Will I ever skate again?

So a few weeks of riding the One Wheel is over, is it a game changer, well fuck yeh it is...

A day hasn't gone by without a 'float' around the park and also hitting the excercise equipment they have kindly placed there.

As can be seen I added a surf 'stomp pad' to the tail. This, I found at least, really helps with the back foot feeling more locked in. Some one has started making special one for the OW called Proride pads and they are cut specifically for the OW - they include a front pad which goes over the sensors but is supposed to be fine, if I dare actually do it lol.

'Floating' is very addictive, can't really explain the feeling. It is kind of like skating, kinda like surfing, kinda like snowboarding; but really is its own thing. Progression has been fine as it is vaguely similar to other board sports, little things need a lot of work to start with, getting off without jumping off, turning sharply while going slow etc. But on the whole so long as one 'listens to the board' as its called (this is regarding the push back mechanic) and don't start jumping ledges etc then it is safe as well.

Bank riding is weird to start with as the normal skate mechanics of weighting the front foot (to avoid tail slides) as you drop down results in you powering out the bank which is a bit freaky. Starting small is the answer like always.

Recently I have switched to Delirium mode from Mission. These are two of the 'shaping' mods you can do to the board through the App. Think of it as shaping the rails, the bottom and playing with the fin number of an otherwise identical mid length surfboard. I had stayed in Mission because apparently that is the 'carving' shape, loose, fluid, so called buttery carves - and obviously that is where my soul lies I suppose (esp being in the mid 50s). Delirium was supposed to provide more torque/power but most people described it on line as tightening the trucks on a skateboard so it didn't really appeal. 

However, the other day I thought I would give it a go as the park grass was a bit spongier than late due to the downpours of the previous day. WTF, why did I not do this before? That was the only question I had after 5 minutes of riding in D mode. Being larger than the average rider the extra torque made the OW feel a lot less squirrely at lower speeds (which makes sense as more power was being put in to making the board stablise I suppose) but I also found something which was surprising. My carving/turning ability did not diminish as I thought it would, indeed the responsiveness seemed to be increased, especially when it came to twisting (think skateboard kickturns) type turns and very tight dropped nose edge turns. Carving perhaps isn't so buttery or fluid in D mode but for someone my weight it also wasn't that different especially with the extra power coming out of the carve. Now I do realise that this may well be very different with someone with less weight/size/leg power and suspect D mode would be more of an effort. It does affect the battery drain, but again for me on grass it didn't seem to make that much difference (perhaps again mission was having to work extra hard on grass for me) but it does when riding flat tarmac (asphalt). This is an easy fix though as if I get under 30% on the ride home I just switch to Mission. I think saying it is like tightening the trucks does Delirium a disservice  as it doesn't loose turning ability (and in some senses is more responsive). To me the difference is more like changing the rubbers or springs on surf-skate trucks. Both are going to turn as well (as this is linked to the board/truck mechanics) but the effort to get them there and the rebound back after the turn will be different. For me Delirium will probably be the default mode now, unless I am commuting on the road and need the range (hopefully with the XR this will be mute anyway).

But onto what the title was alluding to. Floating has FUCKED my skateboarding big time. Which is weird as I have skated for over 50 years now. Getting on my surf-skates now is as weird and unridable as I found getting on a new school skateboard was after riding long board and surf skates. I rode my neighbours long board skate back from the park while he was on my OW. Was vaguely ok as I was pumping and going slightly downhill, well was vaguely ok until I weighted my back foot to slow down/stop, didn't, weighted a bit more and ended up doing a manual to run out lol. And that was after a day of riding the onewheel. Jumping on my back door ramp (since having the OW the backyard surf style ramp has been in various states of resurfacing) the other day for the first time in ages was a nightmare. I bailed on the first 4 rides and resorted to using the loosest skate I have and figure 8 carving from the flat rather than rolling in! I am sure the ramp riding will be ok in the end but I can not ever imagine my taking my skates to the street again, I tried it the other night and was pissed off within 100m by the pavement cracks stopping me, little stones making me nose dive and the general feel... my beloved OW has made sure I am on the way to being a one board man !

Game changer... they could be right.

Electric skateboards, or E-boards as they are known are not new. In fact I had the electric ex-skate years and years ago. Didn't get that much use due to its weight and the fact that it (by law at the time apparently) had a really, really annoying noise as you were opening the throttle. But after finding my plans to commute by bike weren't going to happen, due to it aggravating/locking my meniscus damaged knee, I began looking at the E-boards as maybe a valid alternative.

However, pavements (sidewalks) over here are usually very rough, made of paving slabs that rise and fall, roads are full of potholes and in London, full of crazy assed drivers. The thought of getting stopped dead by any of these is bad enough on my normal surf-skate, it happening at 20mph+ on an E-board didn't really appeal.

I had been following the life of the 'Onewheel' since its inception, through the Kickstarter phase on onto the release of the '+' version. Obviously, as I am a gadget geek it had always intrigued me but the price (well really the hassle and cost of shipping it from the US) and the fact it was kinda touted as 'snowboarding' on asphalt and grass had always just stopped me from getting one. But the thought was always there. So, what the fuck is a Onewheel?

Basically it is an awesome piece of tech that brings meaning to the word 'float'. I don't begin to understand the tech and engineering behind this one any more so then Marty understood the flux capacitor. Nor do I need to... All I need to know is the stoke that rises when 'floating'. Not the most imaginative name (I would like to think they were being trite on purpose when they named it) and not the most beautiful piece of kit in the world... But who gives a fuck? One ride and you are hooked, seriously I have had no one not want another go yet (unless they Bart - more of that later - and even then most come crawling back).

OWs handle most terrain you can throw at them, yeh you have to be damn good to take on a mountain bike trail, extremely lucky or rich to get them on the waterline at the beach (stay in the hard bit dudes) and probably an idiot to take on standing water - but if you want it will oblige. On flat smooth surfaces they are awesome - but so are E-boards. It's on other terrain that the OW becomes sublime - those cracks, sticks, bumps, gravel patches etc don't count as deathtraps any more. Grassy banks you used to stare at as you skated past now become overhead glassy point break waves, that golf course at night becomes a Whistler Resort powder run... Grassy banks are now like finding out the points are firing and everyone but you has to be at work!

Here is a clip of Adam from the Voice of Onewheel (TTR studios) demonstrating what I mean.
Adam 'strapping it on'

Don't get me wrong the OW is not a forgiving anyone can 'send it' machine, ridden safely it is a pussy cat... Push it, ignore the board and it is a hungry tiger that just found you tied up and smeared in honey (not sure if it would give a shit about the honey, that is just my Love Island dream - but you get the point).

Riders can add fenders - not a choice I am going to make but they can help you avoid shoes full of shit - literally if you don't see the dog poop ahead...

There is a built in mechanic which tells one when you are pushing the motor/machine too hard and it is about to bite you - this is called 'pushback'. What happens is the OW will raise the nose, pushing down the back, which if you listen to the warning will slow you down. This will happen at time when you are pushing it, accelerating up hill too quick, expecting the same power as normal with a low battery charge, but mainly happens at 15mph to show you are close to the recommended top speed of 19mph. Now one can go faster (a lot faster) but then don't moan when you do a BART (yep a normal dude has become a legend and a VERB - why? Look no further BART

Trouble is a lot of variables will contribute to the eventual, 'Hey you should have listened smart ass, I am chucking you off', moment the motor will shut off - surface, incline, torque being used (how heavy you are), temperature etc etc so you may never get the same results every time. Bottom line is you listen to the board and cool it a bit, or you push it like a true adrenaline junkie and pay the price at some point. It's a free world out there on the whole - do whichever you like, just don't moan and blame the one wheel when it happens. And certainly don't chastise and judge people who like to push it. Being of an 'ripe' age I am not going to be pushing it anymore (been there, done that) but kudos to those who do. 

Add ons abound for the OW - take your pick. I'm too old for the flight fins (in the 70's we did the same with our skateboards using bike inner tubes), don't care for a fender (bring on the gravel marks in my legs its a tribal marking of the OW tribe) but will put float plates on in the hope of someday sliding a curb (not likely to be honest) or at least adding protection to the delicate underbelly of my beloved. 

Instruction on how to ride can be found online and I certainly can not add anything useful to that. But here are some things I would have liked to have known before stepping on...

• If you ride without pads then that is cool with me (freedom of choice at play) but I would definitely wear good wrist guards. I think one is not likely to fall backwards on the whole, but being catapulted frontwards will happen at some point and those wrists will suffer without them. 
• Feel the Pushback Luke - and then fuckin well take notice. Even if you push through it and go faster at least you will know you are living on the edge. Not knowing what the PB is and just not caring and pushing through it is the number one cause of doing a BART.
• Whatever you do DON'T step off with the back foot first - you will do an engine assisted split from hell! Learn the heel lift or foot roll method of disengaging the sensor on the front pad. Or jump off double footed. 
• Resign yourself to the fact you will be watching youtube clips of people just boringly floating along with their dogs during work hours - or as I like to see them the hours you have to do before an evening float. 
• Get a handle for the bastard thing (it will be a BASTARD THING as soon a you have to do the walk of shame for the first time as you ran out of juice) as it is a lot comfier to lug about with one. 
• Solution to above point - BUY and XR as your legs will fail before the battery. 

Lastly join the 'inner crew' and listen to the Voice of Onewheel over at TTR studios with 

Surfskates - a lifetime of waiting, possibly 20 years too late...

I have skated since about 1969 when I first saw the clay composite wheels in Tiki surfshop in Newquay and bought a little book about how to surf that had pictures of people 'surfing' on land. Skating was just something to do when I couldn't be in the water surfing - even at 7 I just wanted to surf back home away from the sea.

My first foray into finding a surfing fix inland involved cutting my sisters roller skates in half (yeh she never forgave me) and nailing them (later screwing them) onto plank which was hacked into a vague surfboard shape.

As one can imagine it was limited to about one footpath near our house which was new tarmac, unfortunately running straight through an old people's home! Not the quietest of boards a 'No trolley cart' sign appeared, was ignored of course, and then my mother being informed... Strike One !

Next was a board from the Tiki shop next summer (I'd done as many 'jobs' for people as I could do save some the money up) - basic board with the old clay composite wheels. This was the REAL deal indeed... reality check two days later as I found out that endless blue skies is not the only difference between California and deepest Derbyshire, paving slabs and rocks soon reduced the composite 'clay' roller skate wheels to dust!   Strike 2 but for a while I was surfing at home!

As urethane was hitting the roads of Dog Town the 'Surf Flyer' was hitting England. Again the name was the enticement, you could surf the streets. I still have the board and while being woeful it was like a dream, it turned (sort of due to the rubber laden trucks) and the rubber wheels while being SOOOoo slow were soft and could cope with cracks and gravel and Matlock is not short of hills so being slow was probably a blessing and could have saved my body!

By the way the BRAKE was a joke and I know no one who left the piece of rubber on there!

Boards, urethane wheels and cuts and grazes came and went. And still I was searching for the ultimate land surfer. I rode my trucks looser than anyone else could bear, got custom boards made with rockers to help carving the local banked park and such places as Malibu Dog Bowl (in the depths of Nottingham) and Skate Empire (ill fated park in Sheffield which burnt down) - in my mind I was surfing Crantock, Fistral and Pipeline.

Next stage in the search involved slalom trucks and long board downhill with Randell trucks to simulate my surfing. Being in Tasmania at the time meant smooth hills, a plethora of banked parks and my Toes Over longboard skate review page which bought in lots of goodies !  It was this time that saw trucks being made to turn like surfing - Exkate and Kapu veid for the copyright and slowly disappeared.

So lets shoot forward from the mid 90s to 2016-17. In fact I had carver trucks way before that and thought they were the ultimate surf style truck but boy was I wrong. Then the world saw the arrival of the 'surfskate' as a 'thing'. Smoothstar and Your Own Wave (YOW) leading the charge and lots of exposure for them and carver through the Whitezu 'wave' ramps. Suddenly it seemed like the fact that surfing is heading for the olympics meant that sporting bodies were looking into training methods and being able to replicate the muscle memory hundreds of times in an hour of skating on a wave as opposed to the x number of decent rides you would get in an hour on the water was/is a no brainer.

Cutting a long story short I now have a plethora of surfskates and really should do some reviews on here - but thats for another time maybe.

Been a while...

Well Ok I actually forgot about it full stop... Not a lot of surfing or skating to be reported anyway to be honest. Carver deck and trucks purchased which is wicked and also a street sweeper for land sup.

Someone in Italy is making a prefab wave for the carver boards - but they are of course very expensive - then remembered that it looks just like Meanwhile II -

So come the hols I'll have to have an early morning visit :)

This place was the site of many a miss spent day in my early-mid twenties - the days of skating being underground. You could only buy skate gear from about 3 places - Rough Trade Records being one of them (in Portobello at the time), Thrasher Magazine was like a photocopy version and only Tower Records had them. The ROM was still going but everywhere else was real derelict - Brixton was rough as shit, Meanwhile was very dodgy - where the fence is on the left was a gap where every homeless bod there used to piss in - let your board go down the back and you paid for it - there were some fine dives to save the boards going down!

Arrrr memories.....

Must visit Kennington as well as this has been resurfaced a few years ago. Basically the same prefab blocks but bigger and no lip. There was a smaller bowl somewhere as well - can't remember where, it was in a skanky estate and we always had to cut the fence to get in as it was under a permanent demolition order. 10 skaters forever carving around it was awesome but often ended in chaos - wish I knew where it was taken...

Anyway let you know when we have been down to them both - if I survive.

SUP at Park from a while back - Skate at the weekend on the Pinger...

Well, what do you know my first foray into Final Cut Pro...
First one is me on the Hamboard Pinger for the first time. Its going to take time to get used to the Original trucks and there awesome turning on such a big board. But it will happen with practise. To be honest the pictures do not do the bamboo board justice...

The second video is one I found on the Gopro while downloading the skate footage. It was the first time I took the NSP SUP for a surf a couple of years ago.

This is the Pinger out and about...

And this is the SUP video

Xmas and New Year at Park

SURF, SUP, SKATE - my release from life.

Long, long time between posts, mainly because I forgot about the blog! Two years + of hell since Juni departed but the three Ss are saving me from total destruction - just got to do more!

SUP in Tassie - the closest local lol !

Must try and get over in Tassie winter to take the sup out at the points - would be awesome, especially at Lauderdale or Swansea where the inside slow section is made for SUP.

 Meanwhile - back behind my house in the local park - this is about as close to carving over the death box I am likely to get nowadays!

Anyway - promise to update more often - if only for my own good !