So flowing! So smooth!
Texting a surfboard shaper can be like tossing a bottle into the sea, and hoping that the message tucked away inside will eventually reach its destination. Will there be an answer? We can only wait and hope.
So when I confided to Ryan Lovelace over text message that I maybe wanted a singlefin, I did not expect an immediate answer. But there he was, right back to me. Oh, I have a few of those at the shop, he said. His shop is less than a mile from my house. Just about everything in Santa Barbara is about a mile from my house, it seems. Except Rincon. Rincon is more than a mile from my house, which is sad, but we can’t have everything in this life.
The idea of singlefin has nagged my brain for a while. So flowing! So smooth! Perhaps by some alchemy, I could discover grace. I should confess right now to trying and mostly failing at ballet as a child. Grace is not really my thing. I am good at endurance sports that are notable for requiring a stupid determination to keep doing a thing that hurts. I do not know how I drew this particular athletic card, but it seems that we don’t get to choose these things.
On the whole, my boards have run toward the small and skateboardish. More speed than grace. This pattern might reflect a subconscious wish that I could actually ride skateboards. (I can’t.) Can you imagine being able to just go play any time you want? No tides, no wind, just pavement. Better still, there’s a lot of pavement in the world. The problem is, pavement breaks bones, in my experience, and I like my bones in their current arrangement. So, surfing.
In the current issue of Surfers Journal, LT interviews six shapers from around the surfing world. The premise of the story is the two-board quiver. What’s your ideal two-board quiver? The story resonated with me, because mostly by accident, I’ve spent the past year or so carrying the same two boards to just about every session and riding one or the other. They aren’t my only two boards — but they’re the two I’ve ended up riding most often without thinking too hard about it.
The first is a square-tail thruster I ordered custom to work in half-assed waves. I liked it so much that I ended up riding it pretty much all the time. Made by Jason Feist at J7 Surfboards, it’s got some width tucked into the nose and tail. For the nerds, which is all of you: 5’9” x 19” x 2 5/16”, 27 liters. Futures Blackstix fins.
If the first board is pretty conventional, the second is… not a thruster. You’ve all met my tiny twinfin before, and when I first picked it up — and let Chas smell it — I had no idea how much I would ride it. I figured it would be a summer fling, a novelty. Turns out, the little thing is damn addicting. Made by Christine Brailsford Caro at Furrow, it’s a 4’10” twinfin, single concave to v-bottom, moon tail, 19” wide. I got a pair of fins from Christine, which she designed.
Two totally different boards: Which to ride? Somedays, the conditions make the decision quickly and easily. If it’s over shoulder high, that 4’10” starts to feel like a twig in the rapids. Easy choice, ride the shortboard. Steep? Again, three fins feel pretty great. Junky? The shortboard minces its way through the texture a little more easily than the tiny toy board. On a clean, waist-high day, that twinfin looks insanely appealing. On an average day, though, either board will work.
Mostly, it’s a mood thing. The twinfin is fast, slidy, silly. It’s impossible to ride that little thing without grinning like a fool. It’s terrible in a crowd, which in a weird way, makes it good. It’s almost impossible to be an angry asshole on a board that looks like a Tiffany box, if a Tiffany box could float. It does the cutest little turns and flies down the line on a wire. Surfing should be fun, and this little board is the best reminder of that truth that I may have ever ridden.
If I’m in the mood to bash things, well, there is a reason that angry shortboarder is the stereotype. And there’s something deeply satisfying in the way a well-tuned thruster that’s familiar and comfortable will go very precisely where you tell it to go. The shortboard is also very good at telling me that some of my ideas about where we should go aren’t really that smart. Nobody’s perfect.
So there I was, standing in Ryan Lovelace’s exuberantly cluttered shop, looking at a singlefin shaped by Alex Lopez. I’m pretty sure shapers’ workshops are the same the world over. There’s the cluttered space where finished boards and random detritus hangs out. And then, there’s the precise foam-dusted room, with the tools neatly stored, where the actual boards are made. The contrast will always amaze me, I think.
So how does this even work, I ask him. We crack jokes back and forth about where to put the traction pad (No, I didn’t! I promise, I didn’t!) and how maybe there’s a couple fins missing back there. You just do less, he tells me. I nod and try to understand the idea that the board will do the work for me. You just cruise. I’d probably fuck this up and try to hack a foot off the length if I were ordering this thing custom (it’s 6’7”), I say. And yes, that would defeat the point — or at least, change the nature of the project entirely.
Then I handed him a wad of cash and slid the board under my arm. I promised to ride it in good surf, assuming I can figure out how it works well enough to do that without creating a total disaster. Do less, I mumbled to myself. I’m not sure I’m good at doing less. I walked out into the damp, grey light and stood, board under my arm, waiting for the afternoon traffic to break. Maybe I can find waves this weekend. Maybe I can figure this thing out. I enjoy my optimism — and my delusions.
(And yes, because I know y’all in the comments section will ask: I pay for pretty much all my stuff in surfing, so anything mentioned in this here story, I bought with cash money. So there’s that.)
No single fin , no life 🙂
Hope you got a ’round’ pintail, makes the board way more maneuverable than a pintail.
If you can find Parmenter’s “Must We Burn the Single Blade?” article from Surfer’s Journal that’s the best explanation of what makes a single fin so special and how you can ride them. If not, here’s my own explanation: thruster mechanics force you to spend a significant part of the ride doing ugly, awkward, repetitive prep work just to make the board go, so that at some point you might be able to do a technically impressive maneuver that lasts for a second or two. which is fine, but when even those brief flashes of brilliance become repetitive and old to you then you might have a problem – which they tend to become to some folks, because thruster mechanics and maneuvers also force you to surf almost identically to everyone else riding one to varying degrees of success. meanwhile, the creative and aesthetic possibilities on a single fin are nearly limitless because the mechanics are much more open due to the board’s neutral handling. part of that is you do not have to spend any of the wave pumping to keep going or prepping for maneuvers if you don’t want to, so the entire ride can be effortlessly beautiful from start to finish, which is what lovelace might mean by ‘do less’…or you can do a big full-rail roundhouse cutback then immediately go back to full-speed high-line trim….or you can jam a big bottom turn stall in the pit then smoothly slide up to the wide point and crouch down for a cover-up…one of the best parts is that you won’t look like anyone else in the world riding that board no matter what you choose to do on it. but i’m getting carried away – anyways, enjoy!!
This is lovely — and even makes sense 🙂
I’ll look around for the Parmenter thing. That sounds amazingly entertaining!
I’m not into the hipster retro thing, but I do pine for my 1st surfboard-a late 1970’s G&S single fin.
I didn’t realize the freedom that board gave me until after the “thruster 80’s”.
So much hate for single fins here! I have a couple of the Channel Island Machado Single Fins and I love ’em!
Same old propaganda. Thruster made surfing much easier for the masses. Its just bu$ine$$. No lack of fun on single fins. Thrusters made you surf more frantically but less intuitively & less in tune with the wave. Thruster dominates the wave while single fin surfs in harmony with the wave.
It looks… very long relatively speaking, yes, ha!
Ok so a few points. Along time ago, I’m guessing pre 2010, I started experimenting with single fins and the elusive 1 board quiver. I rode many different shapes (lucky enough to have a shaper as a friend) before having 2 custom built ones (2 year gap between). The first was a 5’10” single flyer diamond tail with a fairly modern bottom shape. The board worked every where well, nowhere good. Loved points and wally waves. Was most at home in Indo. The second was a 6’9” classic design with wide point thrown way forward. Could sit way outside everyone else and paddled beautifully. Both boards generally worked quite well. The downside? Trimming gets boring very fucken quickly. Swooping turns? Meh. Both boards tube rode really well, just don’t stall for a tube because they’ll pretty much stop. End of the day I gave it away because out of nowhere it became ‘cool’ to ride single fins, so I shaved off my beard and started riding dirt bikes.
Seriously though, take your twinny and your thruster to someone with a shaping machine/ program. Get them to measure up both and then squash them together, amalgamating into a 5’4” quad. I literally did this and ended up with the best board I’ve ever owned.
Getting sucked down the worm hole of singles is fun. But it won’t improve your surfing. And you’ll look like a clichè
Oh this is hilarious — because the one board design I sorta hate is quads, actually! But it’s possible, I’ve never found the right one.
I don’t really think a singlefin will make me surf better. It’s a different toy to play with, which more toys is good, generally. And yah, since it’s hella trendy, easy to pass along to someone else, if I don’t love it.
Good spray job = easy sale to VAL
Single fins won’t “improve” your shortboard surfing, they’ll make you a better surfer, especially a longer single fin. The best analogy I can think of right now is this: doing core workouts won’t make you a better shortboarder but it will make it easier to control your body, i.e., the wave, board, and body knowledge you learn from riding singles will help your shortboarding, i.e., you will learn what side fins can really do to a board, and why people love concaves or certain rails; you’ll also learn how to wait for the wave and harness all of its energy (grace), etc. Every surfer should have a few proper single fins in their quiver (not a shortboard with one fin).
This is a great explanation, thanks 🙂
Enjoyed it JenSee.
Guess a bit like a fashion, almost every board design has a chance of a second life.. a reappearance/has reappeared under the ‘retro’ moniker!
First board was a 6’6″ San Juan singlefin.. in an unfortunately drab beige (bit like my surfing), with a white deck.
Like others have alluded to in this comment section, the appearance of the Simon Anderson thruster, was to me, like a surfing revolution, a wave of new hope of maneuverability for those who found the single more of a soul surfing cruiser, than a performance board.
On another note, so glad that surfboards dimensions worldwide have kept the old school, feet and inches format.
Who could ever relate to talking about about a 6’6″ as a 198.12cm or a 6’8″ as a 203.2cm?
I think that’s why Santa babs and California in general is seeing this retro resurgence.
Fact is unless you’re bagging set waves on the regular, Rincon (in all its glory) is a boring fucking wave for your standard thruster.
California has mostly shit waves save for a few months in the fall/winter.
How to make that fun again? Find a way to make an easy wave hard to surf.
Take that thing to Sand Dollar and camp out until you’ve got it figured.
You should get a shaper boyfriend/girlfriend.
I feel like this would be cool and different, yes! Assuming I can figure the thing out in less big surf 😉
My last single fin. 1978. Couldn’t ride it then. Probably couldn’t now. But it would be fun to try. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Those wings are siiiick!!
Its a big board. The last single fin & most enjoyable board I had was one of these, 6’1″, at the link: http://www.boardcollector.c… I rode for 4 years until it fell apart & reluctantly had to buy a thruster. I commented on the article, as follows: “I had a board like that, bought 1979, but with one flyer. Similar spray, pink, white & blue. It was incredible. Those front rails loved a thick barrel section; the flyer-V-swallow tail did 1 o’clock backhand re-entries at will; & you could drive-slide lovely forehand cutties. Really hot surfboard & state-of-the-art in 1979 (before Cheyne got wider with the boards)”.
dont do less, do more.
more weight on your back foot and more concentration on the arc and flow you are acheiving in you turns.
single fins require a focus on grace otherwise what is the point?
Same can be said for skateboarding.
” style is everything.
no one wants to watch bad style” – Duane Peters
Flow, arc (takes notes) I am worried about my arms, actually. It seems like there is lots of time for my arms to do dumb things on a singlefin. Oops.
im sure you will be graceful as a ballerina
Read Andreini’s book. It’ll help you get into the headspace. There’s nothing more fun on a warm Summer day at a SoCal point. Congrats and welcome to the feeling that started the whole damn sport.
If you need direction, I offer the words of Laird’s dad, big Bill. “Stand tall, do nothing at all.”
I guess you’re gonna have to start fitting three boards into your car 🙂
Ha ha, yah 🙂
Probably want to let it cure for a while. Till like October?
Tax deductible if you’re paying!
Welcome to the single fin dark side.
Dr Jen , would have preferred to drop something from Giselle , Swan Lake or the Sugar Plum Fairy ( just to avoid saying Nutcracker ) or some magical contemporary dance from the exquisite Sylvie Guillem but this one goes out to all the SINGLE ( fin ) Ladies . Have fun stylishly ! Powerfully ! Gracefully !
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Ok here is Sylvie Guillem as well
https://youtu.be/IdjAbhZi-QU
Your discovery epiphany’s remind me of a simpler time when all we had were single fins, then twins. Seems counterintuitive that anyone would go back to those boards, but I support curiosity. Do love your take on skating…. was just given new decks, but I can’t ride them till after my June trips. I’m in “Flour Sack” mode where no risk is the name of this game. Just have to tell myself, no watching Chris Miller videos until July.
Fun read.
Yep, I am with you Hippy . My second board in 76 was a beautiful 6’8 rounded pin single , which gave me so much pleasure at the time , lovely spray and pin stripes , shaped by the man who created ocean and earth which I bought from Bob Cooper in person , the legend ,after mid north coast NSW drug raddled Hippies stole my SHANE Popout on the first day of our Xmas Summer Holiday , Sobs , but sincerely I hope as long as I live that I’m never forced or deluded enough to think I would like to ride a piece of shit like that again .
Fuck yeah Bicko, this fascination with “retro” boards is beyond logic. We moved on without regrets, never looking back.
Angourie, ’85…. empty, just me and a man named Bob. Days on end, OH and super fun and he hits me up in the car park, wants to see my boards. I had a fresh 6’0″ that I had shaped foot wells into the deck and squee geed the hot coat to make a “texture” deck which did not require wax. Light as air, I shaped the fins too… thing was under 5lbs. He was obsessed with it and the only clue I had that he wasn’t going to steal it was he was too big to float the thing.
Then he pulls out my trusty 6’8″…. you know the board. The kind that goes on ALL your trips. The board everyone should have. Perfect Cloudbreak board, windy Indicators, all you need in Mainland…. had it glassed for weight, had learned lessons at Sunset on super lights.
LT should do a piece on a proper 6’8″. I don’t think the general population realizes how efficient that genre of boards are. Step ups are not the answer, you just can’t stretch a template.
Anyway, Bob handed me back the 6’8″ and we drank a beer as the sun set. I slept on back beach and it was so good that next morning.
I love to have fun surfing , thinking about surfing and talking shit about surfing and often don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story . I was 11 when dad felt sorry for me on that holiday and coughed up $60 for the second hand masterpiece which I absolutely hammered , grew and loved and learned and leaned on till my first new board a 5’8” KC twin fin in 1980 .
Good stuff, I agree. I used to contend that 99% of surfing exists beyond the industry, pros. Stories that resonate and bring you back to a time. Uncomplicated times, just want to surf better than your friends and you’d try any design concept.
Except going backwards.
As Isaac Newton said ‘If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.’, Use their collective knowledge to go forward and create new lines , and not wallow in the muck that they discarded along their way in the mud .ps enjoy the trip in June .
That was a rad period of discovery. Fully agree amigo. No looking back
The stories are the point, sometimes, I think.
I will don’t worry.
that genre is just about extinct now.
6’9″ for me. It’s a fascinating thing, the magic lengths thing. I’ve got ’em fixed in my head, 5’91/2″, 5’11”, 6’0″, 6’1″, 6’3″, 6’5″, 6’9″, 7’1″, 7’4″, 8’1″ 8’6″, 9’6″, 9’8″. I can’t go a 6’2″ or a 6’4″, they worry me.
Jen at the risk of Superior Mansplaining the singly, what “do less” means is just that. It won’t do what a thruster does turning-wise, don’t try and make it. This means you have a bit more time to think about what you are doing. See if you can allow your shoulders and upper body to relax, and shift your weight through hips, knees and ankles — hands below the shoulders, that’s a good thing to keep in mind. Let the board run down to the wave base, single fins don’t like that classic three-fin high pump but they LOVE wave base bottom turns. You’ll know you are in tune with it when you get an uncluttered feeling of speed thanks to the lack of drag off the side fins which aren’t there.
Then take those little technical shifts back to the three fin on a good day and holy shit you will have the best surf of your life.
Oh and have a look at MP in that classic MOTE Kirra seq, how he is managing that very tricky little board in curves through those shifts through the hips etc. Low hands, simple hard lines.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Ha! I almost put something like, “this is an invitation to mansplain” in the text of this story. 🙂
(scribbles notes) Thank you, will try these things!
My view of “do less” means the board in the power source of the wave generates its own speed. You are not pumping from the back of the board but guiding the front of the board to be in the right place. In other words, you must draw the right line, particularly in bottom turn, where you can “lay up” the bottom turn extremely on rail for speed & length (although you don’t always have to bottom turn). Single fin loves front foot foward take-off directly into the bowl. In cutbacks in particular you must draw the right line with the right speed, otherwise you might not make it due to loss of speed. Also, single fin loves a delayed late takeoff, where you paddle into the wave (the board takes off like an airplane) but then you hold the rails and let the wave take you back up the face as late as possible before you stand up. Also, single fin can do the “no paddle” late takeoff, where you simply stab the back of the board into the wave from sitting & let the board “pop out”. The “no paddle takeoff” (made possible due to the thickness of the foam) is another “do less”. This said, without seeing your board, it sounds kooky, since a single fin board does not have to be long or large. My first board was a cruisy but clunky 6’10” single fin but then move on to a 6”1″ McCoy Cheyne Horan super hot 1979 single fin (with small swallow tail, one flyer, V-thru the tail & fin, which made channel flutes thru the tail) . Nothing was ever wrong with that board; which contains some of my most pleasurable surfing memories. That board did it all (apart from was difficult to ride tubes on backhand; where lack of technique & skill also contributed). 1 oclock backhand reos at will and amazing for forehand tube riding, with beautiful rails. Single fin I think the rails are important. You want that “Shaun Tomson Free Ride” feeling with the front rails. Have fun!
Since you are on a BeachGrit budget, I recommend the $2 Vimeo “A Day In The Life of Wayne Lynch”, where you can watch Wayne talk about single fin surfboard design and watch Wayne and Maurice Cole do some great single surfing.
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/…
Jen. We want to see you do this with buried laid up rail (MR on a single fin below. Photos from movie Stylemasters):
https://imgur.com/MhtMxQR
https://imgur.com/waR3nGN
https://imgur.com/QJmJzwC
https://imgur.com/PgWmHbB
https://imgur.com/9sFGKuU
While living in Byron Bay on the dole, so not very cashed up, but at a time when the dole allowed a ‘lifestyle’, I broke my latest board and the only option was a 6’8″ Lightning Bolt swallow tail semi-gun single fin. Got my first real tube on that board, learnt about using the back foot, weight distribution fore and aft, lots of subtle tricks. When I got back on a short board, my surfing felt much more under control/improved from the experience, but more than anything it made me appreciate the advances in board design. Perhaps that is the key?
Yep , for sure . One summer , broke the 6’ and while waiting for the next one to arrive surfed my 6’6” and loved it on my backhand even in the shittiest of rip bowls but couldn’t wait for the next 6’ to have fun going left again .
Always enjoyed a chat with Bob Cooper and his lovely Dutch wife, surfing pioneers who were ethical and community minded surf shop owners in Coffs Harbour, and genuine, salt of the earth people.
Last time I ran into him was at halfway, the Legian beach break. Nice guy.
We used to drive up from Nambucca as kids on our annual holidays from Sydney . It was a wonderful shop and I always left with some good advise and something I needed ( not wanted ) before stopping off on the way home at the left hand sand point with a rock pool in the next town further south praying the wind to be from the North .
I remember him laughing at grommets who came into the shop taking the piss out his of accent , even though he had been surfing the area long before they were conceived . Reminds me of the French kids doing the same thing to me after having lived there for 20years ? Raining ‘ liquid sunshine ‘ today in my Northern European abode . Thanks Bob .
Ya, lovely people. Used to sell them clothes in the Bali Batik days.
Luckily his wife did all the clothes buying for the shop as Bob was a hard person to sell anything to.
When I ran into him in the surf at Legian he said, “oh hi there, bring your samples into the beach and I’ll have a look soon.”
He had a good sense of humour…
Oh I totally understand why you’d not want to go back. I also see how, when the thruster showed up, everyone was like, holy shit, I have to ride this thing. I mean, I love them, actually. But it’s fun to experience different stuff. And the nice thing about surfboards is, if you don’t end up likin’ it, someone else probs will want to try it out. Cycle of life or something 😉
Ha ha, god, I can’t even do no-risk skating really. I’m just… bad at it. There’s no fins? How does this even work? Idk.
When someone asks if I can skate Jen, I tell them I skate well enough to get hurt.
Another take….skating progressed though lots of phases, clay wheels, urethane wheels, huge 80’s decks with a flat nose and a kicked up tail, tiny popsicle decks with equally tiny bearing condom wheels in the 90’s. Pool skating, ramps, street have all been on the cutting edge and then not, then back again. I’m leaving a lot out but anyway….it’s all come full circle now. You can basically get whatever you want and skate however you want and no one really cares. Honestly, I think skating is way more progressive than surf and has been for a while. Full disclosure – I’ve skated a few more years than I’ve surfed so i am biased. I am too fucking old to take multiple concrete slams these days though so the skating is all up to my son now.
When I see a lineup of bummed/frustrated faces in waist high slop taking turns hopping along on thrusters trying to force high performance, I just don’t understand. Horses for courses right?
Enjoy that single fin. I have one and on certain days its the funnest board I have. Shoulder high walls on the right day and a few beers after? That’s the ticket.
Good take cereal
The primary difference with skating is recreational resources…. you can always build new parks. Surfing is relegated to sporadic resources, crowding becoming an issue with no solutions.
I like how Jen relays that skating can be done anytime you want to skate. Surfing requires a matrix of conditions/life circumstance to increase opportunities just to “play”. Love to play. Nice read Jen. Got me thinking….
Very, very true. I hate to say it (and its been said 1000 times here) but the wave pools are going to change the game by removing that natural magic combo that has to happen in nature and letting people just relentlessly punch away at a move on a repeatable wave with no fear of blowing the best set of the day.
Mixed feelings for sure.
I don’t see the pools proliferating in the areas that currently surf. In California, our real estate is too expensive to affordably offer pool surfing. So I’m not sure pools will be a solution, but I’d love to surf Kelly’s pond! FUck yes.
Rumor was Mr Cereal, Derek and Chas were going to rent the pond for a Beach Grit night! I heard full open bar, heaps of girls and weedmaps would be supplying the produce. I want to thank the boys in advance for their generous invites.
I do wonder if there will be lots of pools (meaning maybe 20 total) in “flyover” states in the future. Cheap real estate and lots of demand due to no real alternative but yeah, still have to generate waves and that costs a lot of money too. You’re right though, not in California.
I’ll donate labor to the Grit night, maybe work the parking lot and get interviewed by Chaz but I’d probably be less interesting than the last lot guy that was interviewed at the founders cup. Can’t help with the rental fees, my budget is very much divorced guy in a shit apartment ha ha. Never been happier though, go figure.
It’s like you got released from jail… right?
My ex wife’s financial ambitions were suffocating.
I realized how happy I am with less and more time.
Loose big bucks but get out of Mexican Jail. Stole that phrase from my lawyer. No better feeling. Closer to my kids, happier and better dad. More time, less money, less problems.
Have a good night Hippy. I am headed to My GFs place for dinner. That sweet dirtbag life
I love watching skate clips — it’s hella cool. And yah, more progressive in a lot of ways.
Variety keeps it fun, for sure. Especially when there aren’t always super epic waves on offer.
Yeah nice take on it. You forgot metal wheels!! I got mine off older sisters roller skates, hammered them into a board with bent nails…..awesome!! Things do change tho,. I learned on a longboard in the early 60’s, and now, due to my ancientness, am heading back towards singlefins and more length. Getting hard to paddle!
I really do like single fins due to the lack of drag from the 3 fins, and the smoother wake.
I hate coming down off the top in a single fin tho, and so stuck with thrusters for years. Twins just made me sort of nuts, couldnt’ really ever slow down.
I missed out on metal wheels, first skate was a cheapo Nash when i was 6 or 7 with clay wheels until my older brother saved my life and gave me a used aluminum Banzai with urethane wheels. The aluminum deck sucked but overall it was light years ahead of what I had. The seeds of a misspent youth had been planted.
Yeah, metal was hideous, the clays not much better. My clay wheels softened going down a parking ramp spiral in San Diego, 1971….. I saw the ball bearings go down past me and wondered WTF. Probably saved me as I was just dragging down the ramp then. The urethanes were so much better and faster, in a way, more dangerous!! We went faster and harder downhill. I lucked out with a few cases of speed wobbles and somersaults out of trouble. No one really wore protective gear, just shoes shorts and a t shirt….so road rash sucked, kept you out of the water too!! I got a bit smarter then, glad you made it too. Lots of people got pretty dinged up before the sport got “abit” smarter. I coudnt figure out the pool thing, and stuck to surfing.
We are definitely survivors, bad injuries were pretty common in the 70’s and remember how there were always lots of kids in casts? Speed wobbles on a serious hill. Nightmare material. I learned how to survive a motorcycle crash by skateboarding.
I got bit by the pool bug right before high school. Fun, illegal and mostly unknown to the masses. Impossible for my young mind to resist, it felt like a secret cult. Kept at skating on and off until close to 40 as work/family allowed. The boom in public skatepark construction was too much to resist. Finally stopped when I had the same knee drained 4-5 times (and was using pads) in one year and spent more time hobbling than skating. Now only surf at a solid VAL+ level hoping no one is looking.
wow…just wow. I never got the moto bug, maybe If my psycho friend hadnt wheelied with me on the back in bare feet and trunks up Pt. Loma AVE.afat 40 mph I wouldnt have feaked out on them. He was serious headcase though, went on to very bad things and crime. I surfed better than him tho. haha
Never occurred to me you could wear protective gear!!! I was totally addicted to surfing, coming from a freezing state..
Punishment/reward factor with skating changes as the toll grows!!!
My last fall was the wierdest, but stopped me from skating. I was skating the Tea Garden bowl (google it its cool)in Montecito, and was just standing on my board at the bottom, just going 1 mph, the front mount snapped and I had no time to react, or roll or anything. Just went down so fast. Sack of potatoes. Really my first accident too, I had been really lucky, lots of roll outs, saves etc. That one sent me to the ER though, (haha 165
bucks….stitches, face rash, no concuss)
What sort of sealed the deal to stop, was that day, a young guy showed up, and he ollied right over the gaping holes that we couldnt fix with our packed concrete (they cut holes in it after people kept getting hurt, and it was a raging scene mabye late 70’s, we found it abandoned and called it 8FT and Glassy, had it all to ourselves) anyways, this guy was going TWICE as fast as us, higher and further, and just leaping over shit. I stood there all bloody and just realized I was over it, probably my mid 30’s? Hard to remember, even though tho herbs werent that strong!!
SD Concourse death spiral? Lots of meat left on the concrete there. Maybe it would be nice to have slow, clay wheels to minimize speed until the clay slipped out from the g forces and lack of traction.
haha!! You got it!!! I really did see my bearings go down past me, and at that point the heated clay was softening and sort of gooping around the axles. Saved my ass no doubt!! Started shooting sparks from the rims. Had to keep going to avoid the ticket you would get!! Only did it once as we had really good other places to skate. circa 1971.
I had moved to Pt. Loma from Conn. where we all tried to surf, (had to drive through NYC or up north, but were too young)but we could do all sorts of other stand up and slide type sports. Waterskiing, skimboarding on the mudflats slick like glass, or making homebuilt snurfers for the winter snow.
In Pt Loma l (could actually check the surf my raising my head off the pillow..haha…didnt know I good I had it for a kook) I lived on top of the hill and we would set up runs down the sidewalks. Each house would have a driveway, some with really nice banked faces, others not so much, or there were bad transitions. So you would go down and burn off the speed doing off the top carves or “cutbacks” or better yet, full tail slides” Guys who “adopted” me from the Cliffs crew had it dialed. I probably learned as much doin that stuff as from being able to surf 365 days a year. Good for leg strength too!!
We all went up to the Del Mar speed runs to test ourselves, but I had no clue, teeny board, hectic speed wobbles in the speed crouch….I remember standing up and the wind pushed me back over a bit, before it slowed me down enough to get control again. I stupidly tried it again..same thing. That was a bit of luck, no helmet, just trunks and shoes….. Got a bit smarter and that was it.
We did make hand shaped foam core boards like the Turner boards, (cheap ass surfers haha) and I did make some good ones for our local runs. Man the new urethane wheels were so mind blowing. I moved to UCSB for school and the hills are different here, either flat or too steep so didnt do much downhill slalom stuff…haha thats the only skating I could do. Pools were coming on strong then, man I felt like a dinosaur. Sims and that whole thing was going crazy.
The waves though? Just perfect for pumping and skating. Yeah, thats where the Pt Loma driveways came in handy.
Ok theres the lunchbreak story!! Later.
Oh yeah! I grew up in Point Loma myself near PL High School and spent my formative years skating probably some of those same driveways as you. I wasn’t born till 1972 We went everywhere all over the point and OB on our skateboards and BMX bikes causing trouble and using driveways as wave faces all through the 80’s. Making BMX tracks and smoking pot in all the canyons around. There really are a lot of nice hills with perfect driveways to carve up into and scrub speed. I remember doing the big hill at Point Loma Nazarene College mid 80’s and at the bottom realizing they had just installed speed bumps and just lost it and had road rash down to the bone all over my knees and elbows and hips. I started roller skating in late 70’s with steel wheels cuz the folks had gotten cheap old skates from somewhere for us kids, even though urethane was already out. I remember skating mission beach boardwalk and wishing I could have urethane like everybody else. Balboa Park was a full blown roller skate, skateboard disco slalom party with cones set up and hundreds of people slaloming and doing handstands and trying to impress the chicks. Good times. When you woke up and lifted your head off the pillow, what break were you looking at? I would guess Osprey, indicators, or garbage?
I’ll reply inna bit. I lived off Calaveras, a flat lateral to the north of Hill St. Kinda near the top, could walk up and see OB tho, from the vacant lot. I could just see outside the Boil? what the hell is that outside wave? kinda soft and lumpy.South and North..something? shit..
Boil is inside of South Garbage. Next to North Garbage. Nice view I bet.i just surfed out there at the boil and North Garbage when I went back there to visit the relatives a couple months ago. I’ve been living in Kauai since 2001, but it’s always nice to get back to the cliffs and surf. So glassy and calming sometimes out in the lineup.
NorthGarbage!! I couldnt remember. View was great since I had nothng to compare it to? I was clueless about good surf. I knew what offshore and barrels were from surfing back east, but no clue otherwise. Swell direction? huh? It all looked so awesome, waves everywhere…like a playground, eventhe bad ones looked good!!
Closest spot first wasOsprey for a awhile, then looked over at Luscombs and thought that looked better, kinda would paddle from spot to spot checking them all out……and so on and so on. … localism was pretty rampant then and I Iearned where NOT to go, due to my beginners status.
Guys at the frontage house at Luscombs thought I was Ok due to my “nice bottom turn” haha …and they let me chill on the wall and learn the ropes. Made some lifelong friends, all many dead of stupidity now. Cool guys, but only one of the many subgroups to deal with, as I’m sure you know!! Some spots I could kinda sneak in and out of, but always wary. I got to be a “local” at least at those spots where I practically lived all day after class at PL high (man that was weird, whole nother discussion, east coast versus west coast style etc)….That little no name/no surf ever place at the turn in the road? My friend showed me the secret there, man what a fun deal.. Went to kinda check it a few years back….haha…probably wouldnt make it 20ft down the trail before a bottle in the head. eh kids nowadays…haha
Interesting that you ended up on Kauai, back in the acid days, tons of the PL crew ended up there, lots of shrooms and some serious Christian communities formed out of that…(I heard) I liked the south side alot, even tho it was “flat”, turning my short time there… still overhead and good enough for me!! Talking about Acid…haha…I soloed there a bit on vacay. Neato wave for me. I would probably drown anywhere else though, those souths….jeez. heavy, heavy water. Ok good chatting with ya. Brings back some memories that were lost!!.
Thats insane BTW. Your story of bombing the hill.
I got out of control once in bare feet, 7am after a smoke, top of PL outside my house…just went for a leisurely run, back and forth…but just….I dunno, got going too fast to jump, and too scared to do anything but try and keep it together till the next turn up ramp….I tried to turn up a sidestreet, couldnt make the corner, so instead had to head for a house with a hedge, (no fence at least,) crashed through the hedge into a backyard and did a somersault roll off onto their back patio grass. Got up, looked around., no one there…no one yellling at me…….snuck back out. Never ever did an early morning roll out like that again.
Mission boardwalk? man, that was hectic, in the 70’s we woould cruise over from PL looking for the parties…… boardwalk just nuts, probably crazier today? But even then it was full on fighting drunk/partying craziness. I remember a girl bit a big piece out of a guys arm, and then all the real heavies showed up to fight. People went and called these guys to duty, defend the block or whatever. They ended up like little babies rolling on each other, too spent to win, too tired to even let go. Dudes were huge steroid beasts. I learned to avoid all that nonsense, it could interfere with surfing the next day!! No fights ever. I would lost anyways. haha
Good times back then. The boardwalk was a lot crazier back then in the old days. A gauntlet of guys drinking beer on both sides for a girl to skate through. In the 90’s the widened it, so now it’s twice as wide, and no alcohol. None. Ever. So the cops can shut down the random rowdies, it’s not everybody going nuts against a couple cops. Sure people sneak it in coffee cups, but it’s not like it was before. A lot more tame compared to then. Still fun to get back to. They had at flowrider for a while at Mission Beach, but I went by there again 2 months ago and it was gone with a different business in its place. Just had a good south swell here in Hawaii, south side had action. Glad I can still get out there and catch a wave. And get a laugh occasionally from reading Beach Grit!
Hands down best skateboard name ever was the Nash Dog Cheese.
I used to roller skate Mission Beach boardwalk when I was 6 years old with steel wheels, but my first skateboard had urethane wheels and a pointed nose plastic deck and it looked just like those Penny boards that are around nowadays.
Slow down? What is this slow down? 😉
haha…I started to think going far and fast was the thing!!! Slice and dice through the peeps to all the way to the freeway. The points seemed designed for that. The style council guys said. “I hate that wig wag shit”.
But after the stiffness of the old 7’6″ single fins we all rode, twins were like crazy freedom. (jeez twins got me my nickname, which I’ll spare you)
One day I caught “the One”…the 20 second coulda woulda been rivermouth barrel…and I could NOT slow down…I was just spinning all over the place. The “old” guys were looking at me like..”what an idiot, he doesnt know whats behind him”.. I never forgot that, and you can still see it happen, as guys head away from the barrel to do an aerial., missing the actual good part of the wave, (which doesnt often happen every wave either)… Thrusters helped me channel all that so much better, slow the turns down and get more power out of them! Thats my story and Im sticking to it.
ps edit to add, it was my problem, not the twins the CI’s then were pretty awesome. I’m just too tall , bony and leveraged to handle them well,
“It ain’t about the tricks you do it’s how you do em”
-RIP Phelper!
But yeah, seemed like skating came around to the real fun aspect after the Jamie Thomas, Rowley, kirchart, etc etc days in the mid 2000s. Shot just got too big and progression moved a different way.
The beauty is that a great pool skater and a great manny pad guy can vibe and cruise and enjoy each other’s love for a shared activity. Surfers have that in the very tightest of little groups but overall not really.
Exactly, all the older division lines broke down and now a flow line in a pool can have lip tricks pulled from the street. And street style has actual style now etc. Good stuff.
Does this make you a ‘Ladyslider’?
I think I say motherfucker too much to be a lady anything, honestly.
…that comment is pure gold
Then Angry Bitch Slider it is!
(meant as a compliment)
She’d need a Dream catcher tattoo on her leg too