Stopping

So you’re bombing down a massive mountain and for some reason an intersection starts to appear in your sight. Well what do you do? Freak out and hope for a green light? No silly, you slow down of course.

Slowing down and stopping is an essential part of skating and has saved my life many times. I’m gonna start with some basics and then onto more advanced stuff. For starters, learn how to carve. It’s hard to explain this but you can see from videos what carving is. It’s basically taking wide turns and will slow you down a lot. Oftentimes this is combined with airbreaking, which is standing up and spreading your arms out to increase wind resistance. This is the most basic form of slowing down but it will not help you stop on steep hills.

Probably the most important skill in skating is footbreaking. In races, this is often the only way to slow down as you don’t want to knock out people doing a slide. Footbreaking involves putting your back foot onto the ground and dragging the bottom along the ground. This is sketchy at first but extremely important to get down. To practice, try pushing with your back foot, and then instead of putting it back on, just ride with one foot on the board and try to balance. At higher speeds this can be very scary but footbreaking is the best way to control your speed or stop.

Here’s a video of some stopping/slowing down methods. At 2:50ish is a great example of how to footbreak, and there are many slides in this video as well.

*i’m kinda tired right now so i’ll cover slides more in depth later. But basically if you’re a beginner learn how to footbreak and make sure you can footbreak at higher speeds.

Kahalani Review (lots of pictures)

I just got some Kahalani precision trucks from Daddies Board Shop (which btw has ridiculously fast shipping) and here’s a quick review of what I think.

Before I go on, these are my first precision trucks. I’ve ridden crails, randals, bears, and radikals before. I got the 204 mm version which also comes with four red khiro bushings. Right out of the box I noticed how much lower they were than my crails.

I mounted these on my switchback and took them for a spin. I left the blue khiros on at first just to see how it felt. My first run was on a local hill that went around the low 30s but the trucks were quite stable especially with the soft bushings, which surprised me a lot. I was able to pump and I had pretty bad static wheelbite, but it was still super stable. Afterwards I put on some red venom barrels and the ride became even better. I was still able to pump and I had crazy rebound. I took them to close to 40 and cornering was really fun.

I’ve only had these trucks for a couple days but I have to say these are my favorite trucks now. They are nice and low which is perfect for a topmount. The only downside is that these trucks dent and scratch super easily. I ran over a rock and have a bunch of dents in the trucks already. Luckily it’s just asthetics and the trucks are very durable. It’s pretty hard to bend these 8 mm axles unless you’re doing 50 mph speedchecks or something. Oh and they are a little bit expensive so that’s a downside too.

Edit: Ok I took these trucks (still loose to the point I can easily get wheelbite) to around the 45-50 mph range and they hold up great. It was slightly twitchy at some points but didn’t really affect the ride and I was totally comfortable at the speed. In a couple weeks I’m gonna be heading off to Paskapoo so i’ll give another review for when I take these trucks through some gnar-ass runs.

(one more pic)

Kebbek Switchback

I’ve had the switchback for a while but I’m finally going to review it. I have it setup with crails and white jimz bushings, and 70 mm sector 9 race formula. The first thing I noticed was the ride height. It was so much higher than my hellcat and it took me a while to get used to footbreaking. In fact, it almost felt like stilts. But, I still felt pretty confident on it and have hit over 40 on it several times. I might be getting kahalani’s on it so I’ll write up a review when I get those. Another thing I noticed was when i switched to my sector 9 wheels from my seismic blastwaves, everything seemed faster. The sector 9 wheels are a lot smaller, so I accelerated a lot faster, and they drift very nicely as well. My seismic’s probably had a higher top speed but I’ve never hit that speed so to me smaller wheels are better. And because the switchback is a topmount, I reccommend using 70mm or smaller wheels.

I rode this board at Bolinas, which is quite possibly one of the gnarliest tech runs I’ve ever done, and the board was pretty manueverable. I was able to make a lot of the turns but I’m not exactly the most tech rider so I fell a lot. Being a topmount though, I was able to stick lines better than on my hellcat on the same hill.

Overall I have to say this is one killer board. It’s symetrical so you can pull 180s and ride it any way you want. Throw on some drifty wheels like blue kryptos and you’ve got one hell of a free ride board. I would recommend getting some lower trucks like 42 randals or kahas because the ride height is a bit tall, but it’s something you can just adjust too.

My ugly technique at Bolinas

Oh Noes I’m Heading For the Mountain

Definition of Gnar

What’s up guys. Just got back from my race at Bolinas, and holy shit is that hill gnar. In the first run I did a backflip off my board and landed on my head, ran into the side of the mountain a couple times, and almost lost my board over the cliff.

However, during the race i started getting more comfortable with the course, but hot damn is it still hard. I endedup with 4th place in the juniors but got smoked in the open. I had to race Dubester and some locals, so I was out pretty fast. James Kelly took the top spot, with Georges and Dubes behind, and someone else (sorry I forgot your name). By the end of the day I had a huge hole in my leathers, I almost broke my thumb (which still hurts after 3 days…), lost a puck over the cliff, did numorous flips off my board at 30 miles an hour, and slammed my body onto the ground several times, and I wasn’t even going that fast.

The hill is around 30-35 if you really hit the hill hard, (41 if you go from the very very top). Now 30 may not seem like a lot, but on this hill 20 seems sketch. I have been to speeds of up to around 40 and have been very comfortable, but that is going down straights with not much turning. With this rough pavement and crazy hairpins and switchbacks, any speed seems fast. Mad props to those who can complete this course without falling. Footbreaking is also hard because of the uneven surface. My first run down I started footbreaking and a bump threw me off and onto my head. After that I started to footbreak less and less and the hill got a bit easier. Now I’m a fairly decent skater, but this hill completely crushed me and just showed me how much further I have to progress.

All in all this was an awesome race and I got to race with some of the best riders in the world. I’ll post pics up later when I have time, but school is killing me right now. I didn’t win anything for 4th place but I did win some seismic 180 trucks (if you want to buy them let me know). Props to all the racers for showing me a good time. I hope to hit up this hill again sometime and I will crush the hill instead next time.

Pumping

Well I finally figured out how to pump for longer distances, and it turns out it was my setup. I know everyone’s been saying that it’s the rider and not the board, but having the right setup can make all the difference.

Originally I had a a loaded fish with dual rts trucks with the standard black khiro bushings. However, I recently changed to blue bitch bushings, and holy crap…what a huge difference. With loose trucks I was able to pump uphill. I stil can’t pump from a stand still, but I don’t really care to that much. So before you start pumping, make sure you have the right gear. Loosen your front trucks more than your back and adjust your bushings to your own liking, and also depending on the trucks.

Once you have that set up, find a relatively flat straight road. The concept of pumping is kind of hard to explain but it basically involves hard carves and kind of “pushing ” yourself forward to maintain speed. This is something you’re going to have to try first, but you’ll recognize the feeling once you get it. Just remember to have loose trucks to make pumping easier. Keep your weight forward and continue to make hard short carves. Remember to give yourself a good push to make it easier. Once you have it done you won’t have to push anymore, which is good if you like to ride barefoot or want to get an even more intense workout.

Skate hard and skate safe.

Scoring cheap stuff

Admit it. You like cheap stuff. You’re the one haggling at the hot dog stand, and trying to lower the price of the new plasma screen tv that’s already on sale. But you still won’t give in even with the 300 dollar discount, because you want it for dirt cheap. However, at the same time, you want your stuff to be in good quality. Sure you could buy a counterfeit hot dog, but then you risk massive diarrhea. So you want cheap but good quality skate gear. Is that possible? Well, a lot of my friends always come to me when they are looking for longboards, but yes, it is possible.

Scoring cheap longboard gear, or anything for that matter, involves 80 % of looking in the right places, and 20 % luck. If you’re going to buy a car, you don’t go to Toys R’ US. So when looking for skate gear, obviously start by looking at skate site forums. My favorite place is silverfishlongboarding.com/forum. Everything skate related can be found here. Here you can find tons and tons of gear for great prices. Many times people are cleaning out their quivers or bought too many wheels, so this is a great place to look. Also, while searching for certain boards you may discover another one that looks appealing. If you are not certain of a specific brand or item, this is a good place to start, as it may lead you to new discoveries and better gear.

But let’s say you are dead set on a new loaded fish. Silverfish may have a lot of boards but no one seems to want to sell his ‘fish. Good thing you have other options. Contact the manufacturer. Ask for a blemished model. I got my fish for less than 60 bucks because the graphics were a bit off. If you don’t mind the bad graphics (which you shouldn’t because you ride your gear and abuse it instead of just taking pictures and being a gear whore…right?), then blem models are an excellent choice, and probably the biggest discount you will find.

Remember when I said that finding cheap gear is 20 % luck? Well just looking at the right places won’t always net you the best deals. You have to be lucky enough to actually find what you want. There may be a lot of good deals on silverfish, but nothing you want. So you wait and wait until you finally get lucky. Even getting blem models takes luck, because most manufacturer are small company’s and don’t make too many mistakes. You’re better off looking for blem models at a bigger company, like sector 9, then say Rayne (although they do seem to make a ton of mistakes).

So those are my two favorite spots, directly from the manufactor and from silverfish. However, you can still check places like craigslist and ebay, but those rarely have anything good.

And one last thing. For those looking for cheap high end gear…. good luck. You’re not likely to find some maguns or kahalanis for cheap anywhere. In fact, if you are looking for those you’re probably a hardcore longboarder. And if you are there is no price too high for the good stuff. But if you do here are 2 sites that seem to always have stuff like precision trucks for sale. ncdsa.com     coastlongboarding.com

Note that the people on this site are extremely hardcore skaters, like the ones that travel around the world and break 70 mph on a daily basis, so they often have the best gear (which is why you would look here). But you probably already knew that. Otherwise you shouldn’t even be thinking of precision trucks…….

So there you have it. That’s how I score cheap gear. But in the end longboarding isn’t really that expensive. Sure you spend a couple hundred at once. But then that’s it. Compare that to snowboarding, when even after you spend 1000 on a board you still need a lift ticket. So find some cheap gear and abuse it. Skate hard and don’t be a gear whore… because nobody likes them.

Crazy video of some very stupid people

Not really skating, but in case you haven’t seen it yet, here are the crazy saudi’s skating in sandals on the freeway.

Oh and I’ll have more longboarding stuff later but I haven’t been able to downhill for a while and my friend needs to give me back my helmet. Once I can get back to some more skating.

Slide Session

Ok here’s a video I made. For some reason I kept choking whenever the camera was fliming so I couldn’t make a slide tutorial. Oh, and please excuse the poor camera work, my friend’s not used to filming yet.

Toeside 180s

Well I’m finally starting to get down the toeside 180s, which I used to find very hard. I can do heelside pendy’s with no problem, but I’ve always had a problem with toesides. Even stranger, I can do 360s, but have only recently learned to do 360s. Well, I’ve finally learned how to do them, and I’ll tell you how.

Before you attempt these, always wear a helmet. But for sliding, remember to wear pads as well, especially knee pads. When doing toeside 180s, it’s extremely easy to scrape up your knees, as your so close to the ground. Without my pads, I would be grinding them to the bone. Also, some slide require kneepads, so get them anyways.

The first step is to gain some speed. All slides become easier the faster you go. Of course, if the falls also hurt more, but that’s why you bought those pads. Once you’ve built up enough speed, extend both arms out and onto the ground, then start rotating your body to the right( BTW this is written for regular riders). As you come around into a 180, extend your body, placing most of your weight onto your hands, which will make it easier to slide. Once you pull into a 180, you can continue rotating for a 360, or go back around for a toeside pendy.

If you’re having trouble with these, remember to keep your weight off the board.  This wil help you break traction off the ground. Also, higher speeds will be easier, as the ground becomes a lot more “slippery.” And of course, remember to wear pads, because you will fall, and as you progress, you’re going to need them for more advanced slides. I’ll try to make a video of all these slides if I can, but I’m still not the best at them yet and I have no time. But if I can I will.

Skate safe and have fun.

Pullin them 360s

Alrighty. I think I’m finally getting the hang of pulling 360 heelside slides. I might post up a video tutorial later, but for now, just a written one. (BTW this is written for regular, if you’re goofy just reverse it)

First, pull into a coleman heelside 180. As you pull into the 180, take your right hand and place it to the left of your body, which forces your entire body to rotate with the board. As you complete the 180, keep rotating your body, all while kicking the board out with your left foot, which will complete the rotation.

Doing this at higher speeds will make it much easier to slide. But also remember to wear pads, especially knee pads. When I first started doing these my leg would keep slipping off, but my knee pads were there to catch them before they got all scraped up by the ground.

It may sound a bit confusing at first but I may put up a video if I have the time. Also, Faltdown does a pretty good job at explaining how to do slides. Skate happy and be safe