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Skateboarding => USELESS WOODEN TOY BANTER => Topic started by: Mcfctid on February 08, 2018, 01:10:20 PM
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As a kid, and my only glimpse into a professional skaters lifestyle was On video's "cribs" Rob Dyrdek. I had this thought that nearly all pro skaters had a seemingly good life, as in a nice car, and decent living accomodations. It wasn't till epicly laterd came on the scene that i saw the reality of a career in pro skateboarding.
So is there anything that you guys initially thought one way about in skateboarding/ pro Skateboarding that was later clarified due to media/the internet?
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When i was a kid i thought every pro could do every trick ever and that's what made them pro. Boy was i wrong.
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I thought pros landed their tricks first try.
A non skating friend came to the stay flared demo with me and was like "These guys are professionals? I thought they'd be better." I told him they aren't pro because they can do it first try, they're pro because they can do it period.
It's like the northern lights. Every picture you've seen is a lie, in real life it's kinda faint and it might take a few tries to even see show up.
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They all look big on video. Then you meet them in person and they're all like 5'5".
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When i was a kid i thought every pro could do every trick ever and that's what made them pro. Boy was i wrong.
To further elaborate on this, young me thought when pros called out or claimed tricks (in tour articles for example) I thought it meant they were declaring who gets to film/photograph it since they can all do the same tricks.
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It's like the northern lights. Every picture you've seen is a lie, in real life it's kinda faint and it might take a few tries to even see show up.
wtf
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I thought they'd be interested in skateboarding
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please bear with how naive and Berra-ish this is going to sound...
I lived a pretty secluded childhood in a small shithole of a town, and for my first year of 'serious' skating (11, 12-ish, still figuring out the basic flatground and curb tricks by myself, pre-Internet, studying every frame of every sequence in the first couple of mags I got with a magnifying glass, no older skate friends...), I was completely oblivious to the popularity of drug use, among most other things outside world-related. I lived in my bubble assuming that regardless of their different backgrounds, interests and personalities, every pro was just a 200% skate rat, getting their kick out of nothing but skateboarding, 24/7 and that this super specifically focused trait was what made them pro.
now, my first mags featuring Glen Friedman interviews about straight edge on one hand and Angel Boy comics on the other hand, and generally conveying a clean, pure, focused image of skateboarding in between Ocean Howell essays and Pat Channita trick tips didn't help broaden my childish understanding of things. plus I think the third mag I ever bought was one announcing Keenan's passing with a reference to substance use and the way they put it made it feel exceptional.
anyway, I remember that for quite a long time I found the idea of a pro skater doing drugs ridiculous, almost comical - like, why would they need this shit when they've got the most fun thing in the world at their disposal already ?
then I gradually, but quickly realized how widespread and almost mundane that stuff was, and naturally lost my innocence. difference with Berra is, said realization never really shocked me (although the early 2000's PD phase did piss me off, but for different reasons), I got the picture quick and just thought 'oh, well'.
but for a longtime I cultivated that innocent idea of pro skaters being always focused and never distracted and to this day, when I look back on it I still think it's beautiful to an extent (and not necessarily unrealistic : you do need a certain drive to invest thousands of hours into becoming remarkable on a skateboard - that can be mixed with other activities, is all).
TLDR : what ziggy said.
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All spots look smaller on footage.
When watching someone's video part, I would always think "that's it? They could have done something way cooler". I vividly remember seeing a famous handrail for the first time, and shitting my pants cause it was so much bigger in person.
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All spots look smaller on footage.
When watching someone's video part, I would always think "that's it? They could have done something way cooler". I vividly remember seeing a famous handrail for the first time, and shitting my pants cause it was so much bigger in person.
Dude I stumbled on that yellow rail with a bump up to it that Reynolds back 50's in Baker 3 while I was in LA a few years back, and I was completely blown away by how imposing it was. I'm not a small guy and I remember it being like neck high on me with a shitty, chunky bank that I can't see how you could keep speed on. I'm really impressed with anyone who's skated that thing.
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I used to think Scott Johnson was marc Johnson. I was about 6-7 years old. I must had seen a photo of Scott and then saw a marc Johnson a-team board. When I got yeah right I thought they were brothers.
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I thought, despite what the marketing claims, that Theotis actually smoked and drank. Though he thought this was funny, he told me that he does in fact not smoke or drink.
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They all look big on video. Then you meet them in person and they're all like 5'5".
Ya same here, I never realized how fucking tiny most pros are. Even the taller pros aren't all that big, I've been 6'3" since I was like 16 and when I met Andrew Reynolds at that age I was surprised that I was at least his height, maybe taller
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I thought they'd be interested in skateboarding
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Glamour magazine told me that I could impress boys with just 30 days or less and boy was I disappointed.
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They don't all smoke weed. I used to trade weed for decks and whatever from pros at slam city jam but some of the tranny dudes we're like "we only drink beer"
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That the LA picnic tables were normal size.
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That the LA picnic tables were normal size.
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Cigarette smoking. Every fucking skater smokes cigs and it has always baffled me. I'd expect green but cigs? I don't get it... Don't you want to breathe?
In 2000 I was real good at bank skating. Went to NYC and goddamn the Brooklyn Banks were way steeper, dirtier and grittier in person. All those years I was like "I'd fuck up the banks"
Haha, nope.
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That the LA picnic tables were normal size.
they actually are, just not commonly skated.
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i thought andy roy was a prison rapist w/ herpes
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That all pics were makes.
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I thought Mike Carroll was nice.
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Cigarette smoking. Every fucking skater smokes cigs and it has always baffled me. I'd expect green but cigs? I don't get it... Don't you want to breathe?
In 2000 I was real good at bank skating. Went to NYC and goddamn the Brooklyn Banks were way steeper, dirtier and grittier in person. All those years I was like "I'd fuck up the banks"
Haha, nope.
shut up nerd
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Surprised at how normal most are. As a kid I was pretty intimated. Now it's quite apparent they are just like me and you!
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That the LA picnic tables were normal size.
they actually are, just not commonly skated.
I've seen this discussed on here before and I've always thought it was weird. The small tables are at elementary schools. High schools in LA have adult size picnic tables. Do 6 year olds in other parts of the country all eat at tables that are way too big for them?
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Back in the day I can’t understand why pros wore “normal” brands like Lacoste, Nike, Adidas, Tommy and stuff when skateboarding was supposed to be punk. In my head pros should hate all those brands. Of course to me Volcom/Emerica were punk af and pros should had green hair, pants with holes, wallets with chains. You know...I was thinking the skateboarding bubble was underground. But it was the year 2000 and I bought my first skateboard on some American Mall. Then it was obvious skateboarding was something well know and normal and pros were doing a lot of different works, some of them with something like Real State. It was fun to noticed that. The ones with family and kids and the pressure to be a functional part of society.
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I'd say the one that surprised me was that sequence photos can be from multiple different attempts of a trick and pieced together.
I used to think Scott Johnson was marc Johnson. I was about 6-7 years old. I must had seen a photo of Scott and then saw a marc Johnson a-team board. When I got yeah right I thought they were brothers.
That's pretty funny because its Scott Johnston.
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Everyone with good style must be cool.
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Cigarette smoking. Every fucking skater smokes cigs and it has always baffled me. I'd expect green but cigs? I don't get it... Don't you want to breathe?
In 2000 I was real good at bank skating. Went to NYC and goddamn the Brooklyn Banks were way steeper, dirtier and grittier in person. All those years I was like "I'd fuck up the banks"
Haha, nope.
Yup. I learned, and have watched others learn that the banks are not as easy as we imagined.
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I thought Mike Carroll was nice.
hahaha. Plus one, even though that was naive of you.
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That the LA picnic tables were normal size.
they actually are, just not commonly skated.
I've seen this discussed on here before and I've always thought it was weird. The small tables are at elementary schools. High schools in LA have adult size picnic tables. Do 6 year olds in other parts of the country all eat at tables that are way too big for them?
In school we just ate at our desks, I don't think we ever really ate outside.
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That the LA picnic tables were normal size.
they actually are, just not commonly skated.
I've seen this discussed on here before and I've always thought it was weird. The small tables are at elementary schools. High schools in LA have adult size picnic tables. Do 6 year olds in other parts of the country all eat at tables that are way too big for them?
In school we just ate at our desks, I don't think we ever really ate outside.
I'm from a place with shit weather so we ate indoors on folding lunch tables. The picnic tables here were as big as a truck.
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Pretty basic but I thought they actually made money
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I thought that pros would turn up to a demo and actually skate. When I went to an Emerica demo 18 years ago most of the dudes were too shitfaced to wipe their own arse
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When i was a kid i thought every pro could do every trick ever and that's what made them pro. Boy was i wrong.
I was at the park with my buddy who’s been getting back into skating after a few years not skating and he’s doing really well and it’s honestly making me want to get back to my little kid Skate rat days, but he gets so frustrated with consistency with his flat ground and the and older guy I was talking to at the moment just started cracking up with me.
We had to tell him he’s killing it and that even pros ain’t consistent in their tricks. These Skate rats at the park might seem amazing but you don’t realize they skate the same thing and do the same tricks every day. If you can do a few flip tricks just cruising down the street that’s pretty good.
I feel bad skating with him sometimes as I feel like he gets discouraged by me. I don’t do anything extraordinary but I tend to pick spots more biased to my style of skating and will just do go tos while he struggles with stuff and it’s like I struggled too it was just years ago and now I can just do basic stuff at the spot for fun and at a pace I like. He just feels the need to go super hard and he’s learning and progressing super quick just has to see past the media of skating to just skating for himself to have fun without trying to be on par with some insta kid or the local park killers who are there everyday. I’m trying to get him more on the adventuring , experimental side of street skating where you just skate what you find like I had has a kid instead of this park centric picture perfect idea of skating.
I also thought pros were rich or at least well off enough to be able to have an apartment or home and still travel the majority of the time. Also I used to think teams hung out and were friends and then I asked Justin Eldridge a few questions about Antwan Dixon leaving Es when I met him once and was amazed when he said he’d never really talked to him. Even that nine club recently where Eldridge and webbing talked about pops and he said he didn’t really know the dude exemplified the fact that you can be on a team with someone for years , it doesn’t mean you’ll even really know them or Skate with them regularly.
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I thought jim Greco was 4 or 5 different people
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I thought that pros rode for every board company, and had pro models at whatever companies they wanted.
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Around the time when one my friends first exposed me to skating, they showed me a clip with a guy skating a deck COVERED in volcom stickers. I figured that it was a volcom skateboard. It didn't even cross my undeveloped mind that they could be stickers.
For about a month I thought that all the stickers I'd seen in any footage were custom printed skate graphics.
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It's like the northern lights. Every picture you've seen is a lie, in real life it's kinda faint and it might take a few tries to even see show up.
How far south do you live?
Every time I've seen them they were pretty vivid. In a lot of instances they looked exactly liked the pictures.
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I thought I wanted to be just like the pros when I was a kid until I got older and realized a lot of them are just overgrown children getting frustrated with a wooden toy.
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That the LA picnic tables were normal size.
they actually are, just not commonly skated.
I've seen this discussed on here before and I've always thought it was weird. The small tables are at elementary schools. High schools in LA have adult size picnic tables. Do 6 year olds in other parts of the country all eat at tables that are way too big for them?
In school we just ate at our desks, I don't think we ever really ate outside.
I'm from a place with shit weather so we ate indoors on folding lunch tables. The picnic tables here were as big as a truck.
LA is the only place I've been where the tiny tables are common place. Even where I am in San Diego, the tiny ones are super rare. I know of one school that has them for sure and they're almost always locked down with chains and behind fences. Elementary school kids eat outside on standard high school sized plastic tables and benches.
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I thought Lance Mountain was a place.
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Crazy thing about all this talk of "tiny tables", that was one of my misconceptions. The small ones aren't even that low.
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I remember in a CCS magazine they did mini interviews with Jamie Thomas and Bam, and one of the questions was if there was an "easy" trick they couldn't do. I don't recall Jamie's answer but Bam said he couldn't hardflip, which led to every kid in school who could hardflip believing that they were better at skating than Bam.
I wasn't one of those kids. I still can't hardflip.
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This thread caused me to go back and watch a bunch of schoolyard footage and fuck I'll never be able to not see how small the tables are. That's not to say schoolyard footage isn't sick, and I'll never be able to skate picnic tables myself, but they're just so much smaller than I usually picture them
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Can we get an info graphic similar to the biggest gaps one? have it show a cali table, a normal table, and the sizes of hosoi and dills ego.
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The biggest misconception I have had in skateboarding is, when I was a kid I use to think Eric Koston was cool.
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Oh man, now that i'm thinking about it I really liked Berra too... His tentacles of destruction part got me hyped.
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I thought jim Greco was 4 or 5 different people
Greco and Lizard King were mysteries and myths to me back in the day. I heard their names all the time, but couldn't figure out if my friends liked them or thought they were kooks.
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The hills in SF are just as steep if not steeper than you imagined. Would have been reassuring to go there and realize they're mellower than expected, but no. Those gx dudes and all the sf locs are fkn nuts!
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It's like the northern lights. Every picture you've seen is a lie, in real life it's kinda faint and it might take a few tries to even see show up.
How far south do you live?
Every time I've seen them they were pretty vivid. In a lot of instances they looked exactly liked the pictures.
I saw them in iceland. they were definitely visible, but it wasn't a neon looking HDR shot like you see when you google image search them.
I thought Lance Mountain was a place.
this is a good one
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The hills in SF are just as steep if not steeper than you imagined. Would have been reassuring to go there and realize they're mellower than expected, but no. Those gx dudes and all the sf locs are fkn nuts!
on that note, sf streets especially the aves are rough! no smooth california there. to me the roads and even some sidewalks were 'pop prohibitive' and what i mean is i'd have trouble ollieing driveway gaps or whatever, wonder if i wasn't over the hills [late 20s, early 30s] but then i'd be at golden gate park and i could ollie those green trash cans.
didn't put it together til much later that rough ground grabs your tail.
the LOVE PARK 8 w/ the crack in front, what the crap!?!
that crack made it ill and the ledge of the 3 was tall to get on, no joke!
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thought lipslides were the same as boardslides. all photos looked like boardslides to me, and i didn't understand the "180 into boardslide" description in trick tips. finally saw one in a video and it clicked.
i used to think danny way was short for danny wainwright.
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That professional skaters weren't awkward weirdo's in the flesh, and would act the same to random strangers as they do around their friends on footy...
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That the LA picnic tables were normal size.
ha! they aren't?
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That they don't smoke crack
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As a 11-12 year old, I didn't understand fisheye photography so I thought everyone in Cali had ramps with really curved decks/coping.
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I thought all pros were packing heat then I saw that photo of Dill.
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Around the time when one my friends first exposed me to skating, they showed me a clip with a guy skating a deck COVERED in volcom stickers. I figured that it was a volcom skateboard. It didn't even cross my undeveloped mind that they could be stickers.
For about a month I thought that all the stickers I'd seen in any footage were custom printed skate graphics.
I thought the same thing when DC had board size stickers
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I thought pros landed their tricks first try.
A non skating friend came to the stay flared demo with me and was like "These guys are professionals? I thought they'd be better." I told him they aren't pro because they can do it first try, they're pro because they can do it period.
It's like the northern lights. Every picture you've seen is a lie, in real life it's kinda faint and it might take a few tries to even see show up.
man ive seen some crazy fucking northern lights while growing up in Edmonton
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Couldn't even fathom how there was such a thing a pro skater when I first heard of Tony Hawk when i was about 12.
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Eric Koston
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I thought all Teams hung out a lot and lived close to each other....It looked so Fun and I wanted that
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i thought pros did all their tricks in video parts. since tom penny had so much fs flip, kf, sw fs flip, sf kf i was under the impression he couldn't 360 flip.
i thought muska and jamie thomas could not bsts.
i thought most pros were taller like ya'll said but mike york was bigger in real life!
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I hero-worshipped pretty bad as a kid so I thought they were all really cool, natural, and thoughtful. To put that into context, I was convinced Gator would be a good person to hang around. But, I was 10 back then so I had no way of knowing he was the 80s version of Steve Berra (minus the rape and murder stuff?).
Once I saw DGKALIS rub a rose on a girl's ear and say, "That feels dope, right?"
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Once I saw DGKALIS rub a rose on a girl's ear and say, "That feels dope, right?"
Times up
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I thought Switch skating was a camera trick because I went to the opening of a local park when i was like 10 and some did did a big ol' kickflip over the driveway/ a few days later a picture of that kickflip was in the write up of the event in the local paper, only the dudes stance had changed and the whole park was th other way round, obviously they flipped the photo to better fit lthe page layout but it fucked with my fragile little brain. the I kooked myslef hard by telling my stupid little buddies that switch skating is a myth and they just mirror the photos in mags haha
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I'm pretty sure when I was young I thought there was something special about a "pro deck". If a pro had their name on it, it must be made better/lighter/stronger/something, and regular branded decks were for common people lol.
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I'm pretty sure when I was young I thought there was something special about a "pro deck". If a pro had their name on it, it must be made better/lighter/stronger/something, and regular branded decks were for common people lol.
well the same board company will often resort to different options as far as quality (and cost) for their team and logo boards and their pro models, not to mention that for a while it was normal to have good quality boards sent to the riders and shittier product sent to the skateshops for the basic skater and consumer (the boards having nothing but the graphics in common), so in a way - unfortunately - you weren't too far off...
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I'm pretty sure when I was young I thought there was something special about a "pro deck". If a pro had their name on it, it must be made better/lighter/stronger/something, and regular branded decks were for common people lol.
well the same board company will often resort to different options as far as quality (and cost) for their team and logo boards and their pro models, not to mention that for a while it was normal to have good quality boards sent to the riders and shittier product sent to the skateshops for the basic skater and consumer (the boards having nothing but the graphics in common), so in a way - unfortunately - you weren't too far off...
I was hoping I was totally off the mark, but I remember hearing rumours back in the day about the differences between decks on the shop wall and what pros put under their feet. So sneaky, but makes sense.
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I'm pretty sure when I was young I thought there was something special about a "pro deck". If a pro had their name on it, it must be made better/lighter/stronger/something, and regular branded decks were for common people lol.
well the same board company will often resort to different options as far as quality (and cost) for their team and logo boards and their pro models, not to mention that for a while it was normal to have good quality boards sent to the riders and shittier product sent to the skateshops for the basic skater and consumer (the boards having nothing but the graphics in common), so in a way - unfortunately - you weren't too far off...
I was hoping I was totally off the mark, but I remember hearing rumours back in the day about the differences between decks on the shop wall and what pros put under their feet. So sneaky, but makes sense.
when I first heard about that as a kid (from a Santa Cruz rep who was taking pride in Santa Cruz not doing that, but that was 15 years ago ; maybe they do now) I remember I was so pissed ; the whole thing sounded like a scam while I was the one forking out money for inferior decks I was going to have to try and make last for 6 months anyway. I was all about supporting skate companies back then - still am, but I felt so betrayed, that really narrowed down the spectrum of who I'd purchase gear from, I thought it sucked the basic skateboarder had to get the shit end of the stick. to this day whenever I hear some of the arguments a lot of brands are trying to use as selling points, it's almost like I'm supposed to thank them for not to being scammed, and shouldn't take customer etiquette for granted.
same rep also let me in on the 'secret' of pros riding wider versions of their 'pro model' decks the everyday skater could find in skateshops, again made just for them. you'd see 7.75 Bastien Flip boards in shops but the guy would actually ride 8.6's with the same graphic so they could resist the impact on big drops more, all looking like they were riding the same twigs we had no choice to get back then (pre-resurgence of the wide decks). I remember moving up from 7.75 to 8.25 then 8.5 as soon as upon hearing that, and that was some years before big boards really became popular again so to all my friends riding 7.5's, I had a 'vert set-up' with that and 56mm wheels.
I remember getting really pissed at skate shoe brands for a while around the same time too because I had stumbled upon an interview with some Sole Tech dude (can't remember if Senizergues or some random engineer) saying they technically could mass-produce indestructible shoes, yet they wouldn't because then less skaters would buy shoes on the regular. I was a naive 15-years-old with plastic inserts inside my 6-month-old Accels to protect my socks (and feet) after the sole had worn out, but still - if I'm going to support a company, I'm hoping it's going to support the everyday skater in return, not fuck them up the ass.
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I'm pretty sure when I was young I thought there was something special about a "pro deck". If a pro had their name on it, it must be made better/lighter/stronger/something, and regular branded decks were for common people lol.
well the same board company will often resort to different options as far as quality (and cost) for their team and logo boards and their pro models, not to mention that for a while it was normal to have good quality boards sent to the riders and shittier product sent to the skateshops for the basic skater and consumer (the boards having nothing but the graphics in common), so in a way - unfortunately - you weren't too far off...
I was hoping I was totally off the mark, but I remember hearing rumours back in the day about the differences between decks on the shop wall and what pros put under their feet. So sneaky, but makes sense.
when I first heard about that as a kid (from a Santa Cruz rep who was taking pride in Santa Cruz not doing that, but that was 15 years ago ; maybe they do now) I remember I was so pissed ; the whole thing sounded like a scam while I was the one forking out money for inferior decks I was going to have to try and make last for 6 months anyway. I was all about supporting skate companies back then - still am, but I felt so betrayed, that really narrowed down the spectrum of who I'd purchase gear from, I thought it sucked the basic skateboarder had to get the shit end of the stick. to this day whenever I hear some of the arguments a lot of brands are trying to use as selling points, it's almost like I'm supposed to thank them for not to being scammed, and shouldn't take customer etiquette for granted.
same rep also let me in on the 'secret' of pros riding wider versions of their 'pro model' decks the everyday skater could find in skateshops, again made just for them. you'd see 7.75 Bastien Flip boards in shops but the guy would actually ride 8.6's with the same graphic so they could resist the impact on big drops more, all looking like they were riding the same twigs we had no choice to get back then (pre-resurgence of the wide decks). I remember moving up from 7.75 to 8.25 then 8.5 as soon as upon hearing that, and that was some years before big boards really became popular again so to all my friends riding 7.5's, I had a 'vert set-up' with that and 56mm wheels.
I remember getting really pissed at skate shoe brands for a while around the same time too because I had stumbled upon an interview with some Sole Tech dude (can't remember if Senizergues or some random engineer) saying they technically could mass-produce indestructible shoes, yet they wouldn't because then less skaters would buy shoes on the regular. I was a naive 15-years-old with plastic inserts inside my 6-month-old Accels to protect my socks (and feet) after the sole had worn out, but still - if I'm going to support a company, I'm hoping it's going to support the everyday skater in return, not fuck them up the ass.
Well, you're getting a bit into a conspiracy theory version of the reality. Some pros ride wider/skinnier boards than their official pro models - it's been that way since the popsicle shape came into existence. The reason for the difference in size is because the companies, via sales, can see what sizes sell best and in turn make the majority of their decks in that range. Pretty simple, not the industry out to screw you over somehow.
As for pros literally getting different wood - aside from testing prototypes, that's not so much a quality issue as it is personal preference. There were Girl riders who got graphics put on different wood because they liked it better (swapping china for BBS)... and I heard rumors of a couple others doing that. You could argue that the China manufacturer is lower quality, and I'd agree. But again, it's not part of some grand scheme to sell shit boards to kids while pros skate some elite wood. Pro's can skate a new board every day, and quite often do, so that argument doesn't even make too much sense when you think about it.
The shoe comment was in regards to the idea that any shoe company could obviously make an all rubber shoe that would be a tank against wear and tear, but that it would lack the style and board feel that all skaters are so adamant about. It wasn't an admission of some secret agenda to produce inferior quality shoes, it was a comment on the delicate balance of style vs functionality.
Skateboarding is a massive rumor mill and it's easy to see why so many theories gain weight, but you shouldn't feel like you've been the victim of some giant swindle. We all skate the same shit at the end of the day.
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Dave Bachinsky, 2006 El Toro with a 7.5 deck!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR02gR-G1ok
The pros riding wider decks thing might've been true for a few guys, but there's definitely been people ripping on skinny decks.
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For a long time as a clueless kid I thought vert skaters were the only pros, because they were all padded up and did contests. The big pants and hoodie-clad street dudes I figured were just really talented hobby skaters
Also I found out about switch stance skateboarding WAY later than I should have. It never occured to me that someone willingly would make skateboading harder than it already is (I kinda still don't honestly)
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JusticeAbberdash, there's no denying that. some of my favorite skate footage to watch has to do with narrow boards, even I got as down as 7'3 at some point back in the early 00's - Monkey Stix deck, I found that one impossible to skate though ! everybody's always skated different stuff and had their preferences. but the wider decks for the pros was a thing for some at one point and those decks weren't even available on the market so that would piss me off a little bit. I remember going through some issues of Transworld Business or whatever it was called at the time and out of all the prefered deck sizes my favorite pros would mention, a lot of them sounded ridiculous to me for I had never seen anything that obnoxiously wide in the wild or even in shops (pre-Internet).
Budgie Lasek : well, like I was saying, those interactions I'm refering to are 15+ years old. they blew my mind back then, but it doesn't mean that they aren't outdated now, or that I'm not over them (actually it would be sad to hold such trivial grudges against inanimate objects and unidentified people for nearly two decades).
I'm aware my reaction had everything to do with how things were presented to me back then and I think that's fine. although to get a clearer picture of what I'm getting at, you also need to consider the era and general context. back then finding any deck in size 8' or over was almost impossible because most companies didn't even make them, besides maybe Black Label and more independent yet poorly distributed (pre-Internet) brands maybe. so you had everyone with nothing bigger than 7.75's at every skate spot snapping them on nollies down 4's then you learn about brands making 8.5's and up for their pros because they hold up better with more distribution surface upon impacts, of course you're going to feel fucked over. then of course just a few years after, Real / DLX started this whole campaign, 'our pros actually ride the same boards you can find in skateshops', which was a good thing, just long overdue as far as fairness ; then it became the cool thing to do (especially now that the secret had been exposed) and everybody started putting out wide boards and bragging about working with Generator wood. I'd say the line got blurred around the late 2000's, but really up to that point, the disparity felt starker so the controversy probably held more water. it wasn't as much about making boards in sizes that would sell as it is now that we actually get to pick which board size we want to get. also the typical guideline according to which 'boards 8 and up are impossible to flip' was being thrown around a whole lot back then, discouraging people to go out of their way and - somehow - look for them.
about the wood, it's just a common myth I wanted to debunk, the one according to which one company should only work with this or that factory. in reality a lot of companies will do runs with Generator then with Dwindle, depending on the season, demand, expected quality (ie. logo board vs. pro board). not trying to sink anybody's ship here, just saying I see people fixating over woodshops sometimes like they're so exclusively affiliated with certain companies, everytime they buy a particular brand they're 100% sure to get the same wood, when it's not always the case.
shoe comment definitely didn't address the idea of style when it came out (although obviously, you do have the right idea). again to bring the context back, that was just around the time of the Koston 4's, Aeon / Link, early Lakai models and the peak of the D3, people were already skating in tanks, pissed those would decay still (merely just to have something to whine about), I don't think casual style whilst sporting skate shoes was a lot of skateboarders' focus at the time, at least in my area I remember everybody's priority was durability. then that interview dropped and pretty much shut (at least my) aspirations down.
that being said, your post makes perfect sense, just mostly as far as the last decade is concerned if anything, and I appreciate you taking the time to address mine. again, that was 15 years ago, and as far as I'm concerned I was younger and more naive and gullible for sure, but that is the whole point of this thread, not to mention the market back then was essentially a completely different planet, so a lot of my concerns of the time are now moot (or have been replaced with different ones, haha).
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Some interesting theories, but when it comes to the whole pros riding wider boards thing I have to disagree. Unless I'm misunderstanding you, what you're saying is that at some point in time most pros actually rode wide boards while consumers only had skinny options, and did so because they felt they held up better, and that the companies actively kept this a secret so they could keep selling skinny boards which you feel don't have the same strength as a wider board?
The progression from skinny boards to the wider shapes that are more common now was natural, as skaters learned what worked best for them. Everyone is different. It wasn't some "secret" that got out. I've been skating for over 30 years, working in the industry for over 20 - I've seen all the trends and boards pros are riding vs what we were selling in the distros. Pros riding different shapes from what's available in the shop are a rarity, largely due to the hassle it creates for the brands in terms of production. 99% of pros walk into the exact same warehouse the shop gets their decks from, and pick decks out of the same stacks - unless they get packages shipped. Always been that way.
Like i said, interesting theories... hope my response wasn't annoying. The thread is about misconceptions, and I felt I could help clear that one up. :)
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maybe I wasn't clear enough or it gradually got blown out of proportion somehow but I never really meant 'most pros', nor that all the companies were 'actively' keeping it a secret like it's some type of widespread conspiracy against the people (then again though, marketing essentially consists in fooling them so they choose your product over somebody else's so where to draw the line ?). what I do know is that at some very specific, transitional point, the wider deck thing was a thing for some pros and (coincidentally or not), simultaneously, certain companies were in the know about the wider decks having a lesser chance of breakage (I mean all of them probably were due to the phenomenon coming down to basic physics, but not all of them made it a conscious marketing plot) - hadn't they been, I wouldn't have heard the argument myself in the first place. now that doesn't mean we have to be paranoid and necessarily put 2 and 2 together. that guy was definitely trying really hard to sell his Santa Cruz decks too, so there's no question whether or not he did go the extra mile with his stories ("Euro TM"'s...) recounting how it 'really' worked. it's just funny those considerations did exist, and were thrown around, back when everyone was struggling with twigs.
so I'm curious, to you, how much water did that Real campaign hold, when they publicly advertised how cool it was that the public shops were getting to carry the same boards their pros actually rode ? just some flashy attempt at publicity ?
your point about the progression from skinny boards to wider ones being natural is interesting, because I feel like up to the early-to-mids 90's some people used to skate boards about as wide as what we skate now right ? thinking 1992-ish shapes as the basic popsicle was still being elaborated upon, up to the East coast skaters who were skating 8'6 boards 1996-ish. then into the late 1990's, that's plenty of time for experimenting with shapes, sizes and naturally figuring out what works, of course the quality of the materials was constantly evolving so you can't exactly compare the different time periods but still, why the sudden decrease in board width and unavailability of bigger decks then (only to come back to them years later) ? maybe it was a Europe thing ? I remember my older friends having to order their wider decks from the US back then and even those looked hard to come by. please do note that was when I actively started skating, around 1998, so I'm curious. now about the process of the comeback itself, of course skaters were going to come back to what is functional, but I just can't help but think we had known it for some time already, hence why that narrow board (experimental ?) fad feels unnatural to me (although it did fit certain styles of skating and some people are into them to this day).
if we're going to talk progression, I wonder if all those kids who keep raising the bar of hucking yourself down stuff in complicated ways nowadays could have had done just that if bigger boards hadn't made a comeback a few skate generations ago (yes, those go fast...). originally I'd be tempted to say no, but then there's that Bachinsky clip JusticeAbberdash just posted and more instances aplenty I'm sure.
sorry for taking up space and not always making sense, I'm tired and probably shouldn't be on SLAP.
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I once thought pros were real gangsters and general tough guys. Now I realize pros are basically teenage girls in the body of a man.
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so I'm curious, to you, how much water did that Real campaign hold, when they publicly advertised how cool it was that the public shops were getting to carry the same boards their pros actually rode ? just some flashy attempt at publicity ?
I think Real was being honest. All they did was make sure that some of the pro models they put out were indeed the size their riders use - but that's no big deal considering they all ride standard size boards and the range is much bigger these days. That was a more recent campaign, right? It would have been a risk for say, Girl to do that during the peak of BA's deck sales because 8.9 (or whatever size he rides, it's big) would have been regarded as huge at that time (it still is, most of his current pro decks are smaller than his rider). I have 2 friends who are pro and ride 7.8 boards, but they just get some 7.8s made specially for them and their models are a different size because it's so hard to sell anything under 8.125 these days.
As for the argument about wider boards being stronger, you've got to remember we're talking about differences in size that are fractions of an inch. Marketing and tech talk will make it sound like a slightly wider board means you can jump 20 more stairs, but in the long run there's guys doing el toro on 7.5's and there's guys doing el toro on 8.5's. Board construction and the amount of concave determines the strength - impact displacement differences are very small and not something that's night and day noticeable. When you've been riding a small board, big boards seem like indestructible tanks, but a lot of that is in your head. If a skinny board is flatter, yes, it may be easier to break. Same goes for a flat wide board.
Now the shapes - the popsicle shape we have today was basically taking the football shapes of 1991/1992, and getting rid of the side bulge so it had a straight rail. That essentially made them skinnier - most boards from 1993 - 1995 were somewhere in the 7.5 - 7.75 range, with some exceptions on either end of the scale (I had a 7.25 Sonic, for example... huge nose, it was nuts). The east coast big boards big wheels thing was an isolated trend that did spread for a bit (my favorite video was EE3, and at one point I tried a wide ass board with 58 mm wheels... seemed too much at the time), but it didn't change the progression of board sizes in the industry as a whole(Jeff Pang was flowing me Zoo boards around 98/99 and I kept having to trade the boards he sent me for bigger ones because they were so tiny, which I thought was weird). From 95 until the early 2000's, the size range of boards expanded a bit with the majority being between 7.5 - 8, but like you said, Black Label and some more bowl barney brands offered larger shapes. It was right around the early to mid 2000's that 8.125 became one of the most popular sizes ridden by pros, and in turn, it became more available in shops. If you were a pro with big feet, you might have then said "hell, what's another 1/8th of an inch?" and stepped it up to 8.25. Once we're in that neighborhood and consumers have also started trying larger sizes, having some 8.5 options etc isn't too much of a stretch. It was all a learning process once decks found that popsicle shape... boards will always change a little bit as skaters try new things. But, like I said earlier, there have also always been lots of more tech pros who still skate 7.5's years after those were a sellable size.
I wonder if we'll ever see a trend moving back to super skinny boards?
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i dunno bout all these paragraphs but i skated a 7.63 at the park the other day and it was super fun, i'm gonna set up a extra sub 7.75 deck next time i go to the shop
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Important bobby puleo misconception
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Not all pros can skate everything. In the days of UK tours there were a few humbled by the local pit.
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I remember when going to a shop and wanting an 8” board meant you might have to settle for 7.75”. But I also remember in transworld buyers guides (those were a fucking thing at one point) learning that Reynolds skated (I think?) 8.6 or something and being dumbfounded because his boards were 7.5 at the time. I also recall getting a 7.8 rick Howard after YEARS of wanting a girl deck, but they literally only ever made 7.5 and 7.6.
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Regarding custom shapes vs. consumer shapes, some older company owners were a bit out of touch with their market. Santa Cruz would't let Grosso release a skinnier tail because they thought wide tails were popular with street kids and Vision wouldn't let Lucero sell a "32 board with a longer nose since it went against the 10x30" no nose standard. In reality, kids were re-shaping and re-drilling just to make some of those goofy '80s shapes useful.
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That Powell Peralta was a skateboarder
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I always thought that there were enemies between skate teams, like I guy from zero never be friend/hang out with a guy from shortys or something, like they only be friends with guys from the same team or dress alike...
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I always thought all pros had health benefit packages
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That all pics were makes.
also didn't know composite images were acceptable
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That Powell Peralta was a skateboarder
You were half right!
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Can we get an info graphic similar to the biggest gaps one? have it show a cali table, a normal table, and the sizes of hosoi and dills ego.
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when i first watched 'big brother shit' i thought that dave carnie was jake phelps. he was older and bespectacled and kind of an asshole.
i didn't get that they were editors of competing magazines.
"illegal fruitcakes? you're outta here, get out!"
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As a kid, and my only glimpse into a professional skaters lifestyle was On video's "cribs" Rob Dyrdek. I had this thought that nearly all pro skaters had a seemingly good life, as in a nice car, and decent living accomodations. It wasn't till epicly laterd came on the scene that i saw the reality of a career in pro skateboarding.
So is there anything that you guys initially thought one way about in skateboarding/ pro Skateboarding that was later clarified due to media/the internet?
I saw an epicly later'd of chris haslam recently. I grew up watching almost round three and he was one of my favorites. that dood is now sleeping on the floor of some rank apartment in LA. Its amazing you can go from shane o'nieil who has a massive house and kitchen he barely uses to Haslam and a dank apartment with piss stained floors.
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I thought the "Poocano" was real
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I thought the "Poocano" was real
You mean like, an actual geological occurrence or an actual ass? Pretty sure it really was the latter.
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Those paragraphs on page 3 were not needed.
What's needed is the graph of how big a Cali picnic table is.
Someone do that
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i always thought that if i could land the same trick done in a video, it meant i was good and eventually i would get sponsored. i had a list of tricks in my head that video caliber skaters did. i would see some of my peers doing those tricks and think they were gonna get hooked up for sure.
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Way back when I was still learning how to skate I saw a guy riding a girl board with venture trucks so I thought all trucks with the V on them were Girl trucks
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As a kid, and my only glimpse into a professional skaters lifestyle was On video's "cribs" Rob Dyrdek. I had this thought that nearly all pro skaters had a seemingly good life, as in a nice car, and decent living accomodations. It wasn't till epicly laterd came on the scene that i saw the reality of a career in pro skateboarding.
So is there anything that you guys initially thought one way about in skateboarding/ pro Skateboarding that was later clarified due to media/the internet?
I saw an epicly later'd of chris haslam recently. I grew up watching almost round three and he was one of my favorites. that dood is now sleeping on the floor of some rank apartment in LA. Its amazing you can go from shane o'nieil who has a massive house and kitchen he barely uses to Haslam and a dank apartment with piss stained floors.
Say what?
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they're all midgets.
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i thought all pros were close friends and hung out all the time
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i thought all pros were close friends and hung out all the time
GANG
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I thought pros would be bigger assholes than they ended up being, mostly because all the hometown hero’s were cliquish and kinda douchey.
I believed that spots would be smaller in NYC/ Long Island, and I thought spots in LA would be bigger. Barcelona and London spots seemed to be pretty accurate though.
When I was younger, I assumed that pros were paid well. I was dumbfounded to learn that my mom made more than Andrew Reynolds did pre-THPS.
I thought Venture actually made good trucks in the late 90’s.
I blindly assumed that decks and wheels in ccs that cost more money were better quality.
I thought shoes like the Vans Era and the Vans Slip On were just lifestyle shoes that couldn’t handle the demands of modern skating. This was in the late 90’s, when the smallest pro shoe was the original Geoff Rowley Vans.
I naively believed people who made up bullshit stories, like the idiots who said they rode for two dirfeeent shops or two different shoe companies. Grew out of that once I met people who actually skated.
I assumed lightly drinking and smoking weed didn’t have a negative influence on my skating. That was a lie I told myself for a while. I also assumed speed and opiates had a negative influence on my skating, but it ended up being quite the opposite.
I thought that many of the earlier 90’s videos weren’t as impressive as they are now. I started skateboarding in 1999, and my neighbor gave me 411 number 1, Las Nueve Vidas De Paco, and the most current best of 411 video that was out at the time, and I thought the best of video was some RNS. The one he did give me that I was impressed with was Virtual Reality, but I was a sucker for the flashiness of The End....
I thought every pro could do every trick, just like most of you believed. Meeting Mike V changed that for me. Also Mike V told me that he would forever stay on Etnies and Black Label, guess that was something that was clarified at a later time though...
I thought Shawn Powers had great potential and was going to be a great skateboarder once he hit his 20’s.
I thought I would probably be dead by my mid 20’s.
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When i was a kid i thought every pro could do every trick ever and that's what made them pro. Boy was i wrong.
I was at the park with my buddy who’s been getting back into skating after a few years not skating and he’s doing really well and it’s honestly making me want to get back to my little kid Skate rat days, but he gets so frustrated with consistency with his flat ground and the and older guy I was talking to at the moment just started cracking up with me.
We had to tell him he’s killing it and that even pros ain’t consistent in their tricks. These Skate rats at the park might seem amazing but you don’t realize they skate the same thing and do the same tricks every day. If you can do a few flip tricks just cruising down the street that’s pretty good.
I feel bad skating with him sometimes as I feel like he gets discouraged by me. I don’t do anything extraordinary but I tend to pick spots more biased to my style of skating and will just do go tos while he struggles with stuff and it’s like I struggled too it was just years ago and now I can just do basic stuff at the spot for fun and at a pace I like. He just feels the need to go super hard and he’s learning and progressing super quick just has to see past the media of skating to just skating for himself to have fun without trying to be on par with some insta kid or the local park killers who are there everyday. I’m trying to get him more on the adventuring , experimental side of street skating where you just skate what you find like I had has a kid instead of this park centric picture perfect idea of skating.
I also thought pros were rich or at least well off enough to be able to have an apartment or home and still travel the majority of the time. Also I used to think teams hung out and were friends and then I asked Justin Eldridge a few questions about Antwan Dixon leaving Es when I met him once and was amazed when he said he’d never really talked to him. Even that nine club recently where Eldridge and webbing talked about pops and he said he didn’t really know the dude exemplified the fact that you can be on a team with someone for years , it doesn’t mean you’ll even really know them or Skate with them regularly.
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I thought the skater always picked the song they wanted for their video parts.
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I thought the skater always picked the song they wanted for their video parts.
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At the time I thought the only professional skateboarders that existed were the ones in THPS 1-3
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thought skaters designed their own pro model shoes
picked songs for their video parts
were able to fully live off of pro skateboarding and didnt have to work outside - probably true for 60% of pros/sponsored skaters?
they enjoy skateboarding
got a long with team mates
was so shocked when i first met adrian lopez (first pro) and he had indy hangers with destructo base plates haha -
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i thought new blood was the throwaway footage from dying to live for the longest time and i don't know why.
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That the LA picnic tables were normal size.
they actually are, just not commonly skated.
I've seen this discussed on here before and I've always thought it was weird. The small tables are at elementary schools. High schools in LA have adult size picnic tables. Do 6 year olds in other parts of the country all eat at tables that are way too big for them?
Yes they probably do eat at large tables, i know in most places i've been there's one school that has one of those mythical small picnic tables and it's generally a big deal. I think i always realized the LA tables were small but i definitely thought Matt Hensley cabbed a full sized table when i was 14.
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As a kid, and my only glimpse into a professional skaters lifestyle was On video's "cribs" Rob Dyrdek. I had this thought that nearly all pro skaters had a seemingly good life, as in a nice car, and decent living accomodations. It wasn't till epicly laterd came on the scene that i saw the reality of a career in pro skateboarding.
So is there anything that you guys initially thought one way about in skateboarding/ pro Skateboarding that was later clarified due to media/the internet?
I saw an epicly later'd of chris haslam recently. I grew up watching almost round three and he was one of my favorites. that dood is now sleeping on the floor of some rank apartment in LA. Its amazing you can go from shane o'nieil who has a massive house and kitchen he barely uses to Haslam and a dank apartment with piss stained floors.
At that time Dyrdek was one of the richer skaters around but that was also before the influx of blank boards and European brands so dudes that rode for decent board companies got paid pretty decently, and if they were on DC or Sole tech or even DVS they were also getting a good check from those guys.
Another story i've heard a bunch of times is that Austalian skaters in the late 80s and early 90s, especially the vert guys thought that all video parts were filmed in a few hours and not 12 months and thats why they all got so good is they were under the impression that American skaters could do all the tricks in their video parts every try.
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Long time lurker, finally gave into temptation and made an account.
Yeah Right was one of the first skate vids that I watched and I thought the invisible green ramps section was real for a while. Blew me away when I was a kid. Also I thought Owen Wilson ripped
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That Heath and Klein were best friends. I felt personally attacked when he left for workshop with Berra.
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That the LA picnic tables AND Fire hydrants were normal size.
That's where we east coasters get the pop from, we all looked at vids like, oh tables, hydrants..ok, ours were so much bigger...we just moved onto tennis court nets, guard rails and industrial garbage cans ;)
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That pros left that gang ish behind.
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That Ollie didn’t come from an Americanization of “allez”
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That the LA picnic tables AND Fire hydrants were normal size.
That's where we east coasters get the pop from, we all looked at vids like, oh tables, hydrants..ok, ours were so much bigger...we just moved onto tennis court nets, guard rails and industrial garbage cans ;)
Good call. Not to mention the much rougher ground! I'd imagine back in the day, when East coast dudes came out to Cali they were taken aback and just FLEW over everything.
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Pretty recent - I rewatched Fully Flared recently for the first time in several years with my roommate who's just as big of a skate nerd as I am and like half of Koston's part is filmed wearing Es shoes.
He pointed it out and I was blown away. Pretty much every clip were he has longer hair, he's wearing Eccels. I never noticed as a kid watching the video.
It makes sense though, seeing as in the behind the scenes documentary Lakai put out about Fully Flared they said that Koston had less than a year from when he got on to when the video premiered. Had to fill the part out somehow haha.
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Pretty sure the first time I saw a Hosoi hammerhead rising sun I was like "Why is this old dude ripping off the Muska?"
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that it was fun