Old School Skate Boarding
[caption id="attachment_2072" align="alignleft" width="400" caption="Lonnie's old skool skate board ride"]
[/caption]
Believe it or not.. Back in the late 60s and early 70s when skate boards were being invented by crazy fools I was an early adapter. I made a custom board in wood shop, went to the skate shop and bought two custom trucks (rabbit feet I think). I lived in the La Jolla ghetto at the time. Well there was this street called Nautilus Street and I remember biking up to La Jolla Scenic Drive and ride 2 miles dropping from about 600 feet to sea level. We would do this at night before trash day. This was old school short board downhill, we had no helmets, no pads and no hay bales on turns. In fact sometimes during the run we would stand up when we saw trash cans and kick them over to add obstacles for the dudes behind us. Most of the time I would stay in a crouched position with my elbows between my knees with just enough flex in my ankles to steer around road debris.
The real excitement came when the asphalt ended at the start of the old part of Nautilus and you hit concrete pavement with oil bumps. By then you were really rolling fast. You had a long straight shot to the coast so you came out of your tucked stance did bunny hops over the larger oil bumps. The only real death situation came when you approached the only stop sign on the run. You could only hope you would luck out and there would be no cars at the busy intersection of La Jolla Blvd. If there were cars you did the tuck and roll and bailed or you got slammed by a large piece of metal. After flying across La Jolla Blvd, it was a slow coast to the Wind n Sea Beach.
Those were the daze!
[/caption]Believe it or not.. Back in the late 60s and early 70s when skate boards were being invented by crazy fools I was an early adapter. I made a custom board in wood shop, went to the skate shop and bought two custom trucks (rabbit feet I think). I lived in the La Jolla ghetto at the time. Well there was this street called Nautilus Street and I remember biking up to La Jolla Scenic Drive and ride 2 miles dropping from about 600 feet to sea level. We would do this at night before trash day. This was old school short board downhill, we had no helmets, no pads and no hay bales on turns. In fact sometimes during the run we would stand up when we saw trash cans and kick them over to add obstacles for the dudes behind us. Most of the time I would stay in a crouched position with my elbows between my knees with just enough flex in my ankles to steer around road debris.
The real excitement came when the asphalt ended at the start of the old part of Nautilus and you hit concrete pavement with oil bumps. By then you were really rolling fast. You had a long straight shot to the coast so you came out of your tucked stance did bunny hops over the larger oil bumps. The only real death situation came when you approached the only stop sign on the run. You could only hope you would luck out and there would be no cars at the busy intersection of La Jolla Blvd. If there were cars you did the tuck and roll and bailed or you got slammed by a large piece of metal. After flying across La Jolla Blvd, it was a slow coast to the Wind n Sea Beach.
Those were the daze!
Comments
Post a Comment