ditchorama

hey blog - nowwww I went to skate the other day, at a ditch off of south Mopac, that my friend Scott had told me about. he had seen it on the side of the highway and he wanted to go skate it. so we skated it and I'm kicking myself, because I didn't take my camera with me. I wish I had remembered to take pictures of it.

I made it a rule. from now on, if you skate any ditch, you have to take a camera with you - and take pictures of it. that is the rule. and I think, now I have to go back to the ditch (which I'll call Flatlands), to take pictures, and skate it again.

ok but what I wanted to get down on to paper, so to speak, about all of this, is that there is a way to skate this ditch. and I was attacking it all wrong. for one thing, you can't go back. when you drop in, you have to hit one side, then the other side, and then pop out at the roll-in on the other end. then you wait while somebody else gets a run in. then you go from the far side, you hit one wall with a wiiiide angle then you hit the other wall with a wiiiide angle, and then you pop out at the place you started. then you do it again. you maintain a hide speed and allow for more flow and maximum speed.

the reason is this - the ditch has a very wide flat bottom. you have shallow walls, a wide flat area, and then another shallow wall. with all that flat concrete, you lose your speed easily. you can't pump it like a ramp, you have to ride it like a wave. but I didn't figure that out until were done skateboarding in it.

if I had remembered to bring my camera, I could have shown it to you. I will next time, always bring a camera.

while we were skating this ditch, a family of men came and skated the ditch with us. in fact, I bet they were the ones who had lined the sides of the banked walls with parking blocks, I think there were four or five parking blocks as coping to grind and a nice steel pipe as well, that the grandfather pulled out of a cluster of trees and laid along the far side so that he, his son, and his son's son could grind their trucks on it. really you could tell that this was their spot, they had cleaned it, probably swept out all the dirt and rocks, dragged out parking blocks and steel pipe, and put it by this concrete drainage skate ditch. and they all could rip it. the kid was probably about nine years old, the dad was probably in his thirties and the older guy way probably in his fifties. and they all ripped the ditch, going faster that either me or Scott by a mile.

they all had the oldstyle boards, with the surfstyle shape. surfstyle shapes and soft, Kryptonics style wheels. soft and big and neon green. both me and Scott were both skating street wheels, which are a significantly harder wheel durometer and don't respond well on rougher concrete. they're great for skating a downtown area, where you get more speed because the concrete is smoother. these dudes just rolled because the wheels could absorb the shock and make a smoother ride and carve. by the time we left, Scott had calculated that he had a full old-school set up that he could put together when he got home.

and so it was, they were wiser than we. these men, three generations, knew better than us and brought the wisdom of the ages.

I totally shredded my hand too. I have a big bloody rash on my palm even now. I have to hold my palm up off the keyboard because it's sore. I set up a plank of wood up onto the grass and made a longer roll-in and I dropped in and i at eshit. skate mission!!