Skate New Zealand is ON!!

pavedwave · Skate New Zealand is ON!!

All the Best to Sheldon Lessard!! -- just had a garage session last night and the guy is primed and ready for an adventure of a lifetime, skating the entire country of New Zealand with a crew of 4 others.

http://www.skatenewzealand.com

A week ago he came out to the Cell for his first ever cyber slalom session, and ran the course clean many times!

The setups he's pushing across NZ are on the far left, a Loaded Dervish and a Subsonic Raven.

Sheldon

We're about to start off on day 7 here after a day off. We've been picking up the km's every day. Every now and then we get a patch of smooth road thats probably 10 feet then right back to the rough. There was one road that I swear the rocks were still so loose they were moving and kicking up when I rolled across them. The north island so far has been lots of country, and big logging trucks. We've had lots of hill climbs and lots of downhill pushing from the roads. We've been taking a route that runs a long the east coast, we were in Paihia yesterday and should be in Auckland in two or three days. Its been a lot of work, but its been going well and theres only more ahead of us. Hopefully the roads will smooth out and we can get even more distance.

Heres the best picture we could get of our road conditions:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/skatenewzealand/2196508561/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/skatenewzealand/2196513903/

Theres lots more on the flickr site, if you subscribe to the mailing list any time the photos are updated I'm told it automaticly sends them or a link to you.

Sheldon · Its been awhile

We're on about day 22 here! Tomorrow is our last skate of the North Island, we've done about 621 miles so far. Got approx 932 more to go. We're hoping to be done by the 28th, and take a 5 day drive back to Auckland for Adam and my flight out. The roads are still tough, and head wins are very prevalent every day. We're told that in the south we should start to get tail winds more often, which will be great.

I dont think I could have come here prepared, having never done a trip like this, for how much of a mental battle it would be. I find the physical to be a very small part of the trip, but the mental battle I've experienced is one of the hardest I've gone through. Especially when I'm so used to skating being always fun and relaxing.

Half way through though I am just starting to understand how to make it through the trip day in and day out. I'll try to get updates more often for the South island so I can give more details. Nat and Adam update the blog more often, so theres always new pictures and words on the website.
www.skatenewzealand.com

Keep updated, and if you can donate to the charities we're rollin for.

pavedwave

Wow Sheldon-- those roads look brutal!! MENTAL indeed-- one push after the other, keep 'em as light as you can. What awesome scenery, I suppose that is one of the huge upsides to travelling the entire country low to the ground.

Thanks for the updates! You're going to be a monster by the time you're through, ready for the next Portland Pusher, perhaps? Already looking forward to some big rides ahead.

Keep to the shoulders and carve it up when you can. Jumping in lakes, rivers and the ocean whenever you can, right?!

Great causes to be riding for-- cheers.

Sheldon

We'll we're in Christchurch now. The past two days have been the hottest and coldest/wettest of the trip. They also both involved two horrible nights sleep in a row. We did about a 40-50k in the heat and a 73k in the rain. It was almost like being back in Seattle.
Nats leg had been giving him some trouble, he's been pushing the whole way with only one leg, and its just starting to act up. Hes also got tons of gnarly blisters from always using the one foot.
The roads in the south island are very slow, but not as dancey which has been really nice, especially considering few of them have a shoulder, so you're quite personal with some of the traffic.
I've learned to control my breathing a lot which is a huge part of being able to go so far, and zone out. You never realize how much in a zone you are until you're skating along and a car or semi comes flying by laying on its horn at you. Or until the person infront of you looses their board and you go for a run yourself.
Everyone is still getting along great though, especially for a group of 5 people who at the most had only met eachother once prior to landing in Nz. And have been crammed in a small car and two tents for a month.
Should be just another week to week and half and we'll be done with the south island and tkae a week to drive by up to auckland. In the next few days when we're about half way I'll try to get another update on the conditions.
Hope everyones well

pavedwave

Half way!! Sounds intense. So good to hear you guys are all getting along, quite a mixed group and definately some tough conditions now and then to cope with. Chill group, makes all the difference.

The foot pictures on skatenewzealand site are gnarly, I've had that as well-- if you guys haven't already be sure to keep all nails trimmed down as much as possible. Hopefully you get a chance to soak now and then. The traffic pics did look hairy as well-- be interesting to hear any stories about drivers, hopefully good ones, cheering you on etc, or else lots of puzzled looks?! I'll go check the site again--

Keep safe, stay visible and eat tons of food, I'm sure you're burning it up!

Sheldon

we've been checking the weather and theres a good possibility the end of this trip is going to involve lots of rain!

My feet luckily have been pretty well off, I have one blister on my left foot but thats about it, and it just kind of stays in that one spot. Nat though, as seen on the website, his feet are going through hell.

Dealing with traffic is interesting, recently one of the girls with us has been biking with us and usually rides behind. You notice a huge difference in how cars treat you when theres a bicycle near you going the same way vs when you're just two or three boarders out on the highway. People are a lot more indifferent it seems when the bike is with you.

We get a far more positive hooks, and thumbs up than discouraging. I love watching people in on coming traffic looking puzzled or completely stoked. Longboarding is very rare out here, there were a lot in Wellington and but other than that you just see them here and there so seeing a longboarder around let alone on the highway confuses lots of people I think. But the rude are more rare and usually are no worse than a long blaring car horn, or not caring to movie a foot or so away from you as they pass. It can get frustrating, I started just pretending every kind of honk is a nice honk of encouragment.

Today we had a lady stop who had stayed at the same camp site with us up in the North and couldnt believe we had made it so far, and were on the South island already. We got some press converage in one of the bigger papers which also seemed to increase peoples positive reactions on the road. It also got us lots of phone calls and text messages from people donating and offering us places to stay and eat. Someone even drove by us on the road today, stopped and gave us $50 donation along side the highway. We've also had semis drive by really close in the rain and drench us with their kick up as well though Smile

Also I would like to give huge gratitude to Nz police. Only once have we been asked to get off the road, and when we were they took us in their car to where we could skate. The issue being the part of town we were in was narrow and a high collison area where they prefered people to not even cycle or walk. They only seem to stop when they have been called by a motorist complaining about the crazy guys on skateboards on the highway. But when they come they have always been very polite and reasonable and let us continue on our way. They tell us we're no different then a cyclist or pedestrian and so they feel they cant ask us to stop. One cop even stopped, yelled from across the road ' youre a bunch of crazy bastards' laughed and continued on his way without saying another word. I still get worried for a good 5 minutes any time a cop passes us either way wondering if they'll stop off ahead of turn around.

Food is a funny thing, in the morning I wake up and maybe have a few slices of bread with peanut butter and/or honey. Then usually in between legs I'll have another run of that or maybe some nuts. After skatings done I usually eat some chocolate. From talking with people we run into and watching Adams eatting habits too it seems you get a craving for chocolate and it seems to be really good for distance events. I actually used to hate chocolate and ate it very rarely. I also used to hate honey before I came out here. We eat typically two dinners a night, and on rare occasion three. Thats where most your money gets spent too, I spend no money during the day then eat $20 worth of food at night. Along with some fruit, and chocolate milk or juice. My prefered meal is some rice, and then is the camp site has a kitchen cooking up some meat from the store. I like to cook rather than eat out in interest of money but typically everyone else eats out in town, its hard to want to cook every night after skating and setting up camp and I should do it far more often.

We got a big southerly head wind coming at us tomorrow though so its best to rest up now. Also lots of 'cold' and wet to push through.

Hope the skating everyones getting in is good. If theres anything people want to hear about let me know, it helped a lot having a little more knowledge in what you were interested to know James.

pavedwave

Man, that is great to hear bout the positive vibes from everyone, especially the po-po!

It'll be wicked if you finish this ride off in the rain but I suppose with your Northwest webbed feet, you might be the most comfortable out of the whole bunch!

Yeah I typically go with a balance of sugars and protein throughout the day and of course tons of water, then rice/pasta/other carbs at night that are ready for you the next day. Bananas, cranberries and other potassium sources are great at night as well for avoiding cramps, hopefully you haven't had to deal with that anyway.

Have there been any enormous stretches of road away from civilization? Or are the towns popping up every 10-20 miles or so? The pictures look fantastic. Maybe this could be a retirement ride for me, although I think I'll just ask you where the smooothest roads are Wink

Always great to hear from you guys!!

Sheldon

I'll post again tomorrow I only got a minute. But we skated UP the steepest road in the world today in dunedin. Its a 35% grade, and was pretty intense. But more on that tomorrow Smile

Sheldon

Well we made some longer days and surprisingly finished officially yesterday Feb. 23rd at about 4:00pm.

I dont think its quite hit me yet what we've done, its kind of a "what now?" feeling. I hear that ends after about a week or so though Smile

Time to drive North and catch the plane back to L.A.

pavedwave

Sheldon

The last day Adam and I were in Auckland I took him to a street I'd found near the university. I wasnt sure if we'd make it down the whole street but we accomplished all 6 turns by the end of the night. I put together this video from the clips we took

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWZhRdXR704

Skate New Zealand is ON!!

Its been awhile