Returning to skateboarding after 20+ years!!!!!

[chris4652009]

Don't ask why but I have the urge to revisit my teenage love of skateboarding
I'm in my 40s now and feel a bit daft about it but there you go

Am I alone in wanting to get back on the maple ?
Am I going to die?
Will it be fun?

[chris4652009]

Sk00p said:

Early in the morning at the skatepark, you won't be on your own Take my younger kids sometimes and there's often 40 somethings on skateboards and BMXs.

I'm more thinking more along the lines of a longboard and hills, Rather than hanging out at skateparks

good to hear there are older folk on boards though

[chris4652009]

Update:
F*** it, ordered this yesterday (never able to afford this brand when I was a kid), along with some 56mm 78a Ricta clouds and ABEC 7 bearings.
https://www.skatehut.co.uk/skateboards/complete_sk...

R.I.P me




Edit to add:
oh any my wife pointed out it would have actually been 30 years since I last skated, yeah thanks baby

[chris4652009]

daddy cool said:

42 here. Last skated in ~1994.
My two skateboards (Powel Perelta Steve Saiz and Death Box Pete Dossett) are still in my mums garage. Im over there tonight... this thread has got me wondering whether to dig them out. What were the truck rubbers made out of - polyurethane?

Funnily enough my old Rector knee and elbow pads (also almost 30 years old) were brought back into service when I went mountain biking at Bike Park Wales last year. While the foam inside had turned to dust, I figured they would be better than no protection at all...

Did you dig the old boards out?

[chris4652009]

Andy_mr2sc said:

I keep flitting in and out of this idea too. 44 now and not skated for 30 years.
I keep looking at these:

http://longboardsbygrizbee.webs.com/

Probably a bit more sensible!

Very usable.........

[chris4652009]

ApOrbital said:

I still have my santa cruz board from the early 80s think I would snap a few bones if I went on it now.

It'll be fun though, right

[chris4652009]

RC1807 said:

OP: give it a go, but don't expect it will be easy!

I've a younger mate whose son wanted to learn to skateboard a few years ago, but my mate's never done it. I went to his house and helped the son out. I'd not been on a board for 30 years, and I surprised myself that I could still do a lot of stuff I could as a teen, and I didn't even bruise my pride!
The young lad's now a whizz on his board as he's been practicing a LOT!

Scroll up a bit mate, ordered a board yesterday one I was never able to afford when I was a teen

[chris4652009]

chris4652009 said:

Update:
F*** it, ordered this yesterday (never able to afford this brand when I was a kid), along with some 56mm 78a Ricta clouds and ABEC 7 bearings.
https://www.skatehut.co.uk/skateboards/complete_sk...

R.I.P me




Edit to add:
oh any my wife pointed out it would have actually been 30 years since I last skated, yeah thanks baby

It's now showing as out for delivery TODAY!!!
excited and terrified in equal measures

[chris4652009]

leggly said:

I still skateboard but then again I’m only 53 I have three or four Longboards, a Giant Slalom board, a Dogtown Pig deck with Tracker Trucks and Red or Green Kryptonics depending on how I feel. A Sims Pure Juice deck with ACS651’s and Avon Boosters among other boards. Also New old stock 65mm Traknology wheels that I can’t decide weather to use or sell on. Still no signs of adulthood on the horizon as far as I can tell.

Awesome mate

[chris4652009]

A993LAD said:

It's great to see so many old dudes thinking about reviving their skateboarding youth.

Take it from me, though it's easy to get carried away, especially when us oldies have got a bit of leisure time and disposable income.

When I got back into skateboarding in the late 90s I remembered that in the 1970s by teenage self yearned for owning a wooden half pipe, but instead I had to travel miles to the nearest skate park, usually on public transport.

Suddenly found myself buying up tons of timber off the ad trader website, and set about building my own half pipe in the back garden. The finished colossus, if I recall correctly, was about 30 feet diameter, 16 feet wide with 15 foot of flat bottom and about 12 feet high with something like 12 inches of vert! I claimed it was for my son because it was a bit embarrassing building this in my late 30s and explaining it to non-skating chums and neighbours. But my son was only about five years old at the time and we owned the ramp for about five years before he had the bottle to drop in.

Anyway, it was great fun for a decade, but eventually the surface ply started to rot away and it was going to be too big a job to replace it.

This is the only picture I can find of the ramp at the moment.



And this is my five-year-old son with a standard size skateboard to get a feel for the scale of the ramp.

Edited by A993LAD on Tuesday 26th June 13:32

• **ing amazing, go hard or go home

[chris4652009]

S100HP said:

chris4652009 said:

It's now showing as out for delivery TODAY!!!
excited and terrified in equal measures

Make sure you film your first time for us all

I was never any good on the skateboard, but used to rollerblade all the time in the mid 90's. I've occasionally thought that I should give it another go but I'm now 35, and don't bounce as well. Was walking up a big hill near where I used to skate on Saturday with my 5 year old and showed him the scar on my knee from where I fell coming down the hill. I remember the hill being much steeper back in the day....

It's just pinged up as signed for at home.

• ** just got real lol

[chris4652009]

daddy cool said:

chris4652009 said:

daddy cool said:

42 here. Last skated in ~1994.
My two skateboards (Powel Perelta Steve Saiz and Death Box Pete Dossett) are still in my mums garage. Im over there tonight... this thread has got me wondering whether to dig them out. What were the truck rubbers made out of - polyurethane?

Funnily enough my old Rector knee and elbow pads (also almost 30 years old) were brought back into service when I went mountain biking at Bike Park Wales last year. While the foam inside had turned to dust, I figured they would be better than no protection at all...

Did you dig the old boards out?

Here you go!
I had sanded down the Powel Perelta and did Judge Dredd in felt-tip pen, and varnished it.
And I was right about the truck rubbers!





If theres any other bloke around Bracknell area that's in his 40's and has an old skateboard they want to have a go on again... PM me...

Oh yes! how cool are they

[chris4652009]

mudster said:

OP, please exercise caution. A mate tried a boarding comeback a few years ago. He hadn't been on a skateboard in about 20 years but thought he would show the local youths a thing or two. After they finished taking the Mick out of his old board (apparently the trucks have come on a bit), he proceeded to launch himself off the half pipe.

Lasted all of 2 seconds standing on the board and managed to break both wrists. By all accounts his Mrs had a happy month wiping his backside while he was in plaster.

Ouch s**t ! Well I'm still a functioning human.
The Santa Cruz is a thing of beauty compared to the cheapo boards I was able to have as a child/teen. I'm genuinely tempted to buy another Deck to hang somewhere (is that a bit sad?)

So last night was spent literally starting from scratch, I watched a few proper back to basic "how to skate" type vids, very wobbly at first just standing on the board on grass I tightened trucks up a bit as I was easily getting wheel contact with bottom of the deck even when just standing on it. That made things a lot better.

Then spent a couple of hours getting comfortable with/on the board, standing on it and then some slow kick push rolling along up and down a very gentle incline (just about enough to maintain speed without it speeding up at all. Had a couple of moments in early stages of forward motion (managed to land on feet on both instances) down to having lead foot and bodyweight to far forward (lead foot was almost past the front truck mount screws and against the nose part) and my legs were pretty much locked straight and rigid (prob due to fear of death lol).

Once I got feet/body position sorted along with softer legs things felt more fluid, I'm going to be doing the same again tonight and take it from there.

I'm not rushing this.
Thanks to those that have been positive about this, I kinda thought I'd get back on a board and it'd all come flooding back but so far it's still feeling very alien.

[chris4652009]

Update: Last night went well.
lots of tick-tacking and kick, push gliding getting comfy with the board and it all just dropped into place. Was doing 180 tick tacks and tight circles in both directions pretty much straight away.
No I'm in no rush to try any of my old tricks just yet.
I did order another Deck last night, I'm going to hang it up somewhere lol


Skate safe kids

[chris4652009]

CrutyRammers said:

milfordkong said:

I know what you mean about the shame side of it though, i'm a bit embarassed to say that I still skate in some circles, i think as time passes though it's becoming less and less of an issue. I'd also imagine that the addition to the olympics (whatever you might think of that) will mean it's a little more acceptable to the masses for older people to be skating.

I don't skate anymore, but I started in my 30s as a way of summer training for snowboarding, and ended up loving it in its own right. I thought a lot about why it's not "socially acceptable at your age" and I think it's actually pretty simple. Snowboarding is seen as fine at any age, as is ski-ing, and surfing, but what's the difference, really? Not a lot in terms of the act itself.

I reckon it's simply down to the cost of snow sports meaning that teens can't go off and do it on their own; it's a "safe space" for adults where they can't be shown up by the youngsters, or at least, not without the youngsters being entirely beholden to them, so the adults are in charge.
Skating on the other hand is cheaper and inclusive; there are few barriers to cost, size and strength do not matter so much, kids do it a lot, and are usually much better than adults, thus adults don't like it; so they deride it as being "for kids". What they really mean is "kids are better at it than me, so I won't do it".

I'll be honest none of my gym friends, or muggle friends have scoffed at it, a few have even said they might get one too now. if you want to do something then go for it. life's to short to worry about what sensible tts think.
Do what makes you happy , you're a long time dead

[chris4652009]

malks222 said:

chris4652009 said:

It's just pinged up as signed for at home.

• ** just got real lol

love a 'hunt for the wilder people' quote! great film!

I have been considering getting myself a skate board fro a while. 3 years I had been talking about it, my GF got me a small penny style board for xmas as a joke. it was just too small for me to feel comfortable on. i'm swinging between a normal board or a long board. where i stay we have a load of tarmac cycle lanes all around edinburgh on old abandoned railway lines, so the long board would be good for cruising around.

although i cant stop looking at boosted boards........

you mean "Bad Boys" film quote?

[chris4652009]

malks222 said:

well that too, but i watched 'hunt for the wilder people' much more recently and its a stand out quote in the film for me!

Ah gottcha, never seen that film

[chris4652009]

crofty1984 said:

Having reached an age at which people ask "should you be doing that at your age?" I find I am also of an age where I don't mind telling those people to fk off.

Nailed it

[chris4652009]

nlm13 said:

Al Murphy said:

I'm mid 30's, I snowboard and have been looking at longboards for a while. I never skateboarded as a kid though so am apprehensive about getting on one now. This thread is making me think 'sod the risks' and go for it anyway.

Worst case is I get some paid time off work...... right

Al

I’m currently off work due to a skating injury, sitting in the 30 degree sunshine! Can’t say I’m too upset!!

Winning

[chris4652009]

Well I'm super healthy and fit, not had a sick day in about 10+ years, I'm due some extra paid time off