Wheel swaps and wet socks`

Vancouver. The ideal city for longboarding. For me, because I live in it. The only issue I can hope to have is that it rains. It rains enough so that it keeps you indoors by taking advantage of the fact that you don't want to really be cold and wet at the same time you want to be shredding. I know, laziness is a factor here, and a little motivation and I would gladly push myself out under the rain. But the winter makes it so that I don't quite want to get soaking, and then have to get un-soaking by un-dressing and being cold. Sometimes I want a shred that is hassle-free. However sweet it is to slide in the rain, the unpredictability and unease that come with it are simply something i'm not keen on dealing with all the time.

I enjoy the slipperiness of the rain, but it still makes me on average, 20 percent more tense while bombing. And last time, I carved close to a car and imagined (vividly, as I am often wont to do) myself flying into the bumper trachea-first because my board slipped. And though I haven't bailed hardcore (knock on wood now) as a result of rain, I'm always at least slightly on edge about it happening. Always apprehensive that the next carve could send my skull to the floor.

What I really enjoy is adapting. Adapting by, say, putting on my super wide big-zigs and sliding around in the rain at speed. See, their duro and width ideally compensate for the wet pavement. They make it so I get (more often than not) well-controlled slides out of speed that isn't really high or low.

Then the sun comes out and I have to switch wheels. So I have my 84a hawgs for bomb-sliding. The problem i discovered, recently, is that flat spots tend to be compulsively vindictive. The moment you get a slide down that carries you perp to the pave, you increase your chances of getting a PHAT flat spot by a lot of percent. See, the next time you're sliding, its' very likely that your wheel will spin in the slide, but then reach the flat and simply stay. And then as you slide, the flat spot gets deeper and deeper, because it keeps falling into that same flat spot and stopping the wheel, ever more enhancing the flatness of that spot.

So I rotate my wheels. Now here's where longboarding becomes a logistical sport. I search wheels for their spots, find out what the cone is like, and how harsh it is. After that I plan accordingly, predicting what the best wheel placement will be for the sliding I will be doing. I have to think about which corner will get what kind of wear out of the slides, and allocate the wheels accordingly. Put the least coned to the slide-st wheel. Using this foresight, the goal is to wear the wheels out as evenly as possible, so the wheels aren't monster truck on one and bike on the other.

Lately, I wasn't able to catch the most recent flat spot fast enough. I must've had some phat slides the last run I did because I have a HARSH flatspot on one wheel. With clever planning and foresight on my side, I still wasn't able to prevent an annoying pitter-patter coming from my rear right. If ANYONE knows a remedy to flat spots, please share with me in the comments. Thank you.

So my logistics didn't work out this time. The flat spot caught me. If I was riding in the rain, though, spots of the flat variety wouldn't concern me much. Because they wouldnt' happen. For dry riding, I don't mind paying for wheels that flat out. But I also don't mind being slightly stressed about bailing hard due to rain, if it means i can slide hella fo eva. I suppose there's always a trade off. However, I would simply much rather have my cake and eat it too.

WELCOME TO THE SUPER GNAR!

Hello,

You now find yourself at a blog where gravity feeds desire, and adrenaline creates a passion, for going downhill.

Longboarding.

A sport where you entrust your safety and well-being to a hand-crafted piece of wood with wheels on it. And then you go fast.

I discovered longboarding at the end of 2009, when I was in Australia. I bought a cheap longboard from a surf shop in Margaret River, on the west coast of Oz. There were some nice windy roads with butter-smooth pavement that ran along the sunny coast. I now know that what I bought was defenitely a walmart-grade board, a very flexy pine board with super wide LOC trucks and urban sk8er wheels. It was defenitely a beginner board.

So I started out pushing on the flats, as I'd only been on a skateboard a few times. my friend Dan got himself a z-flex longboard, and loved it so much that I couldn't help but get one for myself. He'd tried to teach me how to ride in an underground parking lot, but I didn't have a clue what I was doing. So I had to take what he taught me and just drill it until I got it. So the beginning was noble.

I first learnt to push on this one flat section at the top of the hill, and eventually decided, well, I might as well hit this hill. I guess I didn't know what could happen to me if I bailed, 'cause I defenitely went headlong down some of those hills, without thinking. But gradually, day by day, I got better. I was hitting steep bombs by the time I left oz, and had been carving fairly well for a couple weeks. Yet I was still at that stage where Longboarding exhausts you. No worries, though.

I got back to Canada, and discovered that we live in one of the best cities for the sport. In Coquitlam, I started hitting any hill I found, but was still trying to learn. It was a slow process at first, until about February. We had moved to Port Coquitlam, and, to explore, I took my board. And found the best hills on the first day.

From then on, I was bombing almost every day, keeping my weight directly over the front trucks all the time, because it was such a flimsy board. Luckily, the trucks were super wide and the wheels likewise, so I managed to bomb. But every day my love affair with longboarding grew. I started carving a little down the hills, and found some videos where guys had gloves and helmets and were sliding their boards like they were on water. So I thought it'd be a good idea to learn to stop, because... the speeds were fast. I had fallen a few times, but mostly kept myself under the speed limit, because I was terrified of this new love affair.

So I got some gloves.

My friend Todd and I had been hitting this one hill called foxwood in port mood for the past month or so, and in April, we made some gloves to help us carve harder. We were at the stage where we're bombing real hardcore. Without really knowing what we were doing. The gloves changed my world. I all of a sudden discovered a sport where you support yourself with all four limbs, while sailing over pavement at high speeds. I was happy to say the least. So Then sliding my long board was learnt. And I could stop, all of a sudden.

Well, If I can stop, then why don't I go faster?

Of course, I eventually started thinking of a better board, and found the Landyachtz Chinook. It was dubbed as one of the best freeriding boards around, easy to slide and stable through the corners. I stood on it at the shop and said, "whoa, this is my board." And sure enough, in late May, I bought the exact board that I'd stood on that day. They'd stop making the Chinook, and, finally having money, I was desperate to have it, so I bought their demo board. It was such a steal 'cause it was set up to the dream specifications one of the technicians had, and It was a dream. So carvy, slid like a beaut, and was super fun. I felt like I was surfing! So now, after a summer of hard bombing, I've decided to take you through my journey with longboarding. The feelings I have about this sport, since I love it so much, are going to be released through this blog. Also my progress and random rants about traffic and boardtalk in general. Join me!