What's your start-stop history?

[j....soy.....]

Started at 12 and never stopped, I'm now 50...here's to slow and shitty wins the race.....

[Frank and Fred]

You think Frank Gerwer ever  stopped and restarted?

I don't think so.

[TheSqueebleSquabble]

Started at 15. Went strong till about 21. Fell off the wagon with adult responsibilities and kept getting injured plus a genetic back disorder. Got depressed and unmotivated. Slowly starting to pick it back up. Sometimes you need a gap, like with any physical and/or mental activity. Other things get in the way, but if you love it, it will all come back around. Still can’t land a half cab heel to save my life.

[big_kev_215]

Started in 5th grade around age 10/11.  Got my first “real” board (a Blind slick complete from CCS) in 6th grade. Skated till 18.  Got back into it around age 27.  Stopped again at 29 when I made a career change.  Got back into it at 31 and have been loving skating more than ever since then. 

[Yakusoku2]

Started during the summer of 1999 at 12 or 13. Then a couple months later I discovered the Tony Hawk game and learned you can do tricks on a skateboard and also it was a subculture, there were brands, teams, video parts, contests, music… it changed my life for good. Skated almost everyday until 2007ish - 2008ish. I stopped because of my office work and the doctor said my knees shouldn’t suffer like that.

Then I bought a flatland bmx and learnt a few tricks during a couple of years because it was more low impact than skateboarding. It was from 2007 to 2009. Then I quit my job and also “extreme sports”. I started working as a photographer / videographer, got married a couple years later and…

I started skating in 2016 again, only flat ground tricks. My knees couldn’t bent without pain. But I wanted to skate. My son was born in 2017 and quit skating again lol.
Finally I started again in 2022 because I discovered SLAP while looking for woodshops but I’ve been skating once or twice a month since then. I love skateboarding more than ever but my knees are in pretty bad condition.

[Chavo]

Got a half-toy board at 7. Friend gave me an early '80s generic Variflex at 10. Real complete at 11. Peaked at 16. Gradually slowed down by 24. Skated more at 30 due to work/live/spot convenience. Skated way less after 40.

Some family members died recently of ALS. Sudden onset at about the age I am now. I feel death is around the corner and want to skate more. Anyone else have a death scare and your first thought was that you should be out skating?

[mrosk8]

start in 89
never stopped
only for injuries
still skate 3 times x week at 47
some days are good ,some are totally shit

[somethingmustbreaknow]

Stops? Never!!

[corey websturd]

Started in France in spring 88 at 16 after watching the Bercy Megafree on tv.A big Skate/BMX demo event with Gonz, Staab, Gator, Ken Park and Klaus Grabke.
I never quit ever since...

[spooky electric]

quitting has never really even seemed like an option to be honest. aside from being too injured/sick to skate, the longest i have ever not ridden a skateboard is probably a week, maybe two.

when you quit did you stop owning a skateboard? I'd trip out if i didn't own a setup

[companguero]

Got a veriflex around 10 (1991) because my ymca summer camp was taking us to Venice Beach and we were allowed to bring bikes, inlines, etc 

My favorite counselor “cheese” saw how much I liked skateboarding so for my birthday he gave me his vhs of animal chin and brought my mom and me to Rip City so I could get a legit setup.

Mostly skated alone on my block learning Ollies and just pushing around for a few years.

Eventually met other skaters in middle school, started collecting videos starting with Goldfish, subscribed to TWS, then powered through until senior year of high school when all my friends peeled off into smoking weed and hiking.

Kept it up til ~20 yrs old, with the last skater friend I knew from the streets, until my FT pizza delivery job took up most of my time + couldn’t push past the fear of harder tricks.

I’ve always had a usable complete in the trunk so I can still Ollie and kickflip with a warmup at 42.

[kook1234]

since ive been able to kickflip ive only gone 1 year without doing a kickflip.  idk what you want me to say I didnt feel like doing one that year.  I think it was 2016

[Easy Slider]

As many of you, I got a walmart board as a small kid when skateboarding was "in" for the first time, must have been early to mid eighties or something. We used to acid drop down stuff and roll around on our knees, bellies etc. Back then we did not know what an ollie was.

Then, in 1991, a few of the older dudes picked up real skateboards and some even learned how to ollie. When I saw it, I needed a bloard too and my mum got me a Maui & Sons complete. Of course, I was kooked to oblivion so gathered all my money and got a G&S shaped deck and trucks (don't remember what kind of wheels). We had a small crew in our village and skated most days until around 1996/1997, witnessing the whole small wheels big pants era. Gradually, I got deeper into weed smoking. As I was not able to skate when high, I skated less and less and around the millennium completely stopped.

Picked it up again on a whim on the first day of the Covid lockdowns. In the meantime I had become sober (alcohol and weed) and this gave me a boost of energy and less hanging out or being hung over meant having a lot of free time on my hands, which I spend skateboarding.

This Friday, it will be exactly 4 years since I have come back and I can do almost all tricks I could do as a teenager and even some I couldn't. I am a bit less reckless but other than that, young me would probably be proud of old me.

Thanks for reading, folks.

[Underpressureflips]

Started at age 4 in 89. Quit at 17. Started again at 27, 38 now.

[moonordie]

If you stopped, unless because of a injury, at any age you're a disgrace.

[Hyliannightmare]

when you quit did you stop owning a skateboard? I'd trip out if i didn't own a setup

Even when I took like 13 years off I always kept a setup in my car and during breaks from work I'd skate flat or if I took a roadtrip I'd usually stop at the areas park and try it out. The feeling of just riding around and popping your tail has nevee not felt great

[formula420]

Got my first board in 2nd grade or so. Fell in love instantly, but my dad hated it so i didnt get to skate much. By 6th grade i could kickflip. By 9th grade my dad made everything so miserable, i quit to try to make him happy (obviously didnt work).

Picked it back up when i moved away to college. Fell back in love instantly again. Been skating consistently ever since, age 31 now.

Except for one year when i was around 25 and i crashed my motorcycle and broke my ankle. But once the ankle was ready, i got back on the board.

[mfweeno]

Writing this out made me realize skateboarding has always had some sort of presence in my life.

Childhood:
Got a tiny banana board from Toys-R-Us when I was a very young kid.
Got a "better" board from a sporting goods store around 3rd-4th grade.
THPS games were definitely a gateway drug - I would go outside by myself and try to figure out ollies after playing Tony or Bob in Career Mode.

Adolescence:
Turned into a bona-fide skate rat (skating every weekend and whenever I could during the week) by 6th grade. Learned how to kickflip, heeflip, pop shuv, ollie stairs, mini ramp basics, etc. I knew I was in love with skateboarding by that point in my life.

Had to taper off later in high school because I was accepted to an arts boarding school and the workload was pretty demanding. I still borrowed other students' boards every so often and kept my flatground basics. I also got heavily into the gym/fitness as a way to manage stress/burn off steam from the demands of boarding school - this continued through college and evolved into a focus on powerlifting.

Late junior year of college, stopped lifting as much and fell back in love with skating. The time I spent in the gym translated positively - I had better stamina, balance, more pop, etc. I had also developed some bad partying tendencies, so I would often skate buzzed/drunk. It was fun until it wasn't.

Adulthood:
Stopped drinking a little under 6 years ago. Took some breaks from skating during this time as I had a lot of associations with booze/partying and skating. Turned my energy towards the gym and powerlifting again - bulked up to the highest BW I've ever been at in my life (275-ish), but was benching 400+ lbs and deadlifting 600 lbs without a belt. Never fully "stopped" skating during this time, but I used skating moreso as a entertaining form of cardio instead of an athletic pursuit itself.

I got back into skating heavily about 3 years ago. Lost a lot of my powerlifter bulk and got most of my tricks back. I am committed to skating for as long as I possibly can now - I love this shit!

[Ninj2]

There is no stop If you still think About it all day. If you ever skated you already see it all different that’s not just a curb. Skateboarding is not just the act of skateboarding it’s the romance you have with it. Did you ever stop loving it? Nah breh not me. Never. It’s like a religion out here breh. I read the Bible

[Chavo]

since ive been able to kickflip ive only gone 1 year without doing a kickflip.  idk what you want me to say I didnt feel like doing one that year.  I think it was 2016

I hadn't tried a kickflip for 10 years until I saw a thread about only some product limited to buyers who could land one within 3 tries. Took me more like 20.

[JM]

Expand Quote

since ive been able to kickflip ive only gone 1 year without doing a kickflip.  idk what you want me to say I didnt feel like doing one that year.  I think it was 2016

[close]

I hadn't tried a kickflip for 10 years until I saw a thread about only some product limited to buyers who could land one within 3 tries. Took me more like 20.

Was it for dunks? I loved hearing about the shops that would make sb dunk buyers do a kickflip right there in the shoes before they could leave. (Or an Ollie)

On the flip, those dunks probably kept a lot of shops alive and thriving in 2020.

Anyways, don’t mean to derail.

I used to have 5-0’s like NOTHING, and now they are hard as shit. It’s so weird. Even after 4/5 years back on all the time they are difficult to get. (Edit. But I think maybe it’s cause I used to skate 8’s with 14.25 or 14 WB all the time, and now I skate longer wheelbase on an 8.38x14.5 WB)

Front boards came back, though, thankfully. That was a very nice revival.

[JM]

If you stopped, unless because of a injury, at any age you're a disgrace.

Boo hoo. Now I’m sad.

[gringo_viejo]

Got a Christmas complete at age 10.
Learned to push around but got frustrated after 6 months when I couldn't Ollie up curbs.
Quit for 33 years.
Back on the board at 43 and can't stop.
Old man sez: don't be like me kids.
(Unless you're old and wondering if you should pick up the board again. Then be like me. But with better ollies.)

[Sila]

Skated from about 11-19. Picked up a board randomly throughout my 20's but wasn't a regular thing. Started skating properly again at 32 until about 35. Injuries have derailed me since then at 37 now. I still love skating but don't really want to deal with months being taken away from my life recovering from injuries anymore. I've been thinking about learning filming and editing as the artistic aspect is really what inspires me.

[Skatebeard]

Started at 16, skated consistently til 22, then got into snowboarding, always had a deck and would skate once or twice a year.

Picked skating back up properly in 2019, been going at it hard since. 38yo now.

[c-dock]

Started age 2, or however old I was when I took my first steps
Skated infrequently from 10-15 because I was too addicted to Call of Duty. During those 5 years I'd always say how much I missed it
Started consistently skating again at 15, still going at 26. Had to slow down a bit once I got a full time job but I still get out a couple times a week

[SwitchNollieHeel]

Started at 12, been on and off since 18 years old, much like a toxic relationship

[backside_frontside]

Can't stop, won't stop. Been at it for over 20 years now.

[Banned from the room]

The history is impossible.

Started 83 on a banana board.
By 86 I was all in on bloarding

First break in 92 because of wheels.

Second break 97 because of drugs.

Gave up trying to get on shit around 2001. My leg stopped working again after a surgery. Nerve damage. I had zero choice but to skate everyday all the time. I couldn't get around with out it.

I skated soft wheels and old boards till 2016 when I met Abe L. Then this guy gave me a one gig board so i could size up to normal.

I blew my ACL but didn't give up. I rehabbed my knee on the board. It was terrible.

2020 I switched to venture. I feel like I'm about as good as when I was like 12 or so. The power to jump waist high is gone.

I'm never stopping again.

[lesghettah]

started when I was 5 or 6 skated till I hurt my back around 25 now im 31 and my back is much better and I'm trying to convince myself to skate again...