As a kid I was into all the usual kiddie pastimes - riding bikes, climbing
trees, rollerskating etc... this was in the rubber wheel 'Jacko Skate'
era of the mid-70's. Saw my first purpose bult (rubber-wheeled) skateboard
in about 1976 and was intigued.... they werent that great, really slow
for a start, but I loved the idea of flying along on a skateboard, and
after seeing em in mags and on tv, I became obsessed...
I remember it was AGES til I finally got one, tho... almost missed the
boat completely.
Got my first red plastic board (maybe a GT?) for Xmas, 1978, and had
a crew which skated mainly at school and up and down some of the steeper
roads of Sheffield on our arses. Another fave route was the crematorium,
which had narrow windy steep roads, great for racing coffin-style.
In those days it was all tictacs, wheelies, 360's, high jumping and
slalom. The Z Boys would have pissed themselves...
The first set of wheels on that red pastic board were rock hard, (not
sure they were even urethane, just hard plastic of some sort..) I soon
got frustrated with the slowness and roughness of the ride... Soon after
I tried SOFT WHEELS, and it began an obsession with smooth-riding wheels.
I needed soft wheels more than anything!
The last word in soft and smooth wheels was of course Red Kryptonics.
These were so fast you had to work your way up to them, which I did
via some 1st generation Bones and then blue kryp's - still got em both.
(But I never did make it to Reds!)
Me and my mates were late into skating and late out of it, which gave
us the pick of the best gear at post-crash prices. It was in the cheapo
era of 1980-82 when we got our proper gear - Kryps, Fibreflexes, Bones,
Bennetts, Sims... all at pocket money prices, mail order from Macintosh
and Mizen - now the Skate Shop - in Poole.
By the time I went to secondary school in 82 I was growing out of the
whole thing, more into music, and although I was into a lot of punk
and stuff that has been called 'skate music', I never made any connection
between music and skating, weird as it sounds, they were just totally
separate in my mind. I only realised recently that I had impeccable
'skate music' taste in this era (Dead Kennedys, Ramones, Clash etc )
but at the time? I just didnt connect punk music and skating at all.
Skating was for kids, and music was my no1 thing from then on...
Anyway, when I first gave skating another go two years ago, the legacy
I was left with from those days was a FibreFlex Bowl Rider with blue
Kryps and Bennett Pro Ad Trac's. - still a SWEET setup and it felt a
million times better than my nephew's nu skool popsicle that had first
prompted me to 'whip it out' in order to compare the ride... it was
no contest!
So I generously offered to take my nephew to our local indoor ramp place
- The House - and from there I became obsessive, even buying an original
mint Fibreflex Team Rider just to look at! What a twat!
I'm now riding the Team Rider Reissue with Abec 11 No Skoolz and Indy's
with Bones Swiss bearings - it's great to be able to buy the gear you
want... The only good thing about getting older!
Luckily my partner has been very understanding throughout this totally
unexpected turn. Dog Town and Z Boys has been very helpful in this respect
- it puts across the case for still liking skating in your mid-30's
far better than I ever could! I even went to London to catch the first
showings of the film, something that seemed bizarre to a lot of my friends
at the time... but that film has really caught on since then, and I
never heard of anyone who didnt enjoy it, skater or not.
I've got involved with a lot of stuff through the NCDSA website, and
last year I organised Sheffield Board Fest and got 150 people involved
in a slalom contest, and we'll be doing it it all again in May 2003
- you comin or what???
Sk8 hard or have a sit down for five minutes - the choice is yours!!!!!!
Richard Hardcastle
AKA SSofS (Solid State of Sheffield)