I am a 26 years old dude who one day decided he would learn how to ride a skateboard a do tricks without any reason.
When I was like 4 or 5, I got my first skateboard. It was a Penny like skateboard, small and flexy, made of red plastic, with red wheels. I couldn’t do anything with it except rolling, until the day I did a faceplant on the alsphat. My skateboarding “career” nearly stopped that day.
Years later, when I was in high school, some friends of mine were doing a bit of skateboarding and I wanted to join them, so I bought a used skateboard : a 7.75 deck with Royal Trucks and small hard wheels. The only “tricks” I was able to do were kick turns on ramps and going down fakie. Yeah that’s all. My friends quickly stopped skating and so I did, for years.
A year ago, I was at a party and one of my classmate told me he bought a Penny-like board and started to ride it in the local skatepark. I told him that I would like to join him, as it was the occasion for me to try to skateboard again. But I soon realized that my old skateboard was completely dead, because it stayed in my garden shed for like ten years. So as I’m a woodworking enthusiast, and as I had just watched Lords of Dogtown, I decided I would built my own old school deck from a piece of plywood I had lying in my workshop. And I built this 70s looking deck, with “new school” trucks and wheel salvaged from my old skateboard, and sandpaper griptape. I used this “thing” for several weeks, it was fun. Slow because of the rusted bearings, and it didn’t turn well but I really enjoyed it in my skatepark’s snake run.
Eventually, I realized I needed a decent kicktail to be able to pop ollies, new bearings to roll faster and new trucks because those were not turny enough for my needs. So I decided I would build a complete new skateboard, made from maple veneer and with decent trucks.
I bought veneer from Roarockit, but made my mold from expensed polystyrene foam and used a vacuum bag made for packing up clothes. I will make a page about the built if any of you is interested. Eventually I build a nice ~8.25 deck, with a steep concave and nice tails. I was looking for cheap but nice trucks and I found Johny review of Mini Logo trucks on Skateboarding is my Lifetimesport and it looked like the perfect trucks for me so I bought a pair on Amazon. I really enjoy these trucks, pretty stable yet turny enough and really easy to dial on. Plus I was the only one ridding them in my skatepark, everyone had Ventures but me. With this board I really learnt how to ride a snake run, I could go faster and higher or turns, and go to the vert part of the bowl.
Most skaters out there only do street skating, with tight trucks and small decks. I was proud to be able to complete the snake run without any kick turns but with surfy turns. I continued like this for months, occasionally trying to learn how to ollie but without
any success. Then I found the videos of Aaron Kyro on Youtube, and decided I would learn how to ollie. And then I spent hours trying to get that front foot slide to get my board up in the air. After a while I managed to do decent ollie, but only stationary. For some reason (probably a lack of balls) I can’t do any ollie moving for the moment.
One day, an event changed my skating life. I was in my usual skate park and a dude came with a Carver deck with a C7 set. I tried it and loved the surfy feeling I got with those. When I came home I looked for it on the internet and found that they were really expensive trucks. But doing more research I found out about the CX trucks that were supposedly nearly as surfy but more usable in a skate park. So I finally bought a pair of Carver CX from Sickboards. Those trucks are crazy. I spend hours in my skatepark doing crazy tight turns everywhere at crazy speed. And with those trucks I also learn how to pump. And while I was doing some research about how I could pump more efficiently I found the famous PavedWave website and learn more about how to pump. And I found out what LDP (Long Distance Pumping) was and became found of it.
For months, I only did LDP on my local bike path, using a modified Freebord deck and my set of
Carver CX and 75mm 78a OJ wheels. With this setup I was able to perform a half-marathon in about 1:15 hours, with a speed of 17km/h. (~10,5 mph). But I think I have hit a plateau and I’m currently building a Bennett Vector and Tracker RTS setup to be more efficient in LDP. And I’m also planing to build another deck with a longer wheelbase so I won’t have to use this ghetto wheelbase expender.
But now, I miss “street” skating so I decided I will finally learn how to do a moving ollie, and then move to more “advanced” tricks such as flips and grinds. I’m also in the quest of finding the trucks that would allow me to be able to pull off tricks but also ride with a surfy feeling and I will document this research in this blog.
So this blog will about my progress in skateboarding, diy and skateboarding and reviews.
Feel free to ask me details and to correct my English, as you may have guessed : English is not my native language and I do make mistakes.
I wish you will enjoy this blog, feel free to comment and to contact me.