Skategeezer Feedback - Page 2

You bet there's someone else out there who remember the 70's!

In Sweden, in my small home-town, we used to skate about every evening in the summertime (we have sunshine until 11PM in the evenings in the summer). We went to construction sites and stole whatever we needed to build ramps of, shall we say, somewhat "homemade quality", before the city finally decided maybe they should give us skaters a couple of REAL ramps (that must have been around 79-80 or so).

Me and a few other guys were selected to give a show at the state fair that summer,and I remember having a rather nasty wipeout....Just as you describe, the boards came and went, seems like you had new stuff justabout every other 3 months.. You quickly realized that red Kryptonics didn't do too well in ramps and that you always needed faster bearings..

My last board, before I "retired" was a SIMS Andrecht, with Trucker X's andlightning-fast wheels (can't remember what brand offhand). Still treasure it to thisday, and occationally take it out for an easy ride down the street. Oh yes, the 70's and early 80's were great times!

Who knows, I may bring out the ol' board tonight? It's been a while...

Take care!

Bo

I was born in 62 and had a gordon & smith fiberflex board, with bennett trucks and orange road rider wheels, I think the peak of my skateboarding years was ~1975. I also made a custom (off road) board out of oak with that sticky grip tape on top and a custom tail. I used extra wide bennett trucks and 3 inch road riders. It was used in our hilly woods of western PA (Oil City).

In Oil City we live in the mountains and respect was gained by how steep of a hill you could desend in a handstand with out getting killed. We also traveled from various parts of town by bumper surfing (grabbing bumpers of cars). I am now 35 and have a little boy. I got on a skateboard the other day and was astonished that I had lost all of my skill - completely. I just thought I would send you a little note to share some similar life experiences that I know you can relate to. Keep up the good work!

Matt Sopher, sopher@mail.usachoice.net

Just read your article and it brought back memories from years gone by. To add some history I started skate boarding back in 1964 in Merced, CA. I manufactured mine in wood shop while in high school. The wheels then came from the old iron skates, wheels made of steel. Talk about a rough ride. (smile)

Anyhow, the term used by us in '64 was called "sidewalk surfing" rather than skateboarding. Some of my buddies then made their boards from a piece of 2X4 wood, can you imagine? At age 50, I still have shoulder length hair, own a ballet studio with my fiancee, and in my senior year at a local university.

Later dude.

P.S. American Graffiti was shot next to my home town in Modesto,CA

I read your skateboard history file on the '70s - I thought it was very good. I don't remember the 70's, sorry. I was born in '78. I started skating in '85, and all the kids on my block did too (sort of why I did), and they were trying to do railslides on this big log-thing they stole from the natural park behind all ourhouses, but I was too scared. I couldn't do much of anything except push and skate around, but that was cool enough.

Then everybody stopped skating, so I did too.. I skated a little again in 92, but it really sucks to skate alone, but I finally got to skate the deck of mydreams - I went up from my Rob Roskopp fantail to a Santa Monica Airline (the one with joker and batman on it! woohoo!) for fifteen bucks. I still had the shitty wheels gummed up with WD-40 from one of my first skateboards, a Valtera Toys-R-Us special.

Actually, my first board was the old Nash with the * NASH * logo done in griptape on top of it, the little *'s being the sun/buzzsaw logo. It had really bad wheels, too.

I started skating again awhile back, like a year ago on a sort of halfway 1991-ish oldschool/newschool New Deal, upon which I put some generic old school trucks and my fat Simms wheels. It rocked, but it was huge and heavy (which I liked). I bought it for fifteen bucks. (_I've_ noticed a pattern...) But I stopped after a little while when I got a job, cause it sucks to skate alone.

Just recently (three weeks ago)I got so sick of working at my job so much that I had to find something to do that would save my sanity, so I went down to one of the local skateshops, pointed at a deck and said "That one." Whip slam, bearings, wheels, trucks, all in a blur on the counter as the guy totals it up with a gleam in his eye - total cost : 112.63 dollars. I fucked up writing the check because I'd never had to write a number that large before. But all in all, it was really worth it. It's all new school stuff that I don't understand but am learning.. The smaller trucks, and I've got some cool wheels that I like, not to big, not too small, and some bearings that are faster than anything I've ever ridden.

The deck is a green Real, which I like a lot because it doesn't have any stupid graphics on the bottom. So now I'm skating again, and since I live in Santa Rosa I've skated the Santa Rosa skatepark a couple times now, and it's a lot of fun. It's cool to be skating again. I knew I'd come back to it somehow, and now that I have the money and can afford modern stuff I think it's even better. And I sort of do feel like a geezer, just learning how to ollie again and carve and get out of bowls and just keep on the board at my age, considering most of the kids who skate the park who are at my skll level are like 11, and the ones that are my age are pros. But it's way too fun to give up, and I've even found a couple people to skate with and teach me tricks.

Thanks for the reminder that there's still some people around that remember the thrill of getting on an old crap board and not falling off the first time.

Kevin, jamieson@metro.net

I am 35, a reformed skate/surf/snowsurf/soaring swasi stica grem. Family, skate to the mailbox type stuff. Now I just hang-glide, and flyfish. Pools, Powder, Waves, man thats all I lived for... Now I just wax eloquantly (to myself) about the old days. Nice page! I got it from Yahoo search of Alva. I remember when he was my total hero. I have a couple of friends in JFA. They were playing here and I was behind em checkin out the crowd. I'm sittin next to the "Mad Dog" his self, thinking, "Man, I used to completely study you". I said "Hi" and that was that, a little anti-climactic. Anyway, I am looking for some old skateboard decks and wheels. Now I have a link.

Again thanks...Adam, hangwind@swlink.net

I have been skating for quite some time, and only just recently joined the net. I am 26 years old and have been skating for twelve. Most of the kids I skate with are eight or ten years younger than me, and therefore I could relate to your words. Kids here have a certain respect for veteran status, even if I cannot do all the new tricks and would rather carve, wheelie and grind than pop, flip and shove, and I also admire the way they keep up with all the new stuff.

I have finished college, am starting a master's degree, and most of my non-skating friends of my age find skating a curious but rather wierd pursuit, but I will never let that pull me away from it. I believe that you can skate and not have to be fully into a closed-group-lifestyle thing, otherwise you will quit when your friends do. Skating is individual, and that is the way I do it. It is always nice to hear of anybody older than myself who is also skating, it pushes me to keep going and to believe my body will take many more years of asphalt abuse.

Thank you.
Rodrigo Craveiro dos Reis da Costa Brito

My name is Joseph and I come from Slovakia. I skate for 3 month and I`m just interesting in WWW. I saw your page first time now. It looks very good. In future I`ll have page too and I send you adress. But I have oneskate problem. The Internet in Slovakia is very slow and I want to create a SK8 page but I haven`t any pictures. I could scan it, but I need somecatalogs of SK8 shops or magazines. Please be so kind and send me one onadress:

Joseph Hrabovecky
Bernolakova 13
Kosice 040 11
Slovakia

VanKrut

I have always been in contact with skateboards. most of my guy friends have been and are skaters. I am not a true geezer; as i was born in 78, but i feel pretty old when I see kids half my age and twice as good at tricks.

I will share a few tales that made me realize this:

I was sitting there at Wendy's talking w/ my best bud and his sister who's 20. both of them former skaters. And we were reminiscing over the glory days of the 80's cause that's when it seemed so exciting and innovative and all. When some of my younger skate friends stopped inand sat by us. And they overheard us, and they were like, "who's Christian Hosoi?" man, did I feel old! I mean he was big time less than a decade ago. I got a used deck w/ his name on it and was so stoked and that was ayear ago!

I'm always getting free boards-not cause I'm sponsored but because my friends quit when they get older, and I'm still doing it... and on my Vision deck,the one I tend to favor, one of the trucks was loose and a wheel needed replacing, so i looked forloornly at the alternative- the dreaded NASH 'nana board w/ "everything you don't want" on a board.you know what? I said hey. Who cares? i didn't care what peopple thought of me, a dorky skater then, so why should I now? i skated all the way down, just free gliding on the street, much as I could, and was almost at my destination when i decide to kick a trick on a curb.

Surprisingly it became an attempt to do a dumb old curbslide. then all the way across the parking lot,a kid, maybe like 10 years old, came to a screeching halt on his bike and just stared. i couldn't let him down, or embarass myself, so I suceeded in doing my first trick on a Nash in years. the kid stared on, probaly because a) I was an old skater, b) I was a girl skater and c)I was an old girl skater on a Nash! Show over, I carried the heavy thing to my friends house, another former skater who could skate again if he tried.

I love to skate, I don't do it enough, but my friends who do always want me to go sessioning, they consider me quite a rarity, the girl who skates and keeps on skating. i will never quit. How do I know this? cause my wheel is getting fixed soon and I'll still ride the Nash! And as the years pass, others may forget, but i will never let memories of Gleaming the cube's Tony Hawk sequence, camoflage Vision hi-tops, or sk8 tv slip away. I AM AN OLD SKOOL SKATER AND I AM PROUD OF IT! Amen

Lisa

Hey I've been skating since 1975 - I was born in '62. I started riding pools in the spring of 1976 at my old BoyScout camp in Pennsylvania. I was 1977 East Coast Champion in freestyle (In retrospect - I'm not sure how "East Coast" it was, but I beat every one that entered..)Ernie Martin was there (former world record in High Jump)he sells corvettes in Cherry Hill NJ now...

We skated Cherry Hill Sk8park a lot - it was the best..I've been thru Europe skating all of the parks - Marsailles Franceis really nice - Livingston Scotland rules - and they speak english but the best sk8spot in my world has to be Rio Soul Pool in Rio, BrazilNumero Uno. Pools Rule - Just last night in our 11 ft Pool - I pulledthetriple over-the-light line to frontside 2&1/2 (aka Torger Johnson) &headedback to the deep for one more pass... it was sweet.

We're building thePhiladelphia sk8park - from donations and it's public and Concretethough it's not as good as Burnside or any of the parks in Vancouver...it's the best thing in town... Can You do 1 footed nose 360's?I FEEL THAT THAT IS THE ULTIMATE TRICK... well - get back to me with your favorite....wrogers

Great finding your web site and all the interest in old schoolskateboarding! I'm 32 and like many that have posted on your SkateGeezer site, started skating in '75 or '76 during The Craze. My boardback then was a homemade mahogany kicktail that I made in my dad'sgarage from a tracing of a G&S Fibreflex 25" deck. The trucks were ACS650s sitting on Rad Pads. The wheels were Kryptonic Blue 70s, (theoriginal *soft* Blue's with the thin sidewalls- man those cruised!). School that year was more like a skate club that met every day from8-3! We rode ramps, pools, storm gullies, and of course streets. Wealso rode the two skateboard parks that were in the Washington D.C. areabefore the wrecking ball got 'em.

My posse back then had some great old gear like Tracker, Bennett,Pittsburg, and ACS trucks; Fibreflex, Maharajah, and Banzai boards; andKryptonic, Sims, Alligator, and OJ wheels.

Now I'm back, riding a stick that gets plenty of attention wherever Iride: It's a 50 inch Interstate longboard sitting on Independent 215trucks and Kryptonic Turbo Racer 80s (74A) inline skate wheels. TheKrypto wheels are speed skater stuff and are really great for kickingthe flats and mellower hills (read FAST). For rougher roads I swap to aset of XT Wheelz A/Ts, a large, soft, treaded wheel that's intended forall-terain but does a good job on pavement, too. They're positivelyimpervious to pebbles, cracks, and other pesky surface imperfections. What I love so much about longboarding is how much like snowboarding itis. Carving turns on a deck that flexes and snaps you into the nextturn is such a blast (and with those inline wheels on, it snaps in ahurry!).

If anyone's interested, there's a great shop in San Francisco thatsupplied all this gear: Purple Skunk at 5820 Geary between 22nd and 23rdAve (415) 668-7905. Wendell (proprieter, and old schooler) carriesmostly long decks like Gravity Boards and Interstate, as well as someserious off-road boards. He keeps a wall full of shop boards andencourages customers to take 'em outside for a test ride (22nd Ave is agood proving ground!).I'd like to hear from other longboarders and slalomers out there! Whatare you riding? (I'd also love to get my hands on a set of originalKryptonic Red 70's.)

See ya! adam@localtrax.com

HI FOLKS,

TOTALLY COOL WEBSITE!!! MY 1ST. SKATEBOARD WAS A CAL-240, 4INCHPLASTIC DECK, W/LOOSE BALL BEARING WHEELS. REMEMBER THOSE, YOU HAD TO ALWAYS HAVE A WRENCH, AND A BAG OF BEARING IN YOUR POCKET.THEN ITWAS FIBERFLEX, SIMS PURE JUICE WHEELS, W/ LITTLE TEENY WEENY TRACKERS.WESKATED THE YORK THUNDERDOHM IN YORK PENNSYLVANIA, AND ASST. HALFPIPESTHATHAD NO FLAT BOTTOM.

WE SKATED CHERRY HILL SKATEPARK!!!!!IT WAS THE HIGHLIGHT OF OUR YOUNG LIVES. A FEW YEARS LATER IT TURNEDINTO THEKEYSTONE RAMP, PUBLIC MENACE, A REAL PUNK ASS ATTITUDE, AND ALOT OF GOODFRIENDS, AND REAL GOOD FUN!!!! I'DE PAY TO HAVE THOSE DAYSBACK!!!!!!!!! BYE NOW

DEAN KELLER

Yo bro, what's up. I'm 22 years old and stopped skating when Iwas 15,buy still love the sport and miss watching it. I used to live inChicagoand had the opportunity to meet may pro skaters who came to do showsaroundtown. I fell in love with freestyle skating after seeing a Hutchbicyclefreestyle show that had Woody Itson and Rick Moliterno on bikes and BobSchmeltzer on freestyle skate. Bob was the best I've ever seen. I'veseenMullen and Welinder in my youth and Bob was just totally electriccomparedto those cats.

I am writing because I came across a box of my oldTranswords and Thrashers and read them all over again and got tothinkingabout what happened to all my old heroes. Is Tony Alva still alive oris heon skid row. The same question applies to Mark Gonzales, Steve Cabellero, Bob Schmeltzer, Bill Danforth, PrimoDesiderio,Natas, and Steve Rocco. Even Hosoi. Are all these guys gotten realjobsyet. What about all the Alva cats like Chris Cook and Eddie Reatigue?Well, that's about it, let me know if you have any info on any of thesecats.

Rock on, Tony T.

I just found your web page and man it is the best thingthat has happened to computers since Atari (2600). I too am a long time "Old School" skater. I started in back in 84. Now 25. My firstboard was a BRAND-X with red Kryptos and Indy trucks. I don't do kickflips butlove to slappy curbs and toss sweepers on the local mini-ramp. Nothing likea fast downhill session or a barking frontside Bert/revert to get megoing.

To all the old fellas and ladies out there, keep the faith and the rushalive.To me, skateboarding is better than sex. I'd rather session a 10 foot right hand kidney than be with a hottie for the night. If anyone outthere wants to skate in lower CT. Give me a call. Later.

Chris Leach, Stamford CT.

PS. Here are five Great Skaters Never to Be Forgotton:

Neil Blender, Lester Kasi, Gary Davis (GSD), Dave Duncan, Billy Ruff

Came 'cross your site and you brought back alot of memories. I was born in 1964 and lived in Upland CA for my formative years (0-17). i did alot of skating in the mid to late 70's and as i remember, my first board was a Black Knight complete with clay wheels. The next board I got was the GT by Grentec - which had real cool commercials. I too went on to ride a Fiberflex and if I recall correctly Variflex.

Wheels of choice were Cadillac wheels that made high speed downhill skating a little more managable. We used to skate down Archibald and Haven Avenue in Alta Loma - where pro's were said to reach speeds of 60 mph. Pipeline in Upland opened up some time around then and I mad most of my boards in woodshops or in the garage.

Due to high school sports, I stopped skating alot and eventually got in to snowboarding in the early 80's. I have also been surfing since age 10. I moved to Newport until 1995, when I moved to Ventura. I recently bought a new Powell deck (Ventura model), Indy trucks and Bones 60mm 97a, and am getting back into skating when there is no surf or snow. Now that I'm almost 32, falling hurts ALOT more than when I was 12.

I'm stoked to see there are still skaters my age!

(I think I'll go back to my parent's house and dig up all my old equip!)

Later, Mike

Cool to find your site! I'm 35, skated with my buds in P.Cola back from '75-79. My footrest (under my feet at this very minute) is my 30" Sims laminated Taperkick (which cost me a huge sum of $28 back in '77) with Tracker Trucks (with wood block AND rubber cushion) and Road Rider 4's. The ultimate surf skate vehicle! I still take it out in my driveway occasionally, it's just like old times. The underside is covered with stickers including Sims, Tracker, DogTown and Skateboarder Magazine.

I went to a skate park in town a couple years ago and all the kids were freakin' out over my stick! One guy who was older (my age) begged me to let him ride it, he said it was a classic museum piece! Ha ha! I don't know about that but I'll never get rid of it. It's gotten me to the top of some 12' pools and back! Anyway, keep up the work, and one suggestion: if you have any of the classic skateboarder mags plese scan in some rad shots of Peralta, Alva, Adams and Biniak doing pools and pipes. You can use my name.
Cam Villar, Atlanta

Somehow, I was passed a copy of your dissertation by a friend and fellow 70's skater. Yes, your story is very very similar to mine. I started in '75 at 11yrs too. Graduated to an orange Bahne(still have it). Still have a few skates around the house. Had a skate zine in the 80's. Skated for FOX, Walker, Sims, Tracker, Vans, Sundek(clothes), etc. It was a magical time of my life that lasted for many years. My best friends are still the guys I skated with for years. I too now have kids, two boys 5, and 10 months. If I can help it they will be great skaters and have a lot of fun with it. Keep me posted on your email listings.

Steve Marinak.

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