Skateboarding

I skated in the 80's til 90 or 91. first board: Rob Roskopp III, ten pound Gullwing trucks, OJ II or OJ III wheels... started skating again about 5 years ago... I'm 39, out of shape and overweight. I can do many of the same tricks: kickflip, heel flip, 360 no comply both ways, half cab kickflip and BS kickflip on a good day. some tricks that were super easy back in the day elude me or were very difficult to re-learn. it took me a good while to get a quality 50-50 on tranny and a proper regular rock and roll on tranny is something I still am working on. I can do the RNRs just not properly. Can't get a BS ollie with any consistency... WTF? I am better on vert than I ever was before; in the words of D. Way "it's all in your head."

an old dog can learn new tricks. Examples: fs reverts, tailslides both ways and to fs revert, staple guns and variations all on tranny... I just learned kickflip to fakie on tranny a few weeks ago. I have been trying to get tre flips since I started back. on a good day, I can do what I call a 270 flip. it doesn't go all the way. for a while, I was doing 360 pressure flips with some consistency. tre flips though, for whatever reason, have been the hardest trick for me to get. I know, "it's all in the swoop."

one thing about getting old- and I noticed this in a previous post- is the time to warm-up. It takes me at least 30 minutes to warm-up, and then I have about an hour until I am too tired to make my tricks. BITD, it took me 30 seconds to warm-up and have all my tricks down, and then I skated all day. also the stiffness.... I am not as limber as I once was and that is a negative factor in street skating.

below is a picture of a guy's backyard ramp that I occasionally skate. it is a wooden clover bowl, skatelite like material, 13'8'' tall at one point and a mix of conrete, metal and brick coping.... sick!

View attachment 144002

my plan is to get in shape for the summer and skate a lot more.... oh and learn handrails!

Good ol' 360 flips... I learned them when I was sixteen and the day I got them, I stopped. I only try them when playing SKATE and never land one...Everybody knows it and put me a letter on it...LOL. I can do some flatground tricks that are supposed to be harder like switch bs flip, nollie back heels but I can't do a tre flip...Great you are still skating at 39, same age as JT above...
 
The ONLY thing stopping me from blowing off the dust is fear of breaking my damn arm or wrist. Cant trade without my money hand!

first board - powell peralta mike mcgill in neon green. circa 1984 I think. Skated up till the early 90`s. Then took up surfing full time.
 
The ONLY thing stopping me from blowing off the dust is fear of breaking my damn arm or wrist. Cant trade without my money hand!
.

Never thought about this. That would be terrible indeed. I torn one finger one time and it still has a weird form after 3 years...LOL. I have a permanent "swellbow" on my right arm too.
 
Here is a skatepark in Italy I went to last week end ( with a bunch of other spots ). It was made solely out of unused marble pieces from sculptures:


I have been doing a lot of skate road trips in Europe in the last 2 years( Berlin, Barcelona, Bilbao, Milano, Brescia, Marseille, Switzerland...) and I have a skate spots album on Facebook. If you want to see it, send me a PM and I will add you to my friends...:)
 
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Never thought about this. That would be terrible indeed. I torn one finger one time and it still has a weird form after 3 years...LOL. I have a permanent "swellbow" on my right arm too.

I started back up in the spring of 2009. I wasn't one of those guys that skated a few times a year but basically quit; I hadn't skated at all in almost 2 decades.

When I started back, I figured I would skate until I got a serious or semi-serious injury. Hasn't happened yet. I did have an inward ankle sprain. That sucked for about 6 months. When it happened I thought for sure it was broken. It looked gnarly. I also once landed on my arm from 3/4 of the way up of the full pipe thing at Round Rock SP. Damn desert dust. I thought for sure that my arm was broken but, no, just swellbow.

I am living in an area with quite a few ex 80's vert pros. A lot of those dudes don't really skate anymore because they are concerned about losing their jobs if they break something. Quite a few are working in the construction industry. One guy, however, is about 50 still doing 540's and is doing some kind of computer work. I don't trade frequently enough to worry about a broken arm. I can't be fired because I don't really work with my hands and am co-owner.

Worrying about breaking bones is a real concern, though. I wonder how Nyjah lived through the Fade To Black handrail slam:

 
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I started back up in the spring of 2009. I wasn't one of those guys that skated a few times a year but basically quit; I hadn't skated at all in almost 2 decades.

When I started back, I figured I would skate until I got a serious or semi-serious injury. Hasn't happened yet. I did have an inward ankle sprain. That sucked for about 6 months. When it happened I thought for sure it was broken. It looked gnarly. I also once landed on my arm from 3/4 of the way up of the full pipe thing at Round Rock SP. Damn desert dust. I thought for sure that my arm was broken but, no, just swellbow.

I am living in an area with quite a few ex 80's vert pros. A lot of those dudes don't really skate anymore because they are concerned about losing their jobs if they break something. Quite a few are working in the construction industry. One guy, however, is about 50 still doing 540's and is doing some kind of computer work. I don't trade frequently enough to worry about a broken arm. I can't be fired because I don't really work with my hands and am co-owner.

Worrying about breaking bones is a real concern, though. I wonder how Nyjah lived through the Fade To Black handrail slam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Ha_9oaPvU

I was a skate rat in the late 80's. Some of my friends in their mid 40's are still going strong. A friend of mine suggested I get back into it. I was like F no! In addition to being a software engineer, I am a semi-pro drummer. A broken arm could be a career killer! I stick to reminiscing about the glory days :)

fan27
 
I was a skate rat in the late 80's. Some of my friends in their mid 40's are still going strong. A friend of mine suggested I get back into it. I was like F no! In addition to being a software engineer, I am a semi-pro drummer. A broken arm could be a career killer! I stick to reminiscing about the glory days :)

fan27

I will be in Tampa August 5-11. I am bringing two boards and look to hit all the spots. If you change your mind, let me know. :)
 
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