Tony Hawk on his skateboarding legacy | Hacker News Reader

Tony Hawk on his skateboarding legacy

theguardian.com

167 pointspseudolus102 comments

There's a lot more to Tony Hawk than skateboarding: he single single handedly turned skateboarding into a multi-billion industry. Skateboarding was a big part of my life in the second half of my teenage years and that was in the mid 2000's. What's astonishing about Tony Hawk is that he made a huge impact during a time when vert ramps and half-pipes were extremely unpopular to put it mildly. Late 90's it was all about street skating. The video series that still largely captures that period to me is Eastern Exposure. But also skateboarding as a whole was dropping in popularity relative to the early 90's. What the Tony Hawk series did was they captured the imagination of the next generation which took the 90's skateboarding to a scale which I don't think anyone even remotely considered possible. I remember in the earlier 2000's when seeing someone jump down 10 stairs seemed like something out of this world. By 2005-6 that was looked at largely as "k, cool". That+the fact that skateboarding was at the top of the game once again. I'm not sure what the situation is today but I feel like it's dying again when I walk around the city. There's no denying that skateboarding is difficult: it will take you months to get a hang of the basics whereas kids can pick up a scooter and start doing tricks as soon as they set foot on them. Kind of sad now that I think of it. Every now and then a gif will pop up on the internet and I'll instinctively want to start clapping. Shame.

interesting to read this, as a skater from the xx's .. hint, I read the original Thrasher low-budget local zine. There was a rebel and/or punk side to urban skating - getting hurt, breaking rules, thrills. Tony Hawk seemed part of a Los Angeles scene which was big on color photos with good lighting, making skate heroes with sponsorship, and selling a LOT of skate gear and advertising space. Needless to say, the urban Thrashers were not impressed by that part of Tony Hawk, although yes, the guy can skate certainly.. and breaking new moves etc..

I like to hear that things evolved, and this positive light on the publicity is soothing to the eternal grump side of being a rebel. Skating is great fun, bruises and all.. thanks for this post

I watched a documentary of early skating and it seems that Tony Hawk's success is making the most of the MTV X-games and not getting into drugs. I had a neighbor (jeromygreen) who knows Tony Hawk and it seems Tony Hawk just absolutely shows up everywhere, gets to know every skater, remembers every skaters name.

That sounds like the very successful politicians I've seen up close. And I mean that as a compliment.

I've always been fascinated by Rodney Mullen, and only learned years later he was nicknamed the Godfather of skateboarding.

And with good reason! He rose in fame at a young age, pulling up insane freestyle tricks, yet started before street skateboarding was a thing, and was overnight rendered obsolete.

But he went on to reinvent himself and created so many tricks, some he's still the only one able to do, or do with anything close to that level of mastery.

He then suffered a medical issue where his hip joint fused... Wasn't supposed to skate ever again but came back from it, relearning everything with a different balance.

He's over 50 now, and skating with such style[0], pulling off one-handstand flips which is insane at any age.

I respect Tony Hawk, but Mullen is an alien alright, less popular but so much more fundamental for skateboarding.

https://youtu.be/xjMGAQCXppc

I wouldn't say Mullen is less popular, at least amongst skaters.

I skateboarded in the mid to late 80s and had a Powell Peralta Mullen board (in addition to a normal street/vert board), so my memories of Mullen really were of this geeky kid in helmet and pads doing the impossible and rarely messing up. More than anyone else, I would watch Bones Brigade VHS tapes on slow motion to figure out just how the heck he pulled this stuff off.

I have a theory that freestyle never went anywhere because Mullen was just too good - no one watching him could ever think "yeah, I could do that".

That's not to take anything away from Tony Hawk, but for instance, he had contemporaries like Hosoi to keep him in check. Mullen was an island. So happy to find out years later he transitioned to being the king of street skating. Obviously many of the street tricks he invented were on that tiny freestyle board, so he deserves the title regardless, but it's just so cool to see he had a second career and has maintained relevance into advanced age like Tony.

I know relatively little about skateboarding, but there's a certain genius-from-restriction, literally tinkering-in-the-garage romance to Mullen's skateboarding journey that I really like. From Wikipedia [1]:

> When his family moved to a farm in a remote part of Florida, Mullen began perfecting his flatground techniques in the family garage; he has said that the isolation and lack of terrain naturally guided him towards freestyle skateboarding. Mullen cites July 1979–August 1980 as his "most creative time," a time when he was predominantly a loner who counted the cows of the family farm as his best friends....[i]n 1980, the 14-year-old Mullen entered the Oasis Pro competition, defeating the world champion, Steve Rocco.

Every now and then I think about trying skateboarding again, but I wince just thinking about all that force on early-30s knees.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Mullen

> Every now and then I think about trying skateboarding again, but I wince just thinking about all that force on early-30s knees.

Yeah, I think skateboarding is probably what KILLED my knees, and I cannot imagine how I would pick up anything BUT mini ramps and verts now, and even then, probably very little air, and just grinds, slides, and carves.

I was never a pretty skater, but my signature trick was a double kick indy on flat. It was ugly, it was way to fast, but it was something I could do that no one else around me could. Sure I couldn't nollie inward heel, or 360 flip, or tail slide, but I could double kick to indy. I'm still look back fondly on the sheer number of attempts before I could land it consistently forsaking learning all the other tricks everyone else was learning, just so I could do something stupid that no one else even wanted to.

>just so I could do something stupid that no one else even wanted to

this pretty much sums up the joys of skating

> Yeah, I think skateboarding is probably what KILLED my knees ...

Are stunt scooters safer in this regard? Asking because I just bought one for our 7-year-old son. I've been involved in jump-and-run sports all my life, but I do feel somewhat uneasy. This is Kids with Only Two Knees, Wrists and Ankles and Only One Skull meeting Really Hard Surfaces, hm.

Also, should I be worried that Bad Influences characteristic to the skateboard/scooter scene are going to turn my kid into a junkie?

BTW, in Early 1990s Estonia, during the strange mixture of post-communist socialism and predatory capitalism, essentially only one kind of skateboard was available. So this was pretty much all you could see; these were everywhere, and sold with a ridiculously low price: https://bit.ly/2SihYmd

As mentioned above I skated for more than 10 years and have perfectly fine knees (and all other joints as far as I can tell). And I did crazy stuff, like jumping down stairs higher than myself etc. My younger brother fucked up his knees by playing handball indoors (rapid changes of direction are bad).

So I think it really depends on the individual, and what they are doing. Some people destroy thwir knees by stepping out of bed the wrong way.

Make sure the kid warms up and does stretches before going for anything crazy, that helps a lot.

Scooters are probably a lower risk activity in some ways, but with that come some of the lack of positives you get in the nature of playing. In Skateboarding, you're constantly trying to figure out how to do stuff and how not to hurt yourself too badly doing it. While there are some scummy skaters out there, they aren't going to turn your kid into a junkie any more than anything else will, if you teach them appropriately, but certainly not at that young an age. Skateboarding has some risks, but is a great social activity, teaches perseverance, and is cool.

There's a kid (12) that comes to the park I skate at regularly with his mom (probably hovering a bit much, but she's alright) and has generally positive influences all around, while progressing very quickly.

> Are stunt scooters safer in this regard?

Nope (or barely so), impact is impact. See https://www.thedailypush.com/footprint-insoles

> Also, should I be worried that Bad Influences characteristic to the skateboard/scooter scene are going to turn my kid into a junkie?

You can't help a teenager having the rebellious feelings ;)

That said, if you're worrying about a cultural aspect being a bad influence, part of the skateboarding crowd is moving towards a healthier lifestyle, because it's the right thing to do if you love skateboarding for what it is (which means you want to skate forever).

The days of Dustin Dollin and Ali Boubala are by and large gone.

Look into Andrew Reynolds and Neen Williams, the latter of which turned his life around 180degs.

Every now and then I think about trying skateboarding again, but I wince just thinking about all that force on early-30s knees

Nah, go for it. I got my start last summer when my kids bought me a board for my 49th birthday.

Their mistake, since now I’m the one dragging them to the skatepark on sunny mornings to beat the hordes of scooter kids.

I skated from 10 to 20 and staeted again with 30. I never had a single issue with my knees. Usually I can feel my ankles after a long session, but that isn't really something.

If you are worried about your knees there are certainly low impact tricks (most of the freestyle stuff) that you could start with. This is also a great way to start, because you learn to control your board before actually trying stuff that might hurt your joints.

The thing I love about skateboarding is that you can do it everywhere, and you can do it alone. It never gets old and it changes the way you look at places in a good way.

Lifetime skater here. You hit the nail on the head with the 'genius-from-restriction'. I call it "the Mullen effect"

Every generation has a handful of those skaters that grew up in total isolation. Instagram and other social media has made it less likely that a skater stays fully separated, but those that do still stand out.

The big one of the last generation was Chris Cole, who grew up skating in his driveway with a little ledge he built himself. Similar to Mullen mastering flatground, Cole mastered every single ledge trick. The term "NBD" (Never Been Done) was coined to describe the tricks that only he is known to have done

> Every now and then I think about trying skateboarding again, but I wince just thinking about all that force on early-30s knees.

Warm up diligently, skate respectful of your body.

Lots of tips at https://www.thedailypush.com including a very recent post about impact.

Good posture, some workout, and proper insoles go a long way towards being able to skate forever.

Rodney Mullen is an interesting guy. I highly recommend his autobiography if you haven't read it. When he was entering freestyle competitions early on it was never a question of who would win but rather who would come in second behind Rodney. Nobody could compete with him because he was inventing new tricks (many of which are still staples of street skating) at such a rapid pace. His commitment was otherworldly. When he was in his teens he would get home from school and skateboard until it was time to go to bed. Every day.

I wouldn't say he's less popular. I like to think of both of them as the two sides of the same coin. Within the skating community there's probably not a single person not knowing both names and a great amount of detail about both of them. If anything I'd argue that if you adjust the publicity around both of them you'd see that they've dragged in similar proportions of people. But over time little to none stick with the ultimate goal to become their modern version. I suppose it has something to do with what is popular as a whole. What is interesting is that overall skateboarding is a subset of rebellion or at least it's viewed as such and back in the day that was considered a good thing within the community. I'm not sure what's the situation now. The point is that at least during the 2000's neither Hawk or Mullen were representing that rebellious spirit all that much which is why people were going in other directions. Now that I think of it, there's the Thrasher Skater of the year award[1] which accurately captures every era over the last 30 years. Public competitions, to street skate-rats, to the "we're in a videogame, let's throw ourselves down the biggest set of stairs we can find" to... Uugh.. As I said I have no idea what is happening now.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrasher_(magazine)#Skater_of_...

Maybe "popular" isn't the correct word, maybe "mainstream" is?

To illustrate, people far removed from the skateboarding crowd see me with a skateboard and jokingly refer to me as either "Tony Hawk" or "Marty McFly", not because of any resemblance in skill mind you (I'm not even doing vert, and even then, I can barely heelflip) but because these are the people that conjure images of skateboarding to them, whereas they of course have no idea who Mullen is.

In that sense Tony Hawk has entered pop culture like no other skateboarder has.

> As I said I have no idea what is happening now.

There's another revival in progress. The scene is getting incredibly more diverse. See Killian Martin's videos by Bret Novak, very dance like, awesome filming and storytelling. There are more women that ever, which is way overdue. There are old skaters still skating. There are both old and new skaters aiming for a healthy lifestyle. The "old, rebellious way" is still there, it's just not the only way to be a skateboarder anymore.

I grew up watching Tony Hawk take the world by storm, but Mullen was the guy that could do all the tricks you dismiss as impossible to pull off when BSing with buddies about what-ifs. His control of a skateboard is legendary.

He invented the ollie which enabled most other skating tricks.

This video (and their others) seems heavily inspired by Olivier Gondry's music video for Tiga.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-v-rBCFuAk

Some good points, glad someone posted this. I went down a rabbit hole of Tony Hawk videos and interviews a couple years ago, including some in-depth ones where he talks the history of the sport in general and his history with it, and it's fascinating. As a sport it's been much more unstable than something like football or baseball, always expanding and contracting as laws and cultural attitudes change. Lot more room for innovation too though. And man, after watching three or four interviews with the guy, you really get an appreciation for how chill he is.

> I'm not sure what the situation is today but I feel like it's dying again when I walk around the city.

Do not fear, the pandemic only supercharged people finding new outdoors hobbies. Skateparks are wildly more packed than ever, many new ones have been created in the past few years to keep up, and hard goods have been flying off shelves at shops.

Not afraid at all, I'm very much in a different world now so it doesn't bother me all that much. There are no skateparks close to my place so I'm not entirely sure what is going on but I'm getting the impression that skateboarding is dying. The thing is I have flat feet and as such, skate shoes are pretty much the only shoes I can wear so I still visit skateshops for that purpose. What I notice is that skateshops these days are 85% scooters and longboards which does not seem very promising for street skating. I could be wrong, that's just my observation.

I've been seeing some amazing skating on tiktok

I like skateboarding a lot, watch a lot of videos on youtube. I admire Tony Hawk because you NEVER see him without his helmet.

But I watch other skate videos, and people will forego their helmets. i watched one taking place in New York City where a dude was jumping down a flight of stairs, crashed, and slammed his noggin on the ground, out cold. And then he took a break, went back to it, and landed the trick.

And everyone was cheering him on and acting like he was a hero for recovering. It was like watching a cult. I think he is a fucking idiot! If he was wearing a helmet there would not have BEEN an injury. Wear a helmet and you won't get a concussion!

If you are a professional skater who chooses not to wear a helmet and encourages that culture, how many people have to get hurt before you consider it a worthy topic of discussion?

The solution here: Thrasher, Berrics, etc. refuse to show videos of photos with people performing without a helmet. That would clean it up overnight.

When I used to skate years ago I wore a helmet and those wrist guards. I never manage to test the helmet, but those wrist guards got a heck of a workout. I'm sure they saved me from many of broken wrists until I learned to fall better (tuck and roll).

Wrist guards are really underrated. I do a bit of onewheeling and almost everyone uses them there. Being able to slide out a fall on your wrists means you can keep vital areas away from impact, without destroting your hands. It also helps keep the arm relaxed on impact, which helps to avoid broken collar bones.

Tuck and roll is a vital skill, but there are situations where that's just not possible.

The solution is to bring in more school marms?

Let's zoom out a bit: in general, do you think companies should be encouraged to promote using their products in a way that's more dangerous that necessary if it looks cooler?

I wouldn't support a law requiring skateboard companies to use gear in their ads, but I do think that applying pressure to get them to show gear makes sense.

Eh i wouldnt support a hard rule.

Likely I'd appeal to moms after I got the cool kids though, social media style.

So encouraging playing a sport in a safe way === school marm nannying?

People get CTE from extreme sports, Dave Mirra being a famous example. I think playing the sport safely is something that should be encouraged.

> 1. (US, slang) A woman who is a teacher, especially a teacher in a schoolhouse; may carry the connotation she is severe and/or a spinster.

> 2. (by extension) A person, of any gender, who exhibits characteristics attributed to schoolteachers of the old times, such as strict enforcement of arbitrary rules.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/schoolmarm#English ('marm' being apparently a (US only?) variant of 'ma'am')

[NB, delightfully, and presumably unrelatedly (though not listed as a separate etymology):

> 3. (forestry) A tree with two or more trunks; a forked tree.

]

Reminds me of the "I Love Helmets" video which is a positive example.

https://youtu.be/b9yL5usLFgY

I got doored super hard commuting on my bike one day, I was on the pavement out cold for a few seconds. If I didn't have a helmet on, I would be dead. It is just common sense. You have to be such a fucking FOOL to go without one.

I think this comment sums up Americas obsession with helmets very well.

Oh boy you are gonna love Andy Anderson. Check out his Powell video. He is incredibly creative in his skating and you will never see him without his helmet.

Howevee as a skater myself I would rather wear a helmet on my bicycle than on my skateboard. I skate mostly flat and do things that I can more or less control. I didn't git my head in 12+ years of akating once and I am not planning to start now.

If I would try crazier things, skate bowls or vert ramps I'd definitely reconsider : )

Yeah if you are not getting any kind of air you are probably fine without a helmet.

fwiw Andy has had some brutal head injuries. He wears the helmet because of his uniquely high risk

Still love that he has put so much work into normalizing the helmet, even spinning up a new brand and helmet style that's much less hideous. Tbh I don't even notice the helmet when I watch him skate

Helmets aren't tested to prevent concussions, and looking at football, certainly not capable either.

While true, helmets do prevent other types of injuries such as skull fractures. They're still worth wearing.

Football is similar to boxing, the helmets don't help because the concussion results from your brain rattling around in your skull, and which cannot be prevented in that sport.

It is a different situation, though, the helmets in football have evolved into weapons people use to slam their head into their opponents as hard as possible. People have argued LESS protection would be better, because it would change the way the game is played.

The same incentive does not exist in skateboarding, however. You want to land the trick, not hit someone with your helmet. Additionally, even if the helmet does not prevent a concussion, it will keep you from cracking your head open on the pavement.

Skate helmets lessen shock leading to concussions, even if they are not tested/rated for that. Football's issue is different as the helmet leads to more/harder head-first hits.

Also football helmets are designed for multiple hits to the same location... where as bike/skate helmets are designed to absorb a single blow and be discarded.

I recently picked skating back up at 38 and been doing it for a year. I had skated when I was younger but I never got any good. I just wanted to encourage my kids to get on their bikes and show them that with a little practice you can learn anything.

If all I can do is ride around, do a few ollies, space walks and some basic grinds I'll be happy.

Skating doesn't have to be about the big tricks. Do it because you enjoy it and play within your limits.

If I may ask, I thought it'd be fun to try skating, but to be honest, whenever I get on and try it I always worry that I will fall and really hurt myself (May I just need to buy pads).

Do you have the same worry, or you just find that you fall, it's ok, and just get back up?

That's the same with anything. How many endeavors have you thought "I'd love to do that but what if I got hurt in the process?" Relationships, startups, new jobs, everything contains a risk.

If it seems interesting, just do it. You'll thank yourself after you get over that fear. (Also buy a helmet and learn how to fall[1], you'll need it. Pads may be overkill but couldn't hurt.)

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Hundbrub8iQ

learning how to fall is huge. of course falling down onto asphalt/concrete always carries some risk but once you get comfortable falling safely, it's pretty unlikely you'll do any serious damage to yourself if you're not straying too far outside your limits as you learn.

I accept that I'm going to fall. I have fallen. It's not that bad. I learned a lot about how to fall while minimizing injury from martial arts and there are other skaters who've picked up on that intuitively and have videos about falling and how to do it to prevent injury.

Wear protective gear. I wear a helmet. I know older skaters who wear pads. It's fine.

And skating within your limits means enjoying what you're physically capable of and the risk you are comfortable with. Myself, I don't plan on jumping huge sets of stairs or grinding stair rails. But I like to skate at the park and want to grind ledges and have fun on the boxes.

Hope that helps.

That helps a lot! Thank you very much for the thoughtful response.

I cannot recommend enough you give half pipe a try. Not talking about mega pipes, just the small ones with little to no vert. Lots of fun and fairly safe since when you fall you _usually_ end up sliding down the curve. No need to do jumps or crazy stuff, just do tricks on the coping and enjoy the ride.

It's a learned skill to fall, and to accept falling.

Try some ukemi (aikido falls) training.

The psychology of falling is fascinating. There are some well done videos about the "unbendable arm" on YouTube but if you have a dojo nearby there's nothing like a couple sessions.

Another thing is to bend your knees, like, always. A natural but incorrect safety reflex is to extend the legs and lock the knees, which makes you a stick ready to flip over. So, do held squats and get comfortable with the lower center of gravity, which makes you that much more stable and that much safer to fall on your butt.

The next step is to transition that fall into a roll, this reduces the jerk and shock to your bones and makes you less likely to break something.

Exactly! See mae ukemi and ushiro ukemi

Unless you are bombing hills, from just cruising around the worst you will do is sprain your wrist catching yourself awkwardly falling, or skimming some skin off against the pavement. I've never had a head injury because the instinct is to catch yourself with your arms. Seems bad, but I think you get beat up a lot worse falling while learning to bike.

falling is part of skateboarding as are the cuts and bruises that come with it. with that said, if you learn how to fall correctly (something surprisingly few people know how to do) bad injuries will be extremely rare. slamming is honestly one of those things that is easy to build up in your mind and then when it finally happens it's not bad at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxRHTr_PkOU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-W7pl1uYcM

as a general rule, speed is your friend.

>go fast

>lean forward

>stay on top of the rail

and most importantly:

>commit

I think this is one of the reason's it's great to let your kids get into it. Teaches them confidence through punishing trial and error. For you, either option is totally viable, but at the beginning on flat ground your probably better off with just learning to fall and get back up.

I started street skateboarding at 36, am now 40. Last session was this Saturday, it was awesome heelfliping on flat and ollieing stairs.

Over these four years I've had 5 ankle sprains (balanced over each foot), every single time it was me not warming up (like, at all) and pushing it beyond the fatigue limit ("one more try" just one too much). I have a warmup routine, I now diligently follow, no excuses (it's 5min).

Still, it's something I always wanted to do and never had the guts to try, for completely baseless fears of looking stupid or being incompetent, especially as I grew older. A fantastic, supportive local crew made a ton of difference erasing that mindset. Then I learned about Neal Unger[1], and just saw that IG post[2] from Gou Miyagi about that 80yo learning to skate the other day...

I'm so glad I made the jump and will do anything to continue as long as I can. Eric Koston[0] has this said: "it's like my hand, I wouldn't get rid of my hand", and this is exactly how I feel about it.

https://youtu.be/p8uUL5GdStE

https://www.nealunger.com/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CO3-1CkFE1J/

Nice! Yeah, warmups are huge! I've been learning a lot about how to strengthen and maintain knee and ankle tendons and muscles.

I find skating has definitely helped me rebuild those priopreceptive muscles and memory which helps me strengthen my core.

I also find that if I'm like even a bit tired I'll scale back my session and won't try to push hard. Need to get good sleep too.

Where do you typically skate? I skated as a teenager, and want to do it again, but just finding the right place is hard. Skateparks exist but everyone there is much younger than me.

Park, around my neighbourhood, skate park.

Don't worry about being too old. Everyone at the park is there to skate and not to judge. Do it because you enjoy it.

Thank you (and the other poster) for responding. I just visited two skateparks and ordered a deck!

When I was young my friends and I always befriended some cool older dude(s). Time to flip the script. But definitely don't buy them beer. I think the 90s was the last decade that was semi-acceptable. Kids these days probably aren't even interested. Don't buy them vape either :)

I know this is confirmation bias, but I broke my wrist yesterday after falling off my skateboard and now I'm convinced every media outlet is mocking me for it.

Aww damn, heal well...

Exactly why I am not skating! The skill barriers and risk are pretty undeniable - it takes a certain kind of person to keep doing it when it's so tough on the body.

While I sometimes think I'm missing out, I quickly settled for kick scooters when I was younger; I just wanted something simpler and smaller than a bike to ride around and a folding adult scooter is exactly that - apart from an occasional curb hop, no tricks or aggressive riding, but I can push hard and easily maintain a pace between a fast run and a sprint on flat ground. I actually took mine out again yesterday after a break of a few years. I get to carve a little bit, I have front and rear brakes, and I always get complements.

> it takes a certain kind of person to keep doing it when it's so tough on the body.

I gave up skating and eventually wake boarding (tore an ACL) for the same reasons. Surfing is something I feel like I can do forever. Snowboarding is also fine a few times/year. If I moved back to the mountains, I could see where doing it all season would end up also being pretty rough on the body though.

Something I've been doing a lot the past few years which is surprisingly not that rough on the body is jiu-jitsu. I did get dinged and bruised when starting out, but nothing like I used to get skating or wake boarding.

how do you get hurt while wakeboarding? I've tried it once or twice and besides drowning it seemed pretty safe . I'm really curious cause I want to get into it

At the speed you're going when you edge to the wake, the water is almost like concrete. When I tore my ACL I was coming out of a backroll[1] and cased upslope of the opposite wake so all my speed and rotation came down on my back leg, compressing my knee and snapping the ACL.

When I went to my surgeon he said I was the 4th wakeboarder he had done that summer and asked me why it was so rough on our knees lol...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC3TEqcyT24

EDIT

It is amazingly fun though. If you can ride behind a nice boat with big wake and speakers so you can jam out while riding, it's a great experience. Plus, wakeboarding is social and always takes a minimum 2 people. Learn to drive the boat properly and always give some gas money, and you'll be invited over and over.

Try longboarding. I street skated in teens/twenties took some time off then at 40 knew 1) I had lost some basic abilities 2) it was too risky to be jumping around and 3) I'm bigger = fall harder ... so I got a longboard. It's great a more mellow cruise type of activity.

To get to the point of being able to cruise around everywhere comfortably is a lot easier on a skateboard than learning how to bike imo. You don't have to keep up momentum, you just have to watch out for the occasional big crack in the sidewalk. You don't have to learn how to brake that well, either, if you aren't bombing hills. I kinda just start pushing slower with my foot and that brakes me fine enough, rather than do the shoe destroying sliding foot brake.

Tricks are another animal, but just cruising around can be learned in an afternoon in a parking lot. I picked it up as an adult. I mean there are bulldogs who can skate if you need motivation.

Sorry about your wrist. Thanks for brightening my Monday. Fast recovery to you.

Heh, that happened to me 10 years ago. Broke my left wrist and sprained my right. Rather than media, it was basically everyone at my university who made it look so easy.

Frustratingly, I used to be not half bad at skateboarding. I managed to land a 360 flip just a few months ago while being really rather drunk[0].

I wasn't even trying anything complicated yesterday; just a simple shuv-it on flat ground at a skatepark. Fell sideways onto my arm and felt a heart-sinking crack.

[0]: https://www.instagram.com/p/CLOSozsAvkc/

Damn, that was solid my friend.

I was really into it in my teens, tore my ankle up bad at 17 where I couldn't do any flips. Waited a year and got back into, tore the ankle again within a year. Still every time I try a flip my ankle hurts bad. Kind of sucks, it was the only "sport" I ever enjoyed :/

Scaphoid fracture? Those are the worst

Distal radius. Also a fracture in the ulna, but it’s less serious. I’m now recovering in a hospital ward in Bulgaria post internal fixation surgery feeling very sorry for myself indeed.

I shattered my ankle nearly 8 years ago dropping in at a local skate park. I understand this feeling quite well. Sadly, I never really got on a board after the injury, can't put my wife through that situation again. :)

It happens from time to time, but if it's not skating that ruins your wrist, it'll be typing for years ;)

I started skateboarding last year (mid 30s) and it's been a blast.

Surprisingly (to me) its very diverse, very different board/styles that enable very different activities: skateboarding, longboarding, down hill, dancing, surfskating, long distance skateboarding, ...

I eventually settled on long distance skateboarding (LDP). Which is jokingly refered as "old man's skateboarding". You just roll on a board on bike paths. It slightly more effort than bicycle, but going for 10-20 miles is not a problem (if you can do it on a bike you can do it on skateboard). The board makes a big difference, you need specialized board for distance. The "pumping" technique is what got me hooked, enables going for very long stretches without having to push with your leg.

It's so much more convenient to carry skateboard to the bike path than a bicycle, no racks, you can fit more skateboards in a trunk than people in a car.

LDP technique https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA0xS8J7jPY&t=109s The guy in video is very good at it, but average person can start slowly riding couple miles after first hours or so.

Short movie on distance skateboarding https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm1_DTNMKqo

I saw this on Reddit:

52 year-old Tony Hawk doing a McTwist without spilling a glass of milk https://i.imgur.com/LkTpmZj.gifv

In the most excellent Hold My Red Bull community: https://www.reddit.com/r/holdmyredbull/top/?sort=top&t=all

I don't use Instagram much but I do follow Tony on there. He is basically my dream life. He's anonymous enough to go about his daily life mostly unrecognized, yet a multi-millionaire (I think he's 8 figures), has a sunset/sea view house in the hills above San Diego, sponsored by people who make his travel easy (he's sponsored by some VIP travel companies that make flying out of LAX a breeze, some company sponsored a family cross country RV trip so the travel and expenses were free), he has his own private skatepark, and mentors younger skateboarders.

He's also really down to earth and LOVES skateboarding.

Forget the money, Not much people are fortunate enough to enjoy stakeboarding at age 53.

> He's anonymous enough to go about his daily life mostly unrecognized, yet a multi-millionaire

There’s a series of tweets from him where people don’t recognize him or mistake him for other celebrities: https://www.businessinsider.com/tony-hawks-twitter-unrecogni...

Those interested in 90s skateboarding should check out the 2014 documentary All This Mayhem, about the Pappas brothers, Tas and Ben.

It documents the rivalry between Tony Hawk and the Pappas boys in the 90s, and the conjecture over Hawk’s and Tas Pappas’ attempts to be the first to land a 900 spin. It draws a striking contrast between the clean-cut, media/corporate-friendly international superstar-in-the-making Hawk, vs the very raw, abrasive Pappas boys from a troubled home in one of the most downtrodden outer suburbs of Melbourne, Australia.

Very different characters, but equal for skating talent, and the Pappas boys had several tournament wins over Hawk.

Sadly the Pappas boys’ lives spiraled into drug-fueled hell and wound up in very dark places, whilst Hawk rode the wave to the top and stayed there.

It is co-produced by James Gay-Rees and others who worked on Senna, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Amy and Palio, so it’s well-made.

https://youtu.be/acX4w3lPiiU

".. whenever I see those skateboard kids, I think, those kids will be alright."

Jerry Seinfeld on Skatboarding

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rub-lW-9MXw

Semi-related: Werner Herzog's thoughts on skating

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQLInlnfWUc

Thank you, that was so good.

Speaking of "old" athletes... Phil Mickelson anyone?

awesome he pulled it off! so impressive.

I'm still doing it too, playing Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1+2 that is, and I stink! Can't do combos :/

Take this passion and dedication to a different industry. Software. We are always looking for "fresh" talent, but sometimes old talent with milage is just as good, if not better. He's old, but still doing what he loves. Some of us engineering folk are old too, and still doing what we love. Agism exists. Let's actively fight it by remembering The Hawk.

That said, he was an inspiration to me in the 90s, still is today. I don't have the knees to skateboard anymore but I do ride a OneWheel.

Its a good point, but also this is basically the John Carmack of skateboarding. Its a different tier of athlete/developer.

Hmm, not too sure about that comparison, Tony Hawk is really good, but to me a Carmack of skateboarding would be some one more like Rodney Mullen or Daewon Song.

See e.g how Mullen explains his fundamental approach to skateboarding in "Pop a ollie and innovate".

https://youtu.be/3GVO-MfIl1Q

I kind of disagree with this. Programming yes, but software development not really. At least, I haven't found that to very true, and "passion" is kind of a farce in this world. Skateboarding is a totally freeform and largely individually driven sense of expression and progression. That's exactly what programming can be, but software seems to me to inherit few if any of those qualities. Likewise, as a software developer and skateboarder, especially at one point having foolishly accepted a corporate job with lifers, I felt like more of an outcast than at any other point including high school.

Yeah but you taking a corporate software gig with “lifers” is like if Tony Hawk was only allowed to skate with his old nash board. It’s going to get boring real quick. He progressed past his birdhouse days to invent the 900. Do the same in your company and champion experimentation and innovation. If you feel like an outcast, ask yourself why. Change starts with you.

Tony Hawk founded Birdhouse and certainly did not progress past it. I don't even know if it's precise to say he invented the 900, but he was the first to do it in competition on a skateboard. It had been done on a bike 10 years earlier on a similar ramp.

I think the latter half of your comment is just spurious, though it is something I believed before trying it. Your success in "championing experimentation" is entirely dependent upon the corporate structure, and that is mainly set up to lower risk. Software engineering as a discipline is inherently one of efficiency and risk reduction through hierarchy and abstraction. You get less of this at companies that default to letting people have ideal levels of autonomy, but those are rare.

> If you feel like an outcast, ask yourself why. Change starts with you.

I did, and it was because everyone else did exactly as they were told and how they had always done it. I was a contractor that had a Macbook and preferred to work in a quiet space on good equipment with jeans and a non-button up shirt. I looked and worked different, and they did not like that. After they fired me, things changed slightly from what I heard, so you could say changes started with me, but they certainly didn't include me.

Software development is nothing like skateboarding. It's not accepting of individual differentiation, it's slow and afraid of risk, and sometimes companies even have a dress code. In skateboarding, you learn to not give a shit what other people think, but companies depend on everyone giving a lot of a shit about what everyone thinks.

Tony's twitter is great, a recommend follow.

For all ty skateboarding x tech nerds, check out 4plymag.com

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