My 2025 Set-Ups

Over the last year or so, I've tinkered a lot with my set-ups. At this point in my 40-year skate "career" I've tried pretty much every dimension of deck, truck, and wheel that is out there. With all said and done, I have two main set-ups. Both are "all-purpose" completes, but one leans more towards agility, and the other towards stability. I decided to post about these now, at the very start of the year, so I can see how my set-ups evolve, if at all, over the next twelve months. Will I still be riding these two set-ups in Jan 2026? Most likely. Anyway, the two set-ups are:

DLX 8.25/14.38

Indy 144 Forged Hollows

Spitfire Classics 53mm/99a*

 

Black Label 8.75/14.5

Indy 159 Forged Hollows

Spitfire Conicals 53/99a* 

*Since I ride the same size wheel on both set-ups, I can swap wheel shapes out on these, as the mood/terrain sees fit. I also have a set on 53mm 93a Spitfire Classics than I can use when super-crusty spots mandate. I think you can get Spitfire Radials and Conical Fulls in 93a. It might be worth looking into those, as wider riding surfaces can help mitigate the "crust" of really crusty spots. That said, the Radial and the Conical Full are both pretty big/wide wheels, and I'm not really a fan of snow tires. We'll see.  

It also just occurred to me...it might be interesting to track how many decks, trucks, and sets of wheels I go through in a year...but I also may not want to see how much $$$ that adds up to!

 

 

First Session of 2025

Today was my first session of 2025. This year marks 40 years on a skateboard for me. Temps today were in the upper 20s, but there was no wind, which was great. I've had the flu for the last week, and before that was some snow, then rain. This is to say I've not really been on the board in over 2.5 weeks. I'm still feeling a bit under the weather, so I expected today's session to be really "meh" and rusty. it wasn't. It was actually a lot of fun. 

Many people hate winter skating. I really like it, esp. in the later afternoons as the Sun is going down. The grey, darkening skies, the bare tress, the stark landscape, dead leaves scutterting across the park, no one else around, the layer of clothes...I find these settings to be somewhat magical, and very, well, New England. 

I skated today from about 3:30pm til dusk (around 4:30ish), and enjoyed every moment of it.  The next two days look even colder, but I am going to Philly this weekend (non-skate related trip), and I've got a lot to do beforehand. So, I think today might be my last session until next week some time. It seems I never get to skate all that much every January, and this one is starting out no different.

Here is a screen grab from today. Nose stall f/s revert, one of my favorite tricks.

The Magic of a Mundane Moment

 This guy Jeff I follow on IG posted this pic the other day (more comments below photo).

So, I love pre-drop in photos, which you don't see many of.  Why do I love them? Well, this right here, the moment right before dropping-in, is one of my favorite moments in all of skateboarding…because you’re are at the cusp of potential and anticipation of a run that’s about to happen…you are literally about to step off a cliff into the abstract world/state-of-being of what-is-about-to-become. Right before you drop-in, the apex of potentiality consumes all of your being. It's a great thing to experience.

And we all do it with hope and excitement for some positive outcome, be in Mitchie Brusco going for the first 1260 on a mega ramp, a kid dropping-in to mini ramp for the first time, or someone just dropping-in for a fun, mellow cruise down a ditch. And if we bail during the run, we just get-up, and "step off the cliff" again, with the same hopeful sentiments.

The old cliche "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" finds root here, too.  Every run begins with that single step on to the board. That pre-drop-in moment is one of the most magical, and metaphorical, moments in skateboarding. As mentioned above, I love seeing photos of this moment, which are actually quite rare, because it’s something that is otherwise a mundane moment, one that really is not all that exciting or interesting to capture on film. Anyway, I really, really liked this photo of Jeff---and it motivated me to put a few thoughts (emotions, actually) into words. Thanks, Jeff!

Oh, by the way, this photo? It was taken at Jeff's 70th Birthday skate jam. 

Milestones

2025 will mark a significant milestone in my life. 

40 years of skateboarding.

At this stage, I’m not getting any better, but I’m still getting stoked (maybe more so than ever, actually).

I plan to celebrate all year long with, well, a lot of skateboarding. I also imagine this year to be full of much reflection about, well, all of it. 

Last night as I was laying awake in bed (insomnia), I was think a bit about this very blog--how I want to use it, do I have even anything left that's worth saying any more, etc.? I used to write much more frequently about various aspects of life and skateboarding, but that practice has waned in more recent times. I'm not totally sure why. I guess I just haven't felt...moved...or compelled to peck-out something on my keyboard. 

It did occur to me, in the wee hours of the morning, as I lay in my bed feeling some what like Gregor Samsa, that good use of this blog would be to just chronicle or journal about the various experiences [thoughts, feelings, perceptions, reflections (ah, we come full circle) etc.] I have from any given session. Sort of like a long-form Haiku or something. To that end, I've always posited that any meaningful sense of Truth, salvation, emancipation, etc. that can not be found in daily life, can not be found anywhere. It's always at your finger tips, under your feet, etc. Which of course, is just another way of saying that if I make an effort to write about the daily experiences of skateboarding, all that other meta stuff will find its way in, too. I find the two inseparable--daily life and the untouchable worlds.  Rod Serling said it best...a world between shadow and substance.

Look at me here...it's funny...I am reflection on the act of reflecting.

Anyway, 2025, and 40 years on the skateboard, here we come...

Me, standing on a ramp in late December 2024...reflecting on/about something...

Four to Five Flavours of Ick

I am conflicted this afternoon.

One of my favorite skate companies is apparently now doing a collaboration with Nike. Why is this an issue, or at least, an issue for me? There are few reasons.

 

First, ever since I was a teenager, I am always balked at big corporations. Or rather, I have always balked at openly representing them (I realize it is hard, if not impossible, to fully escape them). I have never owned a single product made by Nike. As a kid, teenager, and young adult, the Nike swoosh was always the “gang symbol” of the people who tried to do me physical and mental harm. It was always seen associated with those big team sports I hated. It was seen on “normal” people who I always tried to distance myself from. Maybe I should just let-go of old notions, and “grow-up”…but that’s just not who I am, or who I’ve ever been. I just can’t bring myself to “advertise” for big corporations. Like, I own a North Face windbreaker. It’s great, I love it. But the second I got home with it, I put a band patch over the North Face logo to obscure/erase the “corporate presence.” To this end, when a skate company aligns with Big Corporation X (let alone Nike), it bums me out.

 

Second, the skate company in question had a long history of openly mocking and satirizing big corporations (inc. Nike). The owner even once said, “Please let’s not let skateboarding become just another selfish capitalism cheerleader product etc.…It isn’t. It’s a bastion of skepticism and stoke. For us, by Us. Believe and defend that.” Thinking of those words, as we see assorted Nike/Anti-Hero branded swag paraded around is rather, well…disquieting. I never thought I’d see an a "product line" with those two logos together…but here we are.  

 

I’ve always subscribed to the idea of “vote with your dollar.” And I’ve always been a fan of Anti-Hero because they frequently ridiculed vapid consumer culture. So much for actual counter-culture ethics. So, now what? Is this “discretion” so acute that I now cast a different “vote” with my dollar? Part of me says yes. And another part of me is under no illusions---what I am writing about here has absolutely ZERO impact on skating a curb by myself, or a ditch in Texas with 40 friends. This is to say it has NO impact on my actual day-to-day skateboarding. This is a "problem" of theory, and not so much one of "reality." So, what am I getting all flustered and fussy about then? Principle, I suppose.

 

Where do I go from here? 

Unknown.  

What is known?

This pic is just four to five flavors of icky. 

 

 

Three Things on a Saturday Afternoon

A few recent self-observations:

1.  I’ve been messing around with set-up tweaks and variations the last few weeks. I’m finding myself gravitating more and more toward my wider set-up (8.75/159s). My usual 8.25/144s is feeling a little too tight-rope to me at the moment. The 8.75 feels a lot more solid and stable under my feet.  

 

2.     I recently watched some video clips of me skating from late 2020/early 2021. I was kind of shocked. This is when I was re-learning everything from the broken leg. I was skating better then than I am now. I’ve “lost” a lot of tricks, esp. on transition. More on this in a future post. 

 

3.   I went street skating today, or at least intended to. When I got to the spot, it was waaaay hotter out than I had expected it to be, and I wasn’t really feeling it. No shade in the area either, and that makes a big difference (for those cool-down breaks). So, just kind of putzed around on a curb for a bit, and then left. After that, I went over to a nearby parking garage, because it was cooler in there. For some reason, I was already feeling defeated, and knew I wasn’t going to really be skating today, at all. This is kind of unlike me, and I took mental note of it. There is a parking block in the garage, and a small two-sided ledge (about 12” tall, 4’ long…sort of like a BIG parking block). I was looking at the parking block, and thinking about how magical simple boardslides were as a kid, and I how I kind of take them for granted now. This made me want to do some. I grabbed my board, and started rolling around. It felt good. I did a few boardslides on the curb, and thought, “Yeah, those feel good.” But I was also cognizant of how low the curb was, and how that actually made them a little more precarious than if I had to do a slight ollie into one. So, I went over to the large, taller, parking block. I did two boardslides, and they felt really good. I then thought, “I am going to film one of these, and make some blog post about unearthing the deeply buried magic inherent in simple skateboarding.” But then something else happened. 

 

I slammed. On a simple a boardslide. There was a lot of dust on the ground, and I landed ever-so-slightly off-center when coming out the trick. No dust, and probably no problem. But there was some dust. The back wheels slid a bit on me, making me now way more off center, and then the game was over. Down I went. Here is the video of it. 

 

I landed kind of hard on my rear elbow, as can be seen in the clip (it's quick, but towards bottom right corner of the screen). It hurts as I type this, and it's a bit swollen. This bail actually really freaked me out. A friend of mine shattered his elbow a few months ago on a curb. His orthopedic surgeon said, (a) this was the worst break he’s ever seen, and, (b) an elbow pad would have prevented or greatly mitigated the injury. It was a fall very similar to mine. I’ve written a lot about pads over the years. I am huge fan of them. I frequently tell myself, especially at this age, that I shouldn’t skate, at all, without them. But then I get lazy, and I do. And then some kind of “reminder” happens. Today it was a simple boardslide. Something “I kind of take for granted now.” Irony can be a great teacher. 

 

Post-Script / Next Day: Real hard time sleeping last night, too. Any time I rolled over on my elbow, it really hurt. 

 

Returning to the Source

 

[Rough draft of something I will edit and suss-out a bit more in near future]

 

I started skateboarding in 1985. I was 11-years-old. It is now 2024. I turned 50 last month. That means I’ve been skating for…39 years. 39 fucking years. After all that time, and so-called “experience,” I sit here still trying to figure out how I “relate” to skateboarding. “Relate” is such an inaccurate word. I don’t know what word I am really looking for here, or if the proper one even exists. All things that come close: Resonate. Integrate. Inter-relate. Experience. Personify. Allow-to-Flourish. Associate. Bring Forth. Present. All of these are somewhat appropriate, but none of them individually, or collectively, really hit the mark. Skateboarding, like life, is this big abstract phenomena, and things of that nature often fall outside the scope of language. I suppose that’s why two of my favorite philosophers (Lao Tzu and Heidegger) often dwelled on the limits of language. If this written blog is to focus on my relationship to skateboarding (in my “twilight years”), I’m off to a bad start if I freely admit the words utterly fail. So, let’s cast words aside for the moment, and move to something else: emotion(s).

 

Various forms of social media now suggest “reels” to people (thanks, insipid algorithms). Of no surprise, my “suggestions” are often modern skate clips. I occasionally look at them. Why, I don’t know. They always fill me emotion, and not good ones. Remorse. Sadness. Contempt. Alienation. Disgust. Indifference. Disdain. Despondency. Heartache. Mournfulness. And that’s just to name a few.

 

If you understand why I have those feelings, no further explanation is needed. If you don’t understand it, I am not sure any explanation is possible.

 

Well, a few days ago I saw something that was the opposite of all that. Navs (Darren Navarrette, the renowned vert skater) has been posting something totally out of the norm: Him riding a very old-school “pig” deck, doing some very “old-school” skating on some mellow banks, ditches, and other assorted street stuff. It was some of the most refreshing and fun-looking skateboarding I’ve seen in quite some time. And of course, me being me, I have been perseverating over the question “why?” Why was this refreshing? Why did I like it? Why was it magical? Why did it give me the emotional reaction it did? After a few days, I think I have a few answers.

 

·      There is no pageantry of difficulty or daredevil-ness.

·      It’s an overt counter-narrative to accepted (skate) norms (what I always liked about skateboard in re to larger society).

·      It’s clearly being done for pure, unadulterated, fun.

·      It’s “beginners mind.”

·      There is no cool-guy element.

·      It’s accessible and relatable.

·      It’s full-circle, return-to-the-source-energy.

 

All of these things hit somewhere very deep, at least to me. They are elements of the skateboarding I knew and loved. elements that have seemed to been lost to time…and mainstream normalization of the “sport.”

 

[Yes. That is it. That is what I am really trying to do now, at this stage of my skate life, and with this blog…is re-kindle, re-ignite, dis-cover, etc. those elements of skateboarding I knew as kid. To be clear, I do not wish to “relive the old days.” But rather, I want to better tap an old, ancient, and timeless Stoke that has been somewhat obscured with time. Hah. I think Heidegger basically had the same objective with the original concepts of Being and ontology, but he didn’t skate, so what does he know? Lao Tzu says it well in Chapter 16 of the Tao The Ching, “Returning to the source is serenity.”

 

I think, if anything, this blog will serve to be a chronical of my attempts to return to that source. Navs has pointed the moon. It is currently 11:52pm. Time to go roll for a bit under the star light.]