Today there was a Zephyr blowing through the canyons of the central coast, and my thoughts drifted back to this same time of year in 1975. I was 19 years old and had been skating for less than a year. It was around 10am and I was practicing nose wheelies in my driveway when this VW Bus rolls to a stop and a John Denver look-a-like climbs out. I recognize the guy, he lives up the street with his wife and two kids. He introduces himself as, Steve Cline, and asks to check out my skate. After looking it over he hops on and skates around the driveway. I can tell that he has skated before, really skated.
He asks me if I have ever done any "mountain skating", I have no idea what he is talking about. He explains it to me and asks if I would like to give it a go. I'm off that day, so I'm in. We jump in his bus, stopping by his house to pick up his skate and we then begin making our way into the hills behind Cayucos. The day is quickly turning into a day of firsts for me. I grew up on Air Force bases throughout the United States in the 60's and early 70's, hardly a place for "hippies" and VW buses. I had never really known a hippie, much less ridden in a VW bus with one.
As we drive along, Steve tells me stories of skating down roads in the Angeles Crest National Forest during "skateboarding's dark ages". The bus slowly makes it way up the steep grades, soon we are pulling into a small turn-out, parking and pulling out our boards. I'm riding a 27' Bahne with Chicago trucks and loose ball Roller Sports. Steve's board is a homemade wood plank with Chicago trucks and Metalflex wheels. I had heard of Metaflex, but never seen any. Neither of us have pads or a helmet.
The day is clear and the Zephyr is present. Leaves rustle, I can hear birds in the trees and the sound of the small creek that runs through the canyon. There is no traffic. I am acutely aware of the surroundings. It's as if everything has come together at this moment in time, a moment from which I would never turn back from. A moment that unbeknownst to me would change my life forever.
I'm a bit apprenhensive as we stand at the edge of the road, I have never skated anything this steep and long. Steve senses this and tells me to just follow him. He smiles at me then sets his board down and rolls away, carving back and forth across across the narrow road, he is surfing and skiing at the same time. I have never seen anyone skate like Steve. I attempt to copy his turns, his smooth style. As we make our way down the canyon, I jump off from time to time, hoping that he doesn't hear my footfalls. Gradually my bails become less frequent, my turns smoother, my confidence greater. Much too soon we are at the bottom. We begin the long walk back up, there is no need for talk. The silence says all I need to hear. Something has stirred in me, a feeling I have never known. I want to do this again, over and over.
Today, almost thirty years later the Zephyr is here and I'm driving through the hills behind Morro Bay with my friend Adrian, telling him the story about Steve and "mountain skating" as we search for that perfect run, for that same stirring in our souls.
Thank you Steve.
Steve and his family moved away to a commune soon after my introduction to "mountain skating". Before he left California he penned an article for "Skateboarder" Magazine, Volume 2, #2...it was titled "Skateboarding Through the Dark Ages". Read it. Soul.
Of Zephyrs and Friends
Moderator: Maria Carrasco
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Jack Smith
- Morro Bay Skate legend
- Posts: 736
- Joined: Fri Aug 23, 2002 2:00 am
- Location: Morro Bay, California
- Contact:
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Wesley Tucker
- 1961-2013 (RIP)
- Posts: 3279
- Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2002 2:00 am
SKATEBOARDING IN THE DARK AGES
By Steven Cline
Where was your skateboard four or five years ago? Had it passed into the obscurity of childhood memories, along with your “Fanner 50?” Could you have found it in the closet amidst ruins of a hundred playful fantasies? Or, was it among those things which had inexplicably passed from your hands?
Now that the Phoenix has risen from the ashes of forgotten thrills, it would be appropriate to relate the saga of a few brave souls who refused to let childhood melt into the static idleness that adulthood brings along as a lingering guest. This small band of the lunatic fringe continued to seriously practice and develop the technique and artistry of rolling down asphalted hills aboard splinters of wood, with tiny wheels bound to the bottoms, casting the organism with spinning speed and certain danger.
The two otherwise dissimilar town of La Canada and Manhattan Beach began an exchange of technical and stylistic data from two schools of thought which might be labeled Hodad an Surf. What would seem to be a blend of oil and water turned into a nectar of harmonious exploration.
The problems of automobile density and rough surfaces forced odysseys into the geographic and geological properties of a large part of Southern California. New hillside housing tracts lost their hideous urban negativity and emerged from the metamorphosis as smooth, uncrowded ribbons of winding joy. One such embryonic community was christened with the name of “Hot Wheels,” having a run which turned Makaha wheels so hot they smoked and crumbled. It was here that one brave rider, sliding on hands, chest, abdomen, thighs and knees made a picturesque commentary on the propensity of the aforementioned wheels to stop for every little pebble they encountered.
Less than daunted, the group decided it was time for some definitive improvements in this sorely neglected infant of a sport. Two major advances were a car and gloves. Ah, the automobile, gift of technology to zealous skateboarders. Something to wide the horizons of rideable mileage, something to ride back up those long hills in. Always take enough people so that by taking turns, one can restfully coast along behind the intricately weaving patterns of human form that dance across the windshield like a movie, to the time of whatever music that happens to be accompanying through the speakers.
Gloves, alas, a compromise. Gone the blissful tingle of unhindered breezes through outstretched fingers. Gone, too, the torment of peeling skin from palms in slow motion-like slides. Gloves tend to snatch hold of asphalt and stop. In the name of decreasing the lot of human suffering, gloves.
The exploration and development of new spots continued wide and far, vast and varied from Thousand Oaks to Pomona, and again and again to that natural wonder of the South Bay, Palos Verdes. P.V’s myriad of residential hills inspired such namesakes as Broken Shoulder, Just Around the Corner (referring to the mythical end of one steep hill), and of course, Busted Axle. The spare parts box was a huge, rejuvenating Nirvana for reincarnating shell-shocked trucks, wheels, bearings and even boards.
Good times, fantastic skateboarding, but the reception in suburbia was always mixed. Little kids followed in stoked awe, gardeners stared in amazement as their quiet streets were ripped to pieces by the graceful flow of fice or more speeding, long-haired hippies, who appeared and vanished with a roar – gone like a dream. The dogs, especially that one particular Great Dane, initiated a frightening game which blended the negative qualities of downhill slalom and running the gauntlet. The police, as ever, cast a confused and suspicious eye upon the spectacle. One cop, aghast and mouth open, stared in silence as one by one riders sped by quoting the MUSIC MAN. Zoom . . . “Ah, we got trouble my friends . . .” zoom “ . . . But he doesn’t know the territory . . .” zoom “ . . . with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pot . . .” zoom “ . . . Now I know you folks are all the right kind of people . . .” . . . and all that remained was the distant sound of that harsh clatter of skate wheels on pavement.
Revenge was plotted by our boys in blue and manfested as one’s advice that the hill riders remove themselves from the pleasant condition of a new graveyard, and go several miles distant to try out a flood control dam he had known as a child. “And don’t come back!” was implicit in the suggestion, as soon became obvious. Fear and adventure prompted agreement with the idea. Ah, that hill. Certain suicide, instantaneous death amidst the collected broken bottles of the years. About a 70-degree incline, with an incredible bowl that banked left perfectly into a towering cement wall. No matter how one turned, angled or slid, there was but one certainty – that wall would be the final expiration point of tremendous inertia. Nice cop. They passed.
But the wheels just weren’t making it. They’d get hot and fall off, or to pieces, or come to any number of other unforeseen ends. So, for a while, in spite of imminent danger to life and limb, there was a small group of surf types hanging around otherwise totally skating rinks from San Bernandino to Gardena. Without the lifts of shoe skates on their feet, they seemed small indeed among the surprised and disdainful stares of the locals. The apprenticeship, however, was fruitful. Blue Sure Grips were the discovered boon to hill riding. Good traction to a point and then a beautifully controllable slide of up to three or four feet. Braking loose backside became as common as ice skate stops. But as you, gentle reader, may surmise, their lifespan was gloriously short. About five miles, or to be specifically precise, two-and-a-half times down Broken Shoulder and its subsidiaries. Short of perfection to be sure. Back to Gardena, where an old pro rinker suggested the adoption of a new wheel called Metaflex. Also, the incorporation of a pet of his: speed cone hubs. Taking the master at his word, the group set to the test. A resounding “Wow!” was to be heard in P.V. shortly thereafter. These wheels had tremendous transition, speed and durability. Later in the Cadillac era, they would still rate high. Faster but less grab than the newcomers. Old favorite hills became at once unrideable. Accelerating out of every turn without dissipating slides was amazing and insane. The seeds of something real had been sown, but new topography would have to located first. It wasn’t long.
Skateboarding truly came into it own as a sport in the mountains. Angeles Crest Forest, midnight, biting cold, shooting stars, runs 10-miles long in the striking shadows of car headlights. Enchanted harmonies of sight, sound and touch, in careening balance. Sidewalk surfing palls beside the reality of two, three, four guys carrying on W.W.I bi-plane dogfights at ten- to twenty miles per hour. Inches apart, bumping nose to tail, powerful backside front, slide, wheelie, positions reverse, dancing like shadow souls locked together in a mystic rite of grace and speed. Out-pace the others, get around a mountain corner or two and all light is gone. The hills are black, the road is black, the sky is black with speckled flashes. Keep pumpin’! BLAM! “Was that a rock? God, I’m glad I couldn’t see it; I would have crashed for sure!” Two invisible forms racing down a void of starlight space. Turns banked for cars become huge waves to sweep backside into, drop down to the inside lane, whip a fully extended bottom turn, accelerating five-miles an hour back up to the shoulder. Like a monstrously large and thick P.V. cove wave in the fog, only faster and endless.
Yes, what night of bliss those were. Fearless joy testing and gambling of human life. Those couple of years of being innovators and explorers in an untried land, in a sport that had been virtually discarded even as it suffered its birth pangs on the sidewalks of America.
Well, it’s like surfing now. Who doesn’t skateboard? Who doesn’t have a favorite spot? And, just like surfing, the skateboarding fellowship of those times became too large to remain a close unit or brotherhood. As if to signal the Cadillac age of reborn popularity, that loving fellowship burst asunder and scattered along the length of California, many to never see one another again, like ball bearings rolling out of a broken, burning wheel. It is in eulogy of this group that I write. Verily, the keepers of the spirit of the sport until the world becomes of age.
Those days are gone, but the hills still abound, many unridden. And, as man continues to cover the land with that hard, black substance we call asphalt, his children continue to adapt their play to their environment. There won’t be a lack of uncrowded skateboard hills for many years to come. Each rider, true to his style, can find the paradise of his choice. We may yet live to see Haleakala paved.
By Steven Cline
Where was your skateboard four or five years ago? Had it passed into the obscurity of childhood memories, along with your “Fanner 50?” Could you have found it in the closet amidst ruins of a hundred playful fantasies? Or, was it among those things which had inexplicably passed from your hands?
Now that the Phoenix has risen from the ashes of forgotten thrills, it would be appropriate to relate the saga of a few brave souls who refused to let childhood melt into the static idleness that adulthood brings along as a lingering guest. This small band of the lunatic fringe continued to seriously practice and develop the technique and artistry of rolling down asphalted hills aboard splinters of wood, with tiny wheels bound to the bottoms, casting the organism with spinning speed and certain danger.
The two otherwise dissimilar town of La Canada and Manhattan Beach began an exchange of technical and stylistic data from two schools of thought which might be labeled Hodad an Surf. What would seem to be a blend of oil and water turned into a nectar of harmonious exploration.
The problems of automobile density and rough surfaces forced odysseys into the geographic and geological properties of a large part of Southern California. New hillside housing tracts lost their hideous urban negativity and emerged from the metamorphosis as smooth, uncrowded ribbons of winding joy. One such embryonic community was christened with the name of “Hot Wheels,” having a run which turned Makaha wheels so hot they smoked and crumbled. It was here that one brave rider, sliding on hands, chest, abdomen, thighs and knees made a picturesque commentary on the propensity of the aforementioned wheels to stop for every little pebble they encountered.
Less than daunted, the group decided it was time for some definitive improvements in this sorely neglected infant of a sport. Two major advances were a car and gloves. Ah, the automobile, gift of technology to zealous skateboarders. Something to wide the horizons of rideable mileage, something to ride back up those long hills in. Always take enough people so that by taking turns, one can restfully coast along behind the intricately weaving patterns of human form that dance across the windshield like a movie, to the time of whatever music that happens to be accompanying through the speakers.
Gloves, alas, a compromise. Gone the blissful tingle of unhindered breezes through outstretched fingers. Gone, too, the torment of peeling skin from palms in slow motion-like slides. Gloves tend to snatch hold of asphalt and stop. In the name of decreasing the lot of human suffering, gloves.
The exploration and development of new spots continued wide and far, vast and varied from Thousand Oaks to Pomona, and again and again to that natural wonder of the South Bay, Palos Verdes. P.V’s myriad of residential hills inspired such namesakes as Broken Shoulder, Just Around the Corner (referring to the mythical end of one steep hill), and of course, Busted Axle. The spare parts box was a huge, rejuvenating Nirvana for reincarnating shell-shocked trucks, wheels, bearings and even boards.
Good times, fantastic skateboarding, but the reception in suburbia was always mixed. Little kids followed in stoked awe, gardeners stared in amazement as their quiet streets were ripped to pieces by the graceful flow of fice or more speeding, long-haired hippies, who appeared and vanished with a roar – gone like a dream. The dogs, especially that one particular Great Dane, initiated a frightening game which blended the negative qualities of downhill slalom and running the gauntlet. The police, as ever, cast a confused and suspicious eye upon the spectacle. One cop, aghast and mouth open, stared in silence as one by one riders sped by quoting the MUSIC MAN. Zoom . . . “Ah, we got trouble my friends . . .” zoom “ . . . But he doesn’t know the territory . . .” zoom “ . . . with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pot . . .” zoom “ . . . Now I know you folks are all the right kind of people . . .” . . . and all that remained was the distant sound of that harsh clatter of skate wheels on pavement.
Revenge was plotted by our boys in blue and manfested as one’s advice that the hill riders remove themselves from the pleasant condition of a new graveyard, and go several miles distant to try out a flood control dam he had known as a child. “And don’t come back!” was implicit in the suggestion, as soon became obvious. Fear and adventure prompted agreement with the idea. Ah, that hill. Certain suicide, instantaneous death amidst the collected broken bottles of the years. About a 70-degree incline, with an incredible bowl that banked left perfectly into a towering cement wall. No matter how one turned, angled or slid, there was but one certainty – that wall would be the final expiration point of tremendous inertia. Nice cop. They passed.
But the wheels just weren’t making it. They’d get hot and fall off, or to pieces, or come to any number of other unforeseen ends. So, for a while, in spite of imminent danger to life and limb, there was a small group of surf types hanging around otherwise totally skating rinks from San Bernandino to Gardena. Without the lifts of shoe skates on their feet, they seemed small indeed among the surprised and disdainful stares of the locals. The apprenticeship, however, was fruitful. Blue Sure Grips were the discovered boon to hill riding. Good traction to a point and then a beautifully controllable slide of up to three or four feet. Braking loose backside became as common as ice skate stops. But as you, gentle reader, may surmise, their lifespan was gloriously short. About five miles, or to be specifically precise, two-and-a-half times down Broken Shoulder and its subsidiaries. Short of perfection to be sure. Back to Gardena, where an old pro rinker suggested the adoption of a new wheel called Metaflex. Also, the incorporation of a pet of his: speed cone hubs. Taking the master at his word, the group set to the test. A resounding “Wow!” was to be heard in P.V. shortly thereafter. These wheels had tremendous transition, speed and durability. Later in the Cadillac era, they would still rate high. Faster but less grab than the newcomers. Old favorite hills became at once unrideable. Accelerating out of every turn without dissipating slides was amazing and insane. The seeds of something real had been sown, but new topography would have to located first. It wasn’t long.
Skateboarding truly came into it own as a sport in the mountains. Angeles Crest Forest, midnight, biting cold, shooting stars, runs 10-miles long in the striking shadows of car headlights. Enchanted harmonies of sight, sound and touch, in careening balance. Sidewalk surfing palls beside the reality of two, three, four guys carrying on W.W.I bi-plane dogfights at ten- to twenty miles per hour. Inches apart, bumping nose to tail, powerful backside front, slide, wheelie, positions reverse, dancing like shadow souls locked together in a mystic rite of grace and speed. Out-pace the others, get around a mountain corner or two and all light is gone. The hills are black, the road is black, the sky is black with speckled flashes. Keep pumpin’! BLAM! “Was that a rock? God, I’m glad I couldn’t see it; I would have crashed for sure!” Two invisible forms racing down a void of starlight space. Turns banked for cars become huge waves to sweep backside into, drop down to the inside lane, whip a fully extended bottom turn, accelerating five-miles an hour back up to the shoulder. Like a monstrously large and thick P.V. cove wave in the fog, only faster and endless.
Yes, what night of bliss those were. Fearless joy testing and gambling of human life. Those couple of years of being innovators and explorers in an untried land, in a sport that had been virtually discarded even as it suffered its birth pangs on the sidewalks of America.
Well, it’s like surfing now. Who doesn’t skateboard? Who doesn’t have a favorite spot? And, just like surfing, the skateboarding fellowship of those times became too large to remain a close unit or brotherhood. As if to signal the Cadillac age of reborn popularity, that loving fellowship burst asunder and scattered along the length of California, many to never see one another again, like ball bearings rolling out of a broken, burning wheel. It is in eulogy of this group that I write. Verily, the keepers of the spirit of the sport until the world becomes of age.
Those days are gone, but the hills still abound, many unridden. And, as man continues to cover the land with that hard, black substance we call asphalt, his children continue to adapt their play to their environment. There won’t be a lack of uncrowded skateboard hills for many years to come. Each rider, true to his style, can find the paradise of his choice. We may yet live to see Haleakala paved.
-
Jack Smith
- Morro Bay Skate legend
- Posts: 736
- Joined: Fri Aug 23, 2002 2:00 am
- Location: Morro Bay, California
- Contact:
What a nice thing to do...
Thank you Wes for posting Steven's article. It is timeless.
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Adam Trahan
- Phoenix, AZ, USA
- Posts: 795
- Joined: Tue Apr 02, 2002 2:00 am