O/T?.........skateboarding and rods.....

OK........so there was i thinkin to myself..........theres' few things that i've REALLY stuck with in life throughout........obviously the cars/bikes (and scooters)is a large part..........one of the others is skateboarding,in my case particularly longboards (goin' down in size to say,pool deck size)..........can't say i've ever progressed to being particularly good at either ,but like an itch that keeps comin' back,i've never been able to put either to bed have to go back to them..........now i've noticed theres' a lot of skaters on here/in the scene............just wondered who y'all were,why you started n are still at it,n whether you think theres' a link in there with the rod thing and skating...........be interested to hear your views n recollections.
Like i say i'm a pretty rubbish skater,n my knees suggest that aint ever gonna improve much lol,but..........like having that driving moment where everything is 'right', i cant get that feeling in many other experiences.

 

the search function is your friend.... there are a few threads on this already...

I still get busy with it though...

 

Skateboarding is my first love. It's the only thing that I've stuck with, and it's the only thing that has ever stuck with me.

 

Been skating for over 21 years (I don't really count the knee-boarding and coffin-skating I did before I was 10). If I had the time, I'd do it daily...but I still get out a few times a week. If I can still do BS tailslides at 31, why stop?

Bryan

 

i started skateboarding around 1988-89. i still skate as much as i can at the age of 29 but life (bills,kids,worketc..)does not let me get out as much as i did at 16-17 which was ever day skipping school ripping apart ledges and stairs.but i always been a car guy even if its a import to a hot rod as long as it clean looking and has some balls its cool with me.the only link i see between skatin and cars is it is a solo thing only u can make the car cool and only u can land that kickflip thats my 2 cents

 

I busted out some of my early 90's skate mags the other day and I noticed a little write up on Ricky Windsor, I didnt know he built hot rods and customs. Yeah skating comsumes my life more than hot rods these days, as a matter of fact just got done layering a ramp in a warehouse yesterday for even more winter fun. The connection is there but the topic has been touched on here before, and we usually get the normal "I used to skate, or i knew so and so", the truth be told you should have never quit!! ha,ha

 

In the late 70s when good equip. and urethane wheels (big Kyrptonics) came out to replace clay wheels, at least here in Texas, we ripped it up!..we piled into my 64 Riviera or Bills 65 Chevy Pkup and went safari..our favorite ditch was on IH35 in Selma, we dropped in from underneath an overpass from a spot called the Monster Hole, to the bottom was equivalent to a three-story bldg. drop..you got two or three high speed carves and exited out the vertical face of another overpass at the downhill end...cops would be sitting on the frontage road shooting radar and turn the gun on us shouting out 20 to 25 mph. thats hauling ass on a skateboard in a ditch..my friends Bill and Abdul had a shop and line called Arrowsmith..we still skate (I use a 36" SchmidtStik) just with a little more caution and cooler cars, still have the Riviera

 

I've been skating since I was 11, 34 now. I hear ya on the knees thing, my lower back also loves it when I slam. I'm not much into street stuff, still love pool skating. Worked at the park here in Austin for a while, there are a lot of old dudes here that can still kill it! Carving, rock-n-rolls, grinds, I try to keep it simple these days........

 

You young punks all got spoiled riding those bubble pack billet boards.
Us old graybeards rode "TRADITIONAL" boards we made ourselves in the garage from the half worn out steel wheels and truck from the clamp on skate that our less dominant leg didn't wear out as fast as the other.
In my neighborhood, we usta race each other on skates around the block on the concrete sidewalk, always turning left, just like most race tracks do so the left skate didn't get as much wear as the right one. when the wheels wore through on the right skate, usually making a turn at speed causing a fair aount of road rash since woosie knee and elbow pads hadn't been invented by fun spoiling do gooder's yet, we took the other skate apart and nailed the front and rear trucks to a piece of two by four or bolted them to a hunk of plywood.
The wheels were aybe 3" apart and didn't hold the road well but it was what we had.
When a company called Cooley came out with a commercial board called "Bun Buster" in the early 60's for some insane price of like $4 or so

Well, this is the post I made in the 05 thread; http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-80040.html
"We usta use the remaining two good trucks off our steel wheel clamp on the leather sole shoes skates to make a plywood or 2 X 4 board.
Then in the early 60's, the Cooley "Bun Buster" commercially made skateboard cameout.
There may have been some before it, but not "commercially successful, like the "Bun Buster" was.
The "rich girl" up the street got the first one and after she finally let me ride it I got one too.
Of course, the first scratch on the original finish was all the reason I needed to strip it and paint it candy lime green with an iron cross decal on it.

Anyone got a "Bun Buster" from the 60's?"

 

I don't know how it links with hot rods, if at all...but lots of car guys are/were also into skateboarding...as well as BMX, model cars, video games and so on.

Myself, I came to it late...was 37 years old before I ever learned how to ride at all, and discovered that bombing hills is what I dig! Broke my hand this past Summer skating a rough run while stone drunk, but was having the time of my life, and kept at it for another hour or so...didn't even notice the bone sticking out of my hand in a weird shaped lump until I woke up the next day and looked at it cuz it was sorta hurtin'!! I just made a note to keep that hand from hitting the ground first for a while!!!

I guess, in that regard, skateboarding IS somewhat like rodding, or anything else that you're truly passionate about....you love it enough to do it no matter what.

 

started skating in 1973.....busted roller skate screwed to a rough cut plank....never really stopped but never really got good either...and it really hurts when I fall off now I'm over 40!!

 

Yeah back in '88 I built THE SCUM RAMPS in San Martin CA, lots o fun, we had 11'vert ramp (16w) backed by a 6' mini (16'w) with a bar built under the big deck between the two, Also had a music studio next door so live music from SAD BOY SINISTER, OR THE BROWNIES, OR WHOEVER SHOWED UP would enhance the SCUM RAMP festivities. Pros were often makin cameos like, John Fab' and our own HAMBer STEVE CAB' The Scum Guys were 24-7 Skating, BBQ, Smokin, drinkin Partying rockin out, fightin, painting yellin screemin, So many good times. The Mini was burned in a burn barrel piece by peice to make room for my house. Then 3 years ago the big ramp and the band room burned to the ground along with my shop! Lots of memories burned up that day but will never be forgotten, SCUM GUYS FOR LIFE! I still have a board and my kids are startin to mess aroun a bit.

 

I started skating again about a month ago after ten years.
We hit up a mini ramp and within 5 minutes i had disasters, slides, grinds, and ollie blunts back.
That was the best I've felt since I finished my truck and drove it for the first time.
Cory

 

hell yes, nice I am still working on disasters on our mini, backside that is.

 

I'll be skating this again this weekend weather permitting...





It looks like it's gonna be 48 and sunny, that'll do....

 

That rules!

We finally got this...





Aboot time...

Bryan

 

Here's my 80's "survivor". The deck was given to me by Tony Alva when I was a kid at the boys club in Santa Monica, he donated a bunch of decks and he gave me the sticker too. The Grip tape was done at Mike Muir's from suicidal tendencies -skate shop, (streets of venice) by Dan from the band excell. a few of the other stickers are from rip city in santa monica... I was an ok skater but never that good, but once in a while ill use it to go to the liquor store or something..

 

Nice Lapper! Hang on to that bad boy...I can't believe how much these old decks are fetching.

Bryan

 

I think common to all these interests is simply the loner mentality of being your own man. You are the sole responsible for outcome X,Y,Z. I'm betting most of us carefully choose our friends, and trust few. It's not that we aren't social, just that we tend to not follow the crowd.

Counterculture in general remains an interest without getting into illegal activities. Well, automotive hyjinx aside. Everyone has their favorite neighborhood dragstrip testing grounds.

I bet all us here felt out of place in school and wanted nothing to do with the "in" crowd. Always had to be different. While I've never had much interest in typical sports I did wrestle (in which its all up to you), and played a little lacrosse in college just 'cause that was pretty unusual in Illinois and I was encouraged to beat people with sticks!

Yeah I skated and snowboarded back in the day, was real big on frestyle BMX. Now? I'm a dentist in the thick of the suburbs with wife and young kids. I'm pretty comfortabe in my skin, but I sure need my garage for a getaway. Maybe building and cruising is my time to experience my wild, nonconformist side. Shit, I almost bought a longboard this summer just 'cause. Maybe I still will.

Gotta hold on to something!

 

I fell into the gap of shitty plastic single-kicktail boards in the mid-late-70s, but had some fun. No skate parks or pools, just parking ramps and construction sites. Never got any good and spent more time on bikes.

41 years old and I just bought a longboard last week.

 

Yeah, i almost gave it away a few times in the 90's but Im glad I kept it. Its just kind of cool to hang on to like that movie "citizen cane" and his rosebud sled...
Its kind of funny how I got into a lot of cool stuff at a young age. I was like 8 years old but I had a sister who was 10 years older and she used take me to heavy metal and hardcore shows. I used to hang out at that skate shop in venice and the guys used to give me shirts and stickers and stuff.

 

Nice shoes!
thanks for the support and keep ripping,
CAB

 

LAMO.. hell yeah and I'm riding Autobahn wheels as well...

 

Skating is what shaped me and got me to where I am today, I still hit it up on the weekends. Sadly Im bout half as good as I once used to be. begining to feel my age!!!

 

skated for one day back in 85 after I fell on my ass.

 

21 years and counting...haven't stopped or taken a hiatus at any point.


This is an old photo obviously.

I built this in the basement at work:


Cris

 

sick indoor set up you guys back east also have the fight club as well. way cool. Those pillars must separate the men from the boys..