I keep trying to go faster so I can keep the flow, but Ryan’s got the pump down – seems like he can go forever!  Check it:

And yeah – I know the vid’s are kinda amateur – I just haven’t had time to edit them and put music in the background.  I just wanted to load these bad boys up for today.

OK – so the last thing I was gonna mention about my board was the wheels. 

Well, actually, the wheels and bearings.  I picked up these sweet Spitfire wheels that (I think) look pretty damned cool.  They’re 54′s and I have no idea how hard they are (I have to admit – I bought them because I thought they looked cool…).  Anyway, it’s a WHOLE new ballgame from the old Powell Peralta mush-wheels on the ole T&C.  I finished it off with some Black Panther bearings – so smooth they’re smooove.  I was gonna go for the Bones Swiss bearings – but I thought, maybe I could use a little less speed.  …maybe that was a mistake!

Overall though, I’m LOVIN the new board.  The trucks are WAY looser than I was expecting, but I’m getting used to the ride and now I’m pretty much over the initial learning curve.  All in all – it’s a sweet rig.

OK – now that I’ve finished telling you about the board, let’s move on to the riding!!

OK - so it’s about time that I upgraded the ole T&C deck.  As you can see, it’s certainly got that… how can we call it… “80s flair”.  Yup.. neon orange, blue shadowed triangles, and no shortage of crazy stickers.

Also, note the (previously neon green) wheels.  Those babies are plush.  I mean it, they’re soft and silent and roll for ever.  The Indy trucks served me well also – they’re pretty much in mint condition. 

And that’s the other thing, considering the board is nearing 25 years old – it runs perfectly.  Everything is tight and smooth.  And you can tell the deck is near mint as well.  Well – that’s largely to do with two things.  First off, I was never all that ‘hard core’ with my riding – never did any grinds or anything like that.  BUT, even if I did, it wouldn’t have mattered.  Why?  Because the entire deck was protected with various plastic guards.  Truck guards, Schmidtt Stix rail guards, a tail guard, even rail guards that protected the tail – I mean, I really went overboard.  But, at the time, it just seemed like a cool way to protect my board (especially since they were so darned expensive). 

LOL – damn!  I even had a Garfield sticker on there!  … but I think it goes well with the Skull Skates sticker right beside it (obviously, a must have!)  … time to retire this deck methinks…

OK – so I’ll get right back into the skating in a few minutes (’cause I got a LOT to share!), but I just wanted to take a second  to talk about RSSHugger.com for a minute. 

Ultimately – if you’re not on board with RSS – it’s time you gave it a go.  You can even RSS this blog using the RSS link in the right hand column there.  But if you’re not familiar with what RSS is, lemme give you a quick tutorial.

Chances are, at some point in the day, you look at a page like Yahoo! or iGoogle.  And if you do, you’re probably aware that you can customize all the content you see on those pages – well, that content is all the result of RSS, or “Real Simple Syndication”.  The cool part is, you can choose RSS feeds from pretty much anywhere.  And if you’re looking for a great directory of RSS feeds and information, check out RSSHugger.com.  It’s one of my favorite spots!