How Long Have You Ridden?

[Hunter Singleton]

This is how long have you been riding, not racing. (I just wanted the poll)
Thanks,
Hunter

[Wes Eastridge]

I raced right when I turned 31, so I voted 31+. I had beed interested in slalom for the 6 months prior though, so I guess I voted incorrectly.

The kids have this sport in the palm of their hands. Enjoy it.

[Jack Quarantillo]

I voted 31+, cuz I first ran cones this year, just after my 40th birthday.

I've been doing "air slalom" for years, bopping down hills, pumping for speed when necessary, carving to bleed speed when things got sketchy. But I don't think that really counts.

Q

[Brian Morris]

I started slaloming when i was 19, and I'm 21 now so not that long.

TheBrain

[Keith Hollien]

I taught myself to slalom in 1976 after reading an article in Skateboarder Mag. by Henry Hester. Thanks Henry. I started racing amateur in 1978 and turned pro in 1986 then retired in 1993. I did not run cones for almost 10 years. This past March I came out of retirement to race again at age 43. I am 44 now and started skateboarding in 1964.

Later Keith, Teams Radikal & RoeRacing.

[Hans Koraeus]

Interesting. Already after 29 posts to the poll you can see the pattern. Slalom skateboarding racing is for all ages.

[Vlad Popov]

"Started riding slalom" as in racing, skating cones or riding a slalom skateboard?

Interesting scale.
To most adults, all teenagers are alike, be it a 15 year old or an 18 y.o.
To most teens, 30 and 40 y.o. is the same thing.

"31 Plus"...nice touch! That's, like, one leg in the grave.

[Tom Thompson]

Good poll...

I vaguely remember running coke cans in the seventies. Then I forgot slalom altogether until Stanziale's race in Ga. last year. Now it's a freakin' addiction.

I checked 31+

[Jack Quarantillo]

we need a bigger sample size before any conclusions can be drawn...

Q

-research stat geek

[Dave Gale]

I started slaloming around 76 Was all I cared to do (other then occasional freestyle/high jump ) I never stopped all together and have kept most of my 70's equiptment and run cones every so often, since 2001 I run cones at a much more frequent level. I'm always too banged up from my real job to compete in the past 3 years I checked the 13-16 box

[David Morris]

I first started skateboarding in 1967 on a board with steel wheels. Later I moved up to an old Hobie board with "clay" composition wheels. It really wasn't until the advent of the urethane wheel that I really got into skateboarding. Skated all through the 70s doing freestyle, riding banks, high jump etc. As far as Slalom racing I only had a chance one time back in 1977 when I was at a local regional Skateboard Contest. At this contest it was indoors at a local rollerrink. I remember the floor was a bit slippery. What was weird is they had a funky ramp where all the skaters started the Slalom Event. You had to climg up into this ramp and drop in and then had to negociate all the cones which were all straight in a line. I cannot remember how close the cones were but they seemed close together. I remember dropping in off of the ramp and trying to pump through the cones. I was riding at the time a Wave Riding Vehicle Fiberglass 26" Kicktail with Bennett Hijacker Trucks and Road Rider 4 Wheels. I could actually pump that board but what was weird is trying to pump on that wooden floor. I remember I was really pushing it a bit and my back wheels seemed to be sliding around through the cones. I think I did pretty good on that slalom course as once the results were in for the combined Freestyle, High Jump, and Slalom Event I came in first place in my age division.

Skateboarding ended without a bang sometime around the really late 70s when skateboarding started to die out where I live. Where once there were many competetions and many skateboarding teams ( I rode for Wave Riding Vehicles Power Team and later rode for 17th Street Surf Shop) after the very first Tidewater Skateboard Association contest everything went in a downward spiral. The TSA went bankrupt and things just changed. Also this is around the time I had my own car and was interested in girls and such so skateboarding was sort of passe' for me.

Fast forward many years later I remember I was looking on the internet for some skateboards for my sons Aaron and Evan. Thats when I saw the advertisement for the Longboard Skateboard Slalom Championships at Folly Beach South Carolina. It caught my attention. I mentioned to my wife that I always had wnated to go to such an event. She said why don't we go and she wanted to know if I wanted to participate. I told her that I hadn't been on a skateboard since maybe 1980 and that I did not even have a skateboard. She said order one. So I did. I ordered one through Longskate.com and the board arrived the very afternoon when we were to leave for Folly Beach. Once there I think I did pretty good for a guy that hadn't been on a skateboard in 23 years. I did pull a calf muscle and could not compete in the second day of racing. I just hobbled around but I left Folly beach with a new stoke.

Since then I have been able to ride at the Gathering and at Dave Gales so cool West Virginia Race. I try to hit all the DC Outlaw races that I can. All I can say is this 43+ year old guy is having some fun.

[Matt Grant]

I'm 27 and I haven't started yet : o (
I'm poor so I'm waiting for Santa to give me some slalom wheels for X-Mas. By then my deck should be ready and I'll start the learning. Currently I'm visiting this forum to learn anything and everything I can to get me started.

[Henry Julier]

When I was a sophomore in high school my proctor (senior who lives with freshmen and sophomores) had a Sector 9... longboarding at my old school was sort of another way to get around. I taught myself how to skate on that board and then got my first longboard the following summer. TK sold me my first slalom board in Febuary of 2002 and the rest is ...uh... history! I didn't feel confident on a slalom board untill I got an ICK though.

[Andy Bittner]

Most of you have probably heard the story, but I'll tell it again here anyway. In July of 1967, my father was given a clay wheeled Hobie for his birthday. The gift was from the guys he skied with each winter and was offered as a non-snow alternative. At the time we were a family with small kids, living in a relatively busy, inner-suburban neighborhood, and skating in the street was out of the question. I was not quite five y.o. at the time, and stood no chance of riding clay wheels over sidewalk cracks, while standing on the board.

Over the next couple of summers, my father and older brother, both skiers, took to setting slalom courses on a sidewalk hill near our home. Clay wheels don't offer much traction at all, so the courses weren't necessarily fast or challenging, but I recall things like timed races and the two of them experimenting with parallel stanced riding. Me? I was still too light to contend with the sidewalk cracks and was relegated to riding either buttboard or skeleton style.

When we moved further out into the 'burbs in the late fall of '69, nobody was more excited about the big hill in front of the house and the total absence of sidewalks.

In the spring of '70, I learned to stand up on a skateboard. I was almost seven years old. Aside from my little brother who was just four at the time, I can recall a time during that spring or summer when my whole family; father, mother, older brother and older sister (all skiers) were all running slalom together on courses set with little, upright Dixie cups, with a little rock in each to prevent it from blowing around.

For the rest of the family though, this activity was several years old, and much of everyone elses enthusiasm had waned. With the lack of traction offered by the clay wheels, the courses remained relatively simple, unchallenging and, ultimately, boring.

By the time the summer of '72 had rolled around, nobody else in the family was skateboarding anymore. This began the first of two periods in my own life where my own interest in slalom skateboading kept me slaloming. Except for occasional interest from a kid across the street, I rode slalom alone on the hill in front of our house for the next few years. I was still riding the big, ol' Hobie with clay wheels, although I think I was the only kid I knew who actually wore out and had to replace the clay wheels (several times in my case) on his skateboard. There was even a point that we didn't know where to get clay wheels, so my parents would just buy one of the smaller, cheaper skateboards with Super Surfer wheels and we'd transfer them onto the good board. That particular board is now hanging on the wall, just out of reach from where I'm sitting, sporting its' fifth or sixth set of Super Surfer wheels.

Being a solo skateboarder, in an environment without much skatebaording, I missed the first coming of urethane to the game. I wasn't aware of urethane wheels until my parents gave me a Freeformer swallow tail for Christmas in 1974. (That date seems early to me, but all of the evidence around me, including the date on my first Skateboarder magazine indicates that it had to be 1974.)

The rest of the story is much like the rest of the 70s slalomers. I raced as much slalom as there was to be raced in the DC area during the mid-70s. Eric "Geezer X" Wallgren and I mutually recall that there were about three or four organized races in the DC area during that period. Of course, Eric was "Captain X" back then!

At the end of the 70s, mass interest in vert and trick skating put slalom racing out of the picture. My interest in skatebaording waned completely for a couple of years, but by '83 I was back to slaloming alone. Not a year has passed since that I have not gone out, at least once, and set up a slalom course somewhere for my own entertainment.

[Adam Trahan]

Thanks for posting your story Andy.

I enjoyed reading it.

I was a "half man" knee boarder for a while too until I had enough sack (inertia/momentum/bravery) on that clay wheeled beast. My Mom in her Capri pants, Tank top and Keds skateboarding and teaching me is one of my earliest memories of my life.

I've been loosly following your "Gathering Love In" skateboard thread and I think you are bringing in the good spirit.

Good on you Andy.

My Mom gave me her skateboard when I was 5 in 1966.

First ditch in 1973.

First pool in 1974.

Skated Ameron Pipes in Arizona in 1977.

First surf trip to O'ahu 1977.

My first longboard was a 36" Bennetts with RR6 up front RR4's in back 1978.

I bought my first Turner Summer Ski in 1978.

First Winterstick Swallowtail snow-surfboard in 1978.

First hang glider in 1978.

First K-38 surf in Mexico in 1978.

First slalom race, 3rd place 1978.

First surfs in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah with the Winterstick crew 1979.

I got close to 50mph on a skateboard in 1979.

First "Canal Surfing" towed by car on surfboard in a canal 1980.

First pool, "Skate in the Shade" by Wally Holliday in 1980.

I rode 20 miles on a downhill board in 1981 in about two hours.

Surf - Skate - Hang Gliding in Hawaii in 1983-86.
(First BIG OUTSIDE OVERHEAD Barrel at Yokahama Bay, First 4 hour Hang Glider Flight)

First Paraglider Flight in 1989.

Third Place Arizona Cross Country Contest in Hang Glider in 1991.

First born in 1993.

First Gen Seismics in 1995.

First Thermal above 18,000' in my Hang Gider 1995.

First Cross Country Flight past 50 miles in my Hang Glider in 1995.

Aero-Tow to 10,000' agl in my Hang Glider "Cielo" in 1996.

First web site www.smallstreams.com in 1996.

Last Flight in my Hang Glider in 1996.

First born skates in 1998.

1st 2nd Gen Turner Downhill in 2001

Started www.slalomskateboarder.com in August 2002

1st Roe in 2002

First race to travel to in 2002 WLAC

First FCR Race, Elsinore in Mar, 2003

Blast from the past, great poll, fun posting...