pavedwave longboarding

LD skater since 1971 · Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 8:45 pm Post subject: Rollerblade street wrist guards

I have sprained my right wrist a couple times in the past 2 months. I use to do this all the time and it the only bone I have broken in 37 years of skateboarding. So I am back to wearing a wrist guard on it. So I decide to wear both to protect my good wrist.
I pumped around a wet corner to cause this last sprain over the weekend.
I got up and shook it off as always kept on skating. When I finished my skate my wrist hurt for awhile. I have been icing it for the past few days.
I went to Play it again sports I picked up some new rollerblade street wrist guards that have guards on bottom and top the rest is mesh so it cool to wear while skating. Your hand slips in like a glove and it all black I could do some down hill sliding the guard parts is so thick.
It kind of looks like the expensive ones the guy who is a doctor designed is selling on silverfish.
It not like the old rector wrist guards from back the 70's and 80's.

I am to old to worry about the rollerblade label it works and is cool and feels like weight lifter glove I usually wear when riding.

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Terry

pavedwave · Joined: 22 Oct 2007 Posts: 1120 Location: seattle wa usa

Cool stuff. My buddy Patrick's been wearing his and they make all kinds of sense -- there's more protection over the palm area and yeah they breathe.

I'm actually planning to get some rollerblade knee and elbow pads for LDP, reason being they're lighter, open behind the knee, just two straps rather than the "wraparound" type pads I use for parks -- I'm thinking they'll be a thousand times cooler on really long, hot day rides.

You can always take one of those sunny afternoon breaks, a beer, some good tunes, and a swiss army knife, and whittle off those silly labels Very Happy

LD skater since 1971 · Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 8:21 pm Post subject:

I use to wear some rector roller disco skate knee pads when I had to wear safety equipment. They only had 2 straps around your leg and plastic cap. I raced slalom in them it would allow me to get my knees closer behind each other in my semi parallel stance so I could pump through the cones faster.

Someone flowed me some of the rector fat boy knee pads back awhile ago. I tried to race in them it felt like I had basket balls around my knees and my times went down.So back to the roller disco pads. I liked racing with no pads in practicing with Jim Korten are times were always faster with no pads. We would practice with CASL timer and cones all the time that why we knew are times were faster. Shirley Jim's girl friend wore full safety equipment all the time when we practiced and raced. But we were only hitting about 25 to 35 mph back then max.

The only reason I don't want to race at the pump house at 45 mph is because they knee slide when they crack up. I don't know how to knee slide even on vert. I run it out so I don't hit the ground. I use to bomb hills in my home town of La Crecenta, California before their was safety equipment we just ran it out. We would have cone burn out or loose ball bearings explode or hit a rock at 35 mph. We just would lean back toward the hill and run with our feet ahead of us. Because we knew if we leaned forward or did not run you were going to have hamburger skin.

I guess that why the only safety equipment I can tolerate is gloves or wrist guards. I only wear the others when I am required to.
That why my ankles and right wrist are all screwed up.

This practice caused me to hyper extend my left ankle at the Clinton Keith pool in Lake Elsinore, Ca. It was the damest thing my ankle blew up to the size of grapefruit and turned black and blue instantly.

Lori Rigsby tried to teach me how to knee slide on mini ramps at redding YMCA CASL contest. I was practing sliding down on my knees from the deck it was pretty fun. But when it came to falling my natural instinct was to run it out still. I would scream and yell all the way across the flat bottom of the mini ramp up the other side because my ankle was still swollen. Lori would just laugh at me shake her head.

So after all that long winded answer about my safety equipment why I hate it.
I think the roller blade pads would be great because it would not get in the way of pumping.
Get the knee pads that have the Gel inserts like shoes they will absorb more shock.
I will go on my merry way of screwing up my ankles skateboarding.
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Terry

pavedwave · Joined: 22 Oct 2007 Posts: 1120 Location: seattle wa usa

One of my buddies got me running up the deep bowls, kicking off hard (no board) then spinning around and sliding down the bowl over and over, which was tons of fun, but I still haven't mastered bailing off a board and going straight to the knees to slide. Although watching John Stryker fall at Salem slalom a couple years back and slide for 50 feet on his kneepads was pretty convincing that its the way to go.

All that steep Pump Station practice, no wonder those guys are so fast. Same for the Colorado crew, they practice really fast courses, plus their thinner oxygen has gotta help. Then when they take on a mellower course like ours, they are pumping like crazy because the hill feels "too slow"!!

I've also heard some theories about how the full wrist guards are more likely to conduct the impact up from the wrist and break your elbows instead, I'm not sure if that's scientifically proven but it seems possible. And I guess in some ways "desireable" since most of us don't type with our elbows. I'm planning eventually on testing some good slide gloves (which are more like these rollerblade wrist guards.)

Thanks for the idea on the gel-pad knee pads, I will definitely look into that.

LD skater since 1971 · Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 7:24 am Post subject:

I was reading that study about broken elbows but looked like it was mostly snow boarders. Plus the wrist guards I have would work like a slide glove it seems when I get on the ground and slide my wrist forward.
To see the effect plus were going maybe 5 mph to 15 mph most of the time on the flat and 25 mph max on small hills. On a snowboard some people are hauling butt then hit a mogul and go end over end and then they slide. Plus their dragging a board attached to their feet the whole way down the hill behind them.

My sister has snow boarded for the past 22 years went wake boarding and fell at 35 mph the board attached to her feet. Arched her back so bad that she ended up with a stomach area hernia this past summer.

I don't really like anything attached to your feet that does not break away like a snow ski. Snow ski binding design has reduced injuries considerably in snow skiing.
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Terry

kayakr · Joined: 19 Mar 2008 Posts: 35

I go with the cheezy strap on roller knee pads, but full elbow, wrist, glove (with slide puck) and helmet. When I fall the knees usually get banged a bit but mostly scraped. The hands and elbows tend to slam.

Yeah, snow boarding seems to generate a lot of injuries. I'm sticking with the skis. Plus the boarders are all riding those freestyle things that don't seem to carve well, especially in eastern hard "snow". My skis meanwhile are cutting thin groves with minimal slip and scraping.