Rocky Road - a.k.a. "LDP: The EXTREME sport" :-D

Pete · Rocky Road - a.k.a. "LDP: The EXTREME sport" :-D

Every time I skate, I wind up getting tossed by a little piece of gravel.
I'm starting to get a little gun shy ( and sore!)
How do you guys ride for miles without this happening?
Or is this part of the LDP territory?

I'm pumping a 46" S9 Gullwing Alpines / Wheels S9 70mm/78a
trucks wedged and dewedged / moved front truck back2" for a 29 3/4 wheelbase

This setup pumps great for me, I can pump for hours then, wham! I,m on the ground.
Of course, I wear a helmet ,knee pads etc. but my forward hip and shoulder are taking the hits.

I recently ordered new wheels, Avilas 75mm/72a ,will this help?

I'm a Northwest surfer and love the longboard /skate crossover workout
but I also want to save my body for the surf.

Thanks for the stoke and the great website

Peter

Pete · Lack of Technique

Wow, pretty quiet out there!
I guess i'll respond to my own post.

Purple Skunk delivered the new avilas.
They really smooth out the terrain, I'm hoping this will solve the problem
I'm having with getting pitched by gravel.
I bruised my hip pretty bad one week, then landed on my shoulder
the following week.

When your pumping for miles how often do you take a serious fall?
When I'm riding a bike, I dont expect to just crash at random.

I'm new to skating and trying to figure out how to do it safely.

Happy Thanksgiving and be thankful!
Peter

pavedwave

yeah pete! this place will probably be slow and steady just like the tortoise, not the hare Wink

you're gonna love the Avilas-- and i understand the falls all too well. i'll post a bit more later on this as i've had plenty of them.

also when you're riding more over the rear of your board, more than the nose, it might happen less often -- gives the rocks, pinecones, etc., a chance to ping away from your wheels instead of becoming an split-second doorstop.

off to thanksgiving for the day, have a great one -- and hope to catch you out on a trail!

Pete · Rollling like a river

I've had three days to try out the purple avilas and I'm stoked!
I'm getting my confidence back,even aiming for the gravel and rolling over it.

I definitely pump from the nose when, when I move back I feel like it slows down, so I'll have to work on that one.
Also I"m learning to pump from the center instead of just leg power.

The pump to me is like surfing, pumping your board to generate speed on a slower mushy wave or pumping to make it around a section.

I would like to hear more about the safety aspects of LDP, the hazards and and what to watch out for.

Pavedwave is such an informative website, I hope to see more input on this forum soon!
Thanks...Pete

dustm

I hear ya about that forward hip... Mine has been bruised for a little over a week now after taking 2 good hits a couple days apart. My problem is not gravel so much as slippery spots and a backside pump. Frontside slippage I manage to catch before I hit the ground, usually by just stepping forward but backside gets me EVERY TIME. I got some Crash Pants for Christmas that I'm going to wear from now on in hopes of warding off those hip hits. They are basically just spandex shorts with built in high density foam padding in all the right spots. I have not fallen in them yet but when I do I'll report!

hambo

I've never been thrown and I ride 84a Gumballs. I try to scan far ahead and look out for changes in terrain then change my approach as necessary e.g. take it easy in the dusty sections, dodge the rocks, power up on the smooth and downhill sections. I tend to favour the back foot and flex for power.

When I started I was staring at the ground below me a lot but have found that looking ahead gives the open air vibe that I enjoy most.

andrewf

what I've found is by looking about 40 feet down the trail, and not looking right at gravel and such is the best way to avoid it. I ride mountain bikes as well, and prefer no suspension while out trailriding. what this means is that if you are not careful, you can easily get tossed. If you watch a rock/log/whatever as you ride up to it trying to avoid it, you are going to crash most of the time. Watch ahead, be aware of what is coming up and I bet you will have less problems than if you focus on every pinecone desperately trying to avoid it. like it or not, we steer where we look so keep your eyes on the trail!

pavedwave

Pete, you must be back from Mexico by now?! Maybe we can get out if this SNOW clears away -- sheesh!! I wouldn't have thought of listing snow as a skating hazard, but there were a few rides this winter where I braved it on the rollsrolls. Pretty sketch! But not a typical ride...I do tend to hang up the board at the point of ice and snow.

But getting back to the original post, just when you think you're done falling and slamming, it can happen again. I went a good couple years with nothing much beyond the usual scrapes, but then took three knee slams, two on the same knee, which prompted me to go get an X-ray even....and all within this February-

The first: Wheelbite on something new I had just set up and rode too confidently.

The second: Going over the Fremont draw bridge, the expansion gap I usually bounce right over, swallowed my rear wheels. Insta-slam!

The third: Getting all crazy and fancy testing out the Kahuna Big Stick, I was bouncing, pumping, and rowing on a G-bomb bracket board, connected the rubber stopper on the BigStick with one of the completely exposed wheels of the G-bomb, and gave a really funny (although brief) show of acrobatic wonder on the Burke Gilman trail, followed by another scrapie, this time both hands and both knees involved for full effect. The only miracle was that there were no other people around to enjoy it. I wouldn't call this type of incident typical though...the Big Stick really is a lot of fun, I'm just going to use it with a topmount board from here on out.

Other things?

1. Cars doing California stops over crosswalks
2. Dogs (even with an owner, and on a leash, they can get you)
3. Wet Leaves, or wet anything, when you're trying to pump
4. Pine Cones. Rocks tend to 'pop out', cones crumple and stop ya.
5. "New" wheelbite if you let your bushings/pivot cup disintegrate and don't check it. I've destroyed a couple baseplates doing this. Oops.
6. Cougars Very Happy

I agree on the notes about just looking ahead and the open air vibe- I really only wear a helmet, no pads, on my commute anymore. On something bigger like the Seattle to Portland though, I wear pads, just for the 35-40mph hills!

pavedwave

Just found this note in an old email:

"About a week ago I was riding down the sidewalk in front of
our condo building. Suddenly the board stopped
and I was thrown down onto my chest pretty hard. I caught myself
with my hands and arms but it jarred me pretty good, minor scrapes,
and I was spooked. It turned out that my front truck hit a small
bolt that was sticking up out of the sidewalk about 2" high that was
virtually invisible. This small bolt at one time probably was used
to hold a news paper rack but was not removed when the rack was
removed. I had someone remove it!! "

Yikes. Not sure any setup can avoid something that tall, but I have had a couple "hook ups" with the Bennett, when I had it heavily wedged. One thing to be aware of when you do steep wedging on Bennetts is high centering.

Which reminds me of a couple other though more rare things that have happened: broken axles and broken kingpins. There have been times when hardware would fail and you'd hear it, or feel it, and be able to jump off the board and watch it go into pieces. Other times though, the breaks happen and you get an instant wheelbite or just tossed on your butt.

Thankfully I've learned after getting beaten up over time, and having a general aversion rather than attraction to pain, that the primary culprit in truck failures like this is riding over a lot of cracks in the pavement. And on the Burke Gilman, there are a bunch of "cattle guard" corrugated concrete strips about 2 feet wide, that you must hit diagonally, or else you're jarring the crap out of your trucks, creating little fissures / fatigue in the metal, which eventually will lead to failure.

btw Pete, hope you don't mind my addition to the original title of the thread. I heard if you bottle water with the word "Extreme" on it people will drink more. LDP needs a little more danger to be cooler than it is already, haha

stocago

I've noticed that I scrape my front wedged Bennett kingpin/nut when I go over some transitions from street to sidewalk because of the low clearance. It's always a bit scary.

On my last long ride I popped the truss head off of one of the hardware bolts on the front truck about two miles into it. That hasn't happened before. It was a new bolt too. I had been fiddling with the wedging and risers.

Rocky Road - a.k.a. "LDP: The EXTREME sport" :-D

Lack of Technique

Rollling like a river