> 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.

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.

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/

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 :/

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.