Hungry for street



It's steep, but it's a shame it has a kink. I wish I wasn't scared of kinks.

      As I explained in the past, I grew up living well outside the area of anything to skate other than my parents driveway. This then meant that I had to drive into town to skate street. Because of this upbringing, I've always wanted to live in an area with a nice skateable infrastructure. Now that I finally live in a area surrounded by stairs, ledges, and rails, I've found it difficult to go out and do the recon necessary to find it. Finally, I decided to skate around my neighborhood and see what I could find. There were quite a few nice spots. I first went down to the post office where I have been eyeing an 8 stair with rail for quite some time. Unfortunately the rail has a kink at the bottom. Also, I'm not quite ready for an eight stair rail. It's a nice stair set though, however the runoff isn't ideal.

The little five I ollied.

     Then I found a wonderful 5 stair set located within a couple of miles of my place. I couldn't resist and did a quick ollie down it just to see if I still had it in me. The same medical center has a double five which could be fun. I'm not much of a stair person, but this place would be wonderful if you are. It is well lit at night as well. Always a plus! 

The double set at the medical center.


     Finally, I've been really wanting to skate a nice small handrail close by, but have been unable to locate one. I did find a nice 3 stair rail, but unfortunately it also has a kink on it. It also has a camera on it, but I skated it for about half an hour with no problems. The police even drove by as I was attempting the rail and didn't see me. It's pretty secluded. It's a shame I don't know how to hit a rail with a kink in it. I never slid the rail, the kink just creeps me out really bad.

Tiny 3 stair with kink. Maybe I should just try to "kiss" the kink?

     Anyways, It was a nice street session even though I ended up not skating anything really fun. One thing that did happen though was I destroyed my cheap Airwalks. It was a shame, but nothing that Shoe Goo can't repair. So I went out and purchased some shoo goo. The repairs are still underway, as it looks like the souls might need a second coat. Gotta love the goo though. After a nice night of recon, the most enjoyable part was the adventure. I hope that soon I can find some more spots that are better and closer by as well.


So, It's come to this?




The souls have been repaired and should last atleast a little longer.



A Late Night Street Reunion

     There's nothing quite like an Old Man Skate Jam. Friday (July 1st, 2011), I met up with my bros Doug and Josh and we threw down a nice jam at the Griffin skatepark. After downing the most incredible pizza I've had in a long time (thanks Doug),Doug and I headed to the park. Unfortunately the Griffin skatepark becomes Michigan ("the land of ten thousand lakes") after a good rain. Being dedicated as we are though, I purchased a squeegee/broom combo (truly the ultimate skate tool) and squeegeed the mini ramp and street sections of the park. After the place dried up, it was on. Soon thereafter we met up with family man Josh and cranked out a nice skate jam. Twigs (see Handrail Hitlist!) was assassinated on the first try while Josh tore up the mini ramp with a 270 feeble stall. Meanwhile Doug was putting his boardslides back on lockdown and popping massive ollies up the four stair. The park was awesome because it turned out to be only the three of us with the exception of one local kid (who is really awesome).
     We literally shut the park down, sticking it out until the lights went off at 11pm. After shutting the place down, Josh had to head back home. Doug and I were heading home when I realized that street was still open. Why not? Years of skating street taught me an important lesson. Skating street after 10pm is striking the hammer while the iron is hot. Temperatures are optimal (in the summer of course) and police are scarce and easy to spot. So Doug and I detoured and skated some street. We first headed over to the best warm up spot, a manual pad at the BB&C bank. Always a favorite, this place is excellent for simply trying to manual the entire pad. Doug landed it several times. I was unable to land a clean one, but did quite a few with tail scrapes. 

The BB&C manual pad. It's perfect because it slopes
slightly downward allowing you to keep you speed.

     Afterwards, we headed over to the DMV stairs only to find clean stairs (they were black with wax when we used to skate them) which desperately needed some wax. Then we walked up on a tree that Doug used to ollie over, but there is no way he could do it now. It's grown a lot!

It's probably impossible to believe now, but Doug used
to ollie over this tree with ease. Of course it was a
little smaller back then.

 From there we skated over to the Post office to check out the five stair with handrails. I really wanted to try the rails, but had forgotten that they had a kink in them. From the PO we headed over to the First Baptist Church. There are a few nice stair sets there. Then we headed to the other First, the First National Bank. This place has long been dedicated to keeping skateboarders out. They still have plenty of signs reminding you just in case you forget. We revisited the two ledges and handrail there.

The FNB handrail. This bush is in desperate need of a trim so that
the rail can be managed (unless you grind it of course).

This handrail was my second ever and the only one that I ever did a frontside boardslide on. Unfortunately, the bushes have grown up quite a bit on it. Apparantly kids today don't use hedge clippers (skateboards work too) anymore.We used to come at night and scalp the bush every now and then.

The Taylor Street 7 complete with the sign. The sign was added
after a year or two of kicking us out every weekend. It did nothing
to slow us down.

     I was starting to lose hope in the street scene in Griffin. This all changed very quickly after heading over to Taylor Street Middle School however. Aside from the Griffin Park always being the meeting place for us when I grew up, TSMS was a mecca for Griffin skaters. It was here that there was always something to skate. Eventually, they built a new auditorium with a seven stair and ten stair on each side. This of course attracted the most attention. As Doug and I approached the stairs my discontent with the state of street skating immediately changed.

The end of the Taylor 10 hand rail. They did an excellent job
hacking it off actually, you almost can't tell. Power tools?

     While the kids in Griffin might not have been dedicated enough to clip the bushes by the FNB rails, they certainly weren't afraid to brandish a hack saw. No joke, apparantly someone cut the kink right off of the 10 stair rail. They began to work on the seven stair, but who knows what happened. They only got half the job done apparantly (which is a shame becuase it would be a nice step up from the rails I've been doing lately). So cudos to the kid with the hack saw! Well done! After a nice day at the park, skating some street was quite refreshing. And I felt a special sense of gratitude to the kids who hacked off the rails at Taylor Street for buoying my hope in the future of street skating.

(My apologies for the low quality of these pictures.

They were taken after midnight

so light was not on my side)

Here you can see where the 7 stair was hacked off as well. They didn't
hack the bottom however.

 

The Taylor 10. A shoutout to my boy Doug for landing this back in 2003.



Here is a smaller gap across from the Taylor 7 that we used to ollie down.
Except for Doug, he would ollie up it. Always the exception.

Here is the First Baptist Church 5 stair. Always a nice warmup set. This
place was fun to skate except for when zealots would try to steal your
board for skating here (it happened).



The First Baptist Church 7 stair. After a warmup on the 5, these were the next step.
Unfortunately, I never cleared these.



The KFC handrail. Doug almost finished this thing off, but never quite
put it in the bag. Maybe it's not too late?

Earlybird Skating

     It's so unorthodox, but I love skating before noon. Now 10 years ago, you couldn't pay me to go skate before midday (mostly because I was still sleeping), but now I consider this to be the prime time for enjoying a nice session at the skatepark. Here are just a few of the benefits of skating in the morning: weather, space, and good company. The first is pretty obvious, or atleast it should be. Georgia in the summer can seem pretty unbearable, especially when you are around lots of highly conductive metal. So skating before noon offers the best weather that you're going to get all day with the possible exception of skating after dusk. Which brings me to my next point, space. If you go to the skatepark between 4 p.m. and closing time, the place is likely to be packed. However, there is a wonderful period between 9 (ante-meridian) and noon in which the park is either deadly quiet (which can be nice) or occupied by only a handful of others. Generally speaking, the denizens of the park during this time are older, more relaxed, and less obnoxious. It's sort of like an "adult swim" I suppose. This is of course the "good company" I mentioned earlier.
     Recently, I was able to enjoy each of the above mentioned qualities of an early morning session. I arrived at the skatepark around 9a.m. to find it utterly barren. This was wonderful except that the flow bowl and pool still had several puddles from the previous night's thunderstorm. Fortunately, I brought a towel and an assiduous work ethic with me. Even though I felt like a juvenile delinquent serving community service, pushing the water into the drains with my towel turned out to be quite an investment. Soon I was skating the flow bowl in peace. The day turned out to be quite enjoyable even though some kid asked me how I could be at the skatepark on a Monday (his assumption being that I was too old to not be working on Mondays, of course maybe he was right). In conclusion, I highly recomend early morning skate sessions for anyone who is more of a hermetic skateboarder.

Peer Pressure

     In the words of one of my best friends growing up "peer pressure is a b*#@$." Not to be vulgar, but I always thought that it was a funny quote. Honestly, I would like to think of myself as being inpenetrable from such forces, but I now have bruises to demonstrate otherwise. No kidding, peer pressure is an interesting thing in the skateboarding world. Although many would claim that what I am talking about now is simply competition, I feel otherwise. Competition would be manifest by one skater saying to another, "If you do the handrail, then I will too." That's competion right? But peer pressure happens more like this, "Can you do the handrail?" or "You should try the handrail."
     To get to the point, I was skating last Saturday night (June 28th, 2011) to "relax" after a bitterly long four day work week. The park was pretty packed and no doubt with some of the best skateboarders in the area. I have been eyeing the four stair handrail there for years now, and have seriously considered attempting it for months (It's the one I call "lengthy" and can be found on my Handrail Hitlist! page). The funny thing is, like many handrails at skateparks, that people rarely try it. So as I am sitting on the ledge talking to a couple of people, this guy attempts it and falls. But he didn't fall on his face or rack himself or anything dramatic, so it sort of eased my fears about the rail. When he skated back I told him that I'd been thinking about trying it for some time. He told me that I should just go for it and then he landed it with ease. So then the atmosphere got to me. I knew I could do this rail. However, I told myself that I would try it on a quiet morning when no one would see me fall on it. But after watching him land it so artlessly, I wanted to do it right now. So I made a few run ups and then just did it. I landed it on the first attempt that I commited to. Several people popped thier boards for me and gave me props. My landing felt a bit sketchy, so I wanted to land a smoother one. I tried again and landed it much cleaner. Then, because I have this obsession with doing things in threes, I tried it again and the cataclysm ensued. I "bonked" the rail with my front truck and landed on the rail with my thigh. I sort of just slid down the handrail on my thigh until finally coming to a stop several feet later.
     So the moral of the story, I suppose, is that peer pressure can be great. I probably wouldn't have tried the rail otherwise. On the other hand, and even though I think it was worth it, I probably wouldn't have been as embarrased after falling had I done this on a Monday morning when the place was vacant. Although the bruise appears horrendous, it really doesn't feel all that bad. I guess this is the blessing of being cursed with "thunder thighs."

My apologies to anyone sensitive to "man thigh" (namely my wife). For some
reason I bruise worse over time, so this may actually look worse
now than when these pictures were taken.