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I have a really lame and dumb request. I have to walk down this stupid hill every day, and every single time I think "I should be skating down this". The problem is that I'm a total pussy, and don't really want to go at insane speeds- not when I'm just starting again, at least. Are there any setups that accelerate fine on slight hills/flats, but have a tolerable speed on the steep ones? Maybe I could handle the speed if the board was more stable. The board should also be compact enough to carry, or wedge between my back and backpack. I probably wouldn't be doing any tricks, so that's not a concern. Any recommendations?
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Mar 10, 2010 12:04
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 23:51 |
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If you're a pussy I wouldn't recommend bombing down hills because being a noob you're going to wreck sooner or later, probably sooner. You'll pick up lots of speed no matter what board you use, the only thing you can do to slow down is learn how to foot brake or slide. If you must do it, start on small hills and work your way up. Bombing hills is not for the faint of heart.
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Mar 10, 2010 14:45
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Apocalypso posted:I have a really lame and dumb request. I have to walk down this stupid hill every day, and every single time I think "I should be skating down this". The problem is that I'm a total pussy, and don't really want to go at insane speeds- not when I'm just starting again, at least. Are there any setups that accelerate fine on slight hills/flats, but have a tolerable speed on the steep ones? Maybe I could handle the speed if the board was more stable. The board should also be compact enough to carry, or wedge between my back and backpack. I probably wouldn't be doing any tricks, so that's not a concern. Any recommendations? Yeah, work up to being able to take on the whole thing. Do a quarter, or whatever you're comfortable with, then next time take it up a notch to half the hill and so on. Oh yeah, keep your knees bent and learn footbrakes at least.
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Mar 10, 2010 15:41
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Apocalypso posted:I have a really lame and dumb request. I have to walk down this stupid hill every day, and every single time I think "I should be skating down this". The problem is that I'm a total pussy, and don't really want to go at insane speeds- not when I'm just starting again, at least. Are there any setups that accelerate fine on slight hills/flats, but have a tolerable speed on the steep ones? Maybe I could handle the speed if the board was more stable. The board should also be compact enough to carry, or wedge between my back and backpack. I probably wouldn't be doing any tricks, so that's not a concern. Any recommendations? What's your budget? The main thing, though, is practice. If you just jump on a board and try to rip up a hill, there's a good chance you're going to have a freak out moment, lock up and get the wobbles. Most of it is mental conditioning (the general consensus is that speed wobbles are 10% gear and 90% mental), which you acquire through practice. Start out doing small sections, begin at the bottom and work your way up. I don't mean to scare you or anything, but if you have a good wreck your first time out it might spook you and you'll have to get over the fear. Just work on getting comfortable with the board and learn how it reacts/behaves. Work on your carving and footbraking, and keep your knees bent. A good setup will make it much easier, but people have taken the course at Maryhill (about a 50mph run) on short slalom setups with loose narrow trucks. Like I said, it's about your state of mind and confidence, which are gained through practice and experience.
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Mar 10, 2010 18:37
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How the gently caress do you powerslide  I've watched so many training videos and I've tried on flatland and down several smaller hills near my house, but I can't get the loving back of the board to kick out without accidentally going into a nose manual and trashing myself. I could cut ten minutes out of the commute to and from the bus stop to get to work every day if I only had a method of stopping faster than just footbraking; I'm confident enough with the speed going down these hills now, but it's suburbia and cars occasionally come out and do their thing and there's no way of preparing for that other than taking a fall. I mean, I'm really comfortable with the speed; I've overtaken a car before down one hill on my crappy fuckin deck (with good bearings and wheels) so yeah. How the gently caress do I slide.
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Mar 11, 2010 02:52
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Whalley posted:How the gently caress do you powerslide There are a bunch of awesome tutorials on YouTube and Vimeo. edit: vvv wow I can't read. Sorry Whalley. RobotEmpire fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Mar 11, 2010 |
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Mar 11, 2010 05:03
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RobotEmpire posted:There are a bunch of awesome tutorials on YouTube and Vimeo. Whalley posted:I've watched so many training videos Anyway, it's all about positioning your feet over the trucks and pushing with your back foot to get the back of the board forward.
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Mar 11, 2010 05:15
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Bucket Joneses posted:Anyway, it's all about positioning your feet over the trucks and pushing with your back foot to get the back of the board forward. Do you shift your weight at all towards the nose? I don't know if it's just my streets or the way I balance or what, but I can't seem to slide the back at all unless I push my front foot further forwards past the truck, which means I wind up rear end-ending. I guess forcing yourself to do a motion until you either get it or kill yourself is kind of what skating is all about, but I'd rather not gently caress myself too hard until it's at least cool enough weather here to wear long sleeved shirts.
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Mar 11, 2010 09:56
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Keep in mind if you're trying to learn there are certainly more conducive surfaces than others. A regular concrete road/sidewalk will be more difficult to learn on then say a wood ramp surface like masonite or a smoother sealed concrete (liked you'd get at a park/indoor surface).
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Mar 11, 2010 14:07
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Whalley posted:Do you shift your weight at all towards the nose? I don't know if it's just my streets or the way I balance or what, but I can't seem to slide the back at all unless I push my front foot further forwards past the truck, which means I wind up rear end-ending. I do not shift my weight forward at all. In fact I lean back with my upper torso and push my legs forward. Just practice going a really slow pace and trying to kick the back end around 90 degrees. It will look and feel retarded but that's the general motion you need to get down. Bend your knees so you can suck up the sudden jolt of friction into your legs. Also: like the guy above me said, some surfaces are better for this than others. This is one time I'd actually suggest skateboarding on wet pavement.
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Mar 11, 2010 17:11
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I'm stationed overseas and I'm looking for a skateboarding website where I can build my own board online(choose deck, trucks, wheels, etc. all seperately) and have it shipped out. The only skateshop is over 2 hours away and I'll probably pay way too much because of the weakness of the dollar to the euro. Anyways, I went to skateboards.com, but they said they don't ship to APO addresses. I have an FPO address, but I'd rather be safe and order from somewhere I know won't have any issues. Any help?
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Mar 11, 2010 18:34
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I definitely have to disagree with the wet pavement remark. I think the best non-skatepark surfaces are either fresh asphalt or any type of tiled walkway. Normal cement is probably the hardest thing to powerslide on unless it's really dusty. Unless you're half surfing, water on cement isn't going to make it less bumpy and unforgiving. One key you might be missing about shifting your weight is jumping into the slide. You need to half-jump to initiate a powerslide. Don't jump off the deck, but bend down and stand up so you have some upward momentum as you turn. Decreasing friction between the wheels and the ground is the most important part of initiating a slide. Only once you have turned the board should you reapply your weight. For practice, I would actually recommend doing it motionless. Don't concentrate on slowing down once you've started the powerslide, also. Most of the decrease in speed will come from the actual turn, not the slide itself (which is usually really short since it's tough to hold a powerslide) Edit: I changed my mind about the water. I think it will make sliding easier but I don't think it will make the difference. moww fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Mar 11, 2010 |
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Mar 11, 2010 18:50
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God drat Tilt Mode Army gets me so amped to skate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks_7Cb20pHE
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Mar 11, 2010 19:06
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Powersliding on wet surfaces will make you get used to the motion of sliding and ruin your deck. No tips for you though, I've been skating for 8 years and I still can't powerslide properly.
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Mar 11, 2010 21:01
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Having hard wheels helps too, soft wheels don't tend to slide well.
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Mar 12, 2010 04:19
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moww posted:One key you might be missing about shifting your weight is jumping into the slide. You need to half-jump to initiate a powerslide. Don't jump off the deck, but bend down and stand up so you have some upward momentum as you turn. Decreasing friction between the wheels and the ground is the most important part of initiating a slide. Only once you have turned the board should you reapply your weight.  This makes things a lot easier! I'm clearly trying to run before I can walk, because despite handling speed, I'm so terrible with landing back on the board (total ollies in my life landed: one and a half (i don't count the one i did on grass as a full ollie)) but at least I managed to spin the board 90 degrees while stationary now. I didn't even fall*!*straight away, although after my second attempt I couldn't stand up straight and accidentally went primo and landed on my rear end
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Mar 12, 2010 06:51
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Another thing that gets me so amped to skate: finally finding someone cool to skate with that isn't some loving weirdo or amazingly good. He also turned me onto this indoor park in Seattle that I'd never even heard of: https://www.innerspaceskateboarding.com   Never before have I been so stoked.
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Mar 15, 2010 23:28
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I didn't see a specific response to the guy asking what was different about skate shoes that made them so much better - they're basically tank treads for your feet. I don't have a lot of pairs of shoes to test with but I'll never skate with any sort of cross-training/running shoes or the like again, the padding and stability that skate shoes give you is crucial.
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Mar 15, 2010 23:52
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Honestly, the only non-skate shoe that I'd ever consider skating in are Sambas. You need that totally flat sole for, like you said, a good grip surface.
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Mar 15, 2010 23:54
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I got a hand me down set of SWISS BONES!!!!! today. They were pretty crummy but drat, swiss! So I decided to embark on a quest, a quest that until today has eluded me for almost a decade. Cleaning bearings. Searching for the Bones bearing cleaner I stumbled across http://tinyurl.com/ykffwww sounded waaayyy too easy.    And it was. Rolled around on 'em just outside, they feel good as new. Two of them were very stubborn so I just cleaned out my old China Bones and replaced them. I'm really stoked on how well it worked, if anyone is looking to clean their bearings you should check out that guide. I now officially have a "he knows what's up" set up, indy's, swiss, spitfires, and a deluxe distribution (anti-hero) board. Edit: Reason I'm so psyched on swiss is that they are 75$ here in Canada.
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Mar 16, 2010 00:47
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Bucket Joneses posted:He also turned me onto this indoor park in Seattle that I'd never even heard of: https://www.innerspaceskateboarding.com That place rules. Its definitely hard to find because its buried in an industrial park on Stoneway with almost no signage.
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Mar 16, 2010 01:21
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plester1 posted:That place rules. Its definitely hard to find because its buried in an industrial park on Stoneway with almost no signage. I think if I hung out with more skaters I'd have heard about it but I always just skate by myself at Marginal Way or Woodland Park when no one is there. I only just learned about it because a guy I worked with on Sunday started talking about skating with me and told me about it. I'm going to sign up for a year pass this week for sure. Tonight I skated at the local school cement and finally landed some solid tricks. It has a nice 2' grass gap between two pads of cement that's great for getting learning poo poo. Heel flip, kick flip, fake big spin, varial flip, shove it all in full effect. Also landed a few solid nose manny to fs shove it (with an actual pop on the shove instead of just a spin). Boo yah let's go skate. DR FRASIER KRANG fucked around with this message at 04:13 on Mar 16, 2010 |
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Mar 16, 2010 04:09
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this is definitely off topic, but i'm looking to move to a new city where i don't know anybody and meet up with local skaters so that i have something fulfilling to do when i'm not working. i've always liked seattle, and i was wondering if any seattle skate goons had any advice for starting from scratch in the city.
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Mar 16, 2010 07:48
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I skated for years back in high school and have strongly been considering getting another board to play around on, this time with more focus on having fun with it, instead of being obsessed with learning new tricks like I was back then. I just miss it. I've got a couple buddies that are big time longboarders and I always consider giving it a shot, but after watching youtube videos, I never feel too enthused about it. I finally gave it a shot and rolled around on my buddy's Loaded Dervish the other night (even carved, slightly, a mellow hill) and it was actually pretty cool. Now I'm wanting to pick up a normal board AND a longboard. drat.
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Mar 16, 2010 08:12
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Zizzyx posted:this is definitely off topic, but i'm looking to move to a new city where i don't know anybody and meet up with local skaters so that i have something fulfilling to do when i'm not working. i've always liked seattle, and i was wondering if any seattle skate goons had any advice for starting from scratch in the city. So you're looking to move to a new city and considering Seattle? If so, this is the best time of year to do that if you want to start skating right when you get here because the weather is clearing up and it's getting warmer all the time. There are a handful of good public parks that are really fun. Woodland Park has one, Seattle Center has one, Ballard has a bowl if that's your thing, and there is always Marginal Way.
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Mar 16, 2010 18:05
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Bucket Joneses posted:So you're looking to move to a new city and considering Seattle? If so, this is the best time of year to do that if you want to start skating right when you get here because the weather is clearing up and it's getting warmer all the time. That all looks and sounds pretty great! The thing I'd be most concerned about, though, is the local job situation for non-college degree'd losers and the cost of living/housing. How is Seattle w/r/t those things?
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Mar 18, 2010 18:43
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Just ordered a new helium element deck. Pretty excited to try it out, should be here in a couple weeks or so. I couldn't find out from the website if it came with griptape or not, so I threw in some cool blue tape. Anybody ever tried one of these decks?
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Mar 18, 2010 21:15
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God I can go down tiny little hills all day long. So fun. I want to find something substantial, though. Unfortunately I'm very lazy.
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Mar 19, 2010 05:28
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blue squares posted:Just ordered a new helium element deck. Pretty excited to try it out, should be here in a couple weeks or so. I couldn't find out from the website if it came with griptape or not, so I threw in some cool blue tape. Anybody ever tried one of these decks? The biggest downfall with those decks is that a. helium expands and contracts, and b. there are major weak spots from the pockets. At the shop I worked at we had an older one sitting at the bottom of the deck pile. I put it near the heater out back for a few hours to test my hypothesis and the drat pockets started to bubble. I'd imagine skating in the cold would cause the pockets to become major weak spots as the helium contracts. Moral of the story keep it away from excessive heat or cold. Really goes for all decks I guess.
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Mar 19, 2010 08:40
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Zizzyx posted:That all looks and sounds pretty great! The thing I'd be most concerned about, though, is the local job situation for non-college degree'd losers and the cost of living/housing. How is Seattle w/r/t those things? The cost of living in Seattle isn't all that high but the job situation here is the same as it is everywhere: lovely but slowly improving. I was unemployed for a long time and only recently got a job two weeks ago. I don't know how the job market is for non college grads (or if that's even relevant given that my job just requires that you know how to troubleshoot computers). I wouldn't move to a city where I had no ties if I didn't have a job lined up, though. That seems like a straight track to HoboVille.
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Mar 19, 2010 18:21
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Alright! Ollied over my first tiny obstacle today, then about 30 minutes later ollied onto and off of my first curb. Feeling great, getting (very) slowly better!
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Mar 20, 2010 10:31
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gently caress yeah, congrats dude. I've been working insane overtime and haven't made the time to skate in nearly two weeks. I'm blowing it.
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Mar 20, 2010 18:00
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I blew out my knew snowboarding a bout 3 or 4 years ago. After that I fell off the wagon for skating and snowboarding. I worked at a local skate/snowboard shop for 8 years (on and off), with the combination of quitting that job and a blown out knee I haven't done poo poo for years. Fear of exploding my knee and falling to the ground like a little girl (no offense ladies) has kept me from really going out and skating or riding. I hope to change that this summer as I miss skating and I could definitely use the exercise. It's still lovely outside and although the snow is melting it's still a ways away till the non-hardcore can skate. I'll probably just hit up parking lots of the skate parks now and then. Looks like I'll have to relearn everything and get my confidence back but as long as it's fun, it's all good. I'll poke my head in now and then and answer some questions, while I may not be up to date on all the trendy poo poo, I do have about 8 years of skate shop experience, and about 20 years total of skateboarding experience. So I'm sure I have some useful information somewhere in my "old-man has-been" brain.
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Mar 20, 2010 18:24
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Real old men ride 40mm Click here for the full 1600x1200 image.
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Mar 20, 2010 18:30
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I went to my first skateshop yesterday  Is $60 to totally fit out a plain wooden deck pretty reasonable? Trucks, wheels, everything.
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Mar 20, 2010 20:03
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RobotEmpire posted:I went to my first skateshop yesterday It depends on the type of gear you bought, but $60 is quite reasonable. As long as they didn't fob you off with naff parts.
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Mar 20, 2010 21:37
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Mincher posted:As long as they didn't fob you off with naff parts. What the hell is going on with this strange tongue. $60 means you probably get generic everything except the trucks which are probably Grind King or Royal or something else of that nature. If it's your first deck then I'd say go for it if only because you don't want to put $120 bucks into something you might not even want to do in six months.
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Mar 22, 2010 16:04
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Whalley posted:
If you are having trouble getting the board around it might be helpful to position your back foot so that the heel is hanging a bit off of the board, but still aligned over the back truck. This will give you a little bit better leverage as you can force it around with your heel. Push into the side of the deck, not necessarily on top of it. I didn't realize this thread was here until now! I'm a 33 year old who skated growing up until about 16 and and who got back into it about 2 years ago. It definitely took some work to get back in skating shape but now I'm having a blast and I'm better than I have ever been. It's amazing how many skateparks there are even in places that you wouldn't expect to have skateparks. Kids are pretty fortunate these days though they need to learn to stay off the drat lip! 
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Mar 22, 2010 19:20
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UFOTofuTacoCat posted:Kids are pretty fortunate these days though they need to learn to stay off the drat lip! At one park near me there are stencils painted on the coping that just says DO NOT STAND HERE
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Mar 23, 2010 17:57
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 23:51 |
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What ever happened to the fear of getting beat up for being at the park and getting in peoples ways, or not being good enough? Kids these days...
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Mar 23, 2010 19:22
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