Wheels

Like many obsessive skateboarders of my generation I spend a lot of time ruminating over my gear, even though it makes very little difference as to how I actually skate. Time on the board, rolling, skating, and yes…practicing, make the most difference. A lot of skaters don’t really practice. They just go skate, which of course creates “practice”, but they don’t really do it in a real intentional way. Freestylers do, however, practice. I think the really good vert skaters do too. Maybe a few street skaters do, but generally freestylers and vert skater are not the kind of people who dabble in things.

Anyway, regarding compulsive equipment worrying. I tend to think a lot about wheels. I complain that there aren’t enough wheels available in the lower 90s durometers. But then for most of my street skating I end up going back to hard wheels. I guess I’ve gotten used to them. I wouldn’t use them in most of the ditches down in Austin, but for the kind of skating I do around here they have become normal to me. I’ve been using some plain old Spitfire Bigheads for ditch skating and street for a while. They are not the best quality urethane, but they are cheap, and for some reason I like the particular “clunk” they make when they hit the ground. They are relatively smooth for a 99a wheel. Are they the best performance wheel? No, not even close. They are usually adequate for my needs.

However, I’m a big fan of Bones Street Tech formula. I was clued into these by a friend in North Carolina on a skate trip back in about 2007. I started using their 54mm standard profile, and I have to say they are the best newschool hard wheels I’ve had. They are hard as shit, but weirdly also resilient, and have a smooth ride. I’ve honestly never had a bad Powell wheel. They make their own wheels, and they’ve been doing it a long time, and every wheel they’ve ever made has been great in its intended niche.  These STF just don’t wear down much at all!

Here’s my current set, that I’ve been riding for over two years. These look better after two years than a typical wheel does in a week. And I am hard on wheels. My boards last forever, but if a wheel isn’t durable I wear ’em out fast. I do lots of sliding.

Bones 54mm STF after at least two years of riding.
Bones 54mm STF after at least two years of riding.
Bones 54mm STF after at least two years of riding.
Bones 54mm STF after at least two years of riding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brand new set of Bones 54mm STF.
Brand new set of Bones 54mm STF.

For comparison, here is a brand new set I got a year ago, but have had no reason to start using! Weird thing is, these wheels just look like plastic. When you get them they have that look of a toy story boards’s wheels, but they are just superior.

I have friends who swear by the Spitfire Formula 4 wheels, and I believe them. I’m sure they are fantastic, but man, I feel like I’m about done buying anything but Bones STF. The only drawback is they make fewer of their profiles about 54mm. But That’s fine. These work for me.

G-Snap

So I was out “street skating” tonight. New board tonight. I like it. Anyway, I notice this particular little thing I do. And when I say “noticed”, I mean I’ve been doing this forever, but never really thought about what is going on. It’s such a little move, but it has a nice feel to it. Lots of directional changes.

Anyway, I slowed it down in this video.

Anyway, rolling forward, I set up like I’m going to do a g-turn, and you can actually see that the front trucks does make a very quick little arc, rather than just being an endover. That’s why I like doing this, I realized, because it sets up some physics where you kind of “sling” yourself out of it. Not saying it’s awesome, but it is a fun thing to me.

G-Snap from Bob Loftin on Vimeo.

Internet Radio Show

Yesterday I started a 3-time per week internet radio show. Radio Lefty.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) at 1:30 is the second show. They are an hour long. I’m taking a late lunch on MWF so y’all can eat, then I’m eating and “spinning records”. Just an effort to have some fun and connect with friends during this pandemic and the associated isolation.

You can listen here, or get on mixlr.com and have fun in the attached chat room.


RadioLefty is on Mixlr

Plans go sideways

My plans for bank skating were ruined yesterday when I got to the little ditch I’ve been skating for 41 years. There was water running from one of the alleys that run on either side running into the ditch. This has never happened before.

This was my first trip to the ditch since they rebuilt the alleys last year. The edge of the alley has been rounded and lowered a bit, so that water now flows right into the ditch, rather than into the street. I suspect that during the summer, given the Texas proclivity for washing cars and watering lawns, it will be very hard to find the ditch dry from here on out.

I must admit that this very much soured my mood.

But that’s life as a skateboarder. Spots come and go. Even long running spots like this one eventually get ruined or outright destroyed. The skateboarder’s mind must be adaptable, and it is.

Here’s a goofy thing I made after leaving the ditch. I didn’t really skate well after the mental assault of my ditch being messed up, but whatever. The mission goes on.

‘Cause I got my own world to live through and uh
And I ain’t gonna copy you

If 6 was 9 from Bob Loftin on Vimeo.

Tricks to Learn: #1

This is the first in a series of posts I’ll probably abandon after I do a couple and forget about the series. In this series, I will list a few skateboard tricks in each post that I am working on. Might be sequences too. You may now know what they are, because I do lots of weird moves that don’t really have names. I suspect that Tony Gale might figure them out. Anyway, here we go.

Today – bank skating moves. I love bank skating. I’m partial to big, flat banks, where I can spin and slide and whatnot.

  1. Backside carving Walk Around to fakie
  2. Frontside carving Turn-In to fakie
  3. Frontside slide to fakie to 1-footed fakie 360
  4. Carving backside 180 slide into backside 540 spin

That’s it. Hoping to get out to the little ditch I skate and try these today.