My SK8 History
The Early Days
I started skateboarding sometime over the summer of 1975-76. For some years there had been an old E&M board (similar to the one below) lying under our house that belonged to my brother Mike so I started riding that. The first area I learned to skate on was the path leading down the side of our house in Manurewa. The house was on the left as you went down the path (see photo), so therefore it was only natural that I would initially go down the slope facing the wall and giving me something to lean against as I learned how to balance. It was for this very reason I subsequently learned to skate goofy footed. I soon found the nerve to venture out on to the footpath and from there on to Southmall carpark.
The board sucked of course with its rubber wheels so a request to the parents for a new board for Christmas was soon put in. I was fanatical about skating by then and refused to be put off by the fact I was being held back by this board. My new board was a "Tube Cruiser", one of a very similar line of boards most of the chain stores sold at the time. It had 1 1/2" wheels on the front and 2" wheels on the back (width was everything back then) and an orange polypropylene deck similar to the yellow one below. The other shops' models had different colour decks but were otherwise the same and came with names like "Wyndham Wonder" (from Farmers, in keeping with their in-house brand), "Go Power" (Woolworths) and "Super Truk".
As well as Southmall carpark one of my favourite neighbourhood spots for many years was the driveway at my friend David Hulme's place. The driveway was long and smooth with a hard right hand turn at the bottom. The lines in the concrete were also the perfect distance apart to use as slalom cone markers. Initially we used anything we could lay our hands on for cones - rocks, shoes, jandals, old toys or whatever. David's mother used to stockpile just about anything made of cardboard for us kids to make models with when stuck indoors on rainy days. Cardboard cartons, matchboxes, cigarette packets, and toilet rolls were among the things that used to be kept aside. Needing a permanent solution to the cone issue we decided to take all the toilet rolls we had and give them a try. We filled them with a handful of stones, taped over the ends and we were away. The now infamous toilet roll slalom cones worked really well - a good size and shape with an ideal topple weight. They can be plainly seen above in this photo taken from 1979.
Skatopia
In July 1978 everything changed forever with the opening of Skatopia in Manukau. My old Tube Cruiser was no longer enough and I was soon riding the Trax board with Hot Juice wheels you see on the Biomagonline homepage. Slowly but surely I learnt to kickturn before moving on to grinds then on to airs, ollies and sweepers. I also forged quite a few life-long friendships during that time too and it was quite simply, the place that defined my childhood.
We knew it couldn't last for ever (many overseas skateparks were gone by 1982) but it didn't make things any easier when the end came.
The 80s after Skatopia
It took some months but by the following year things started to happen, ramps started to be built and the skaters who had lost touch after Skatopia started to find each other again. Our first decent ramp out in South Auckland was at Mark Bourke's place in Manurewa. By the end of 1983 the handful of skaters that were left in Auckland by now sessioned the six foot quarterpipes heavily.
After Mark's ramp the action moved to Spittle's ramp in Manukau the following year. In 1985 the Remuera ramp was built from the remnants of Spittle's ramp (ramps never last long). By now, skating was starting to be fashionable again, a new generation of kids were starting to skate and the dark ages of the early 80s were well and truly over. A group of us also built a halfpipe at a secret location in Takanini for those times when we wanted some peace and quiet.
Of course there was always the public parks such as New Lynn, Allenby, Melville, Waiuku and Whangarei (rediscovered in 1986) if we wanted a change from the ever increasing number of ramps that were around. By 1988 things were starting to change and I found myself with less and less time to skate with increased work and band commitments. To make things worse all my gear got stolen that year too. I did replace it but things were never quite the same after that. The new park in Lynfield did briefly revive my enthusiasm in the early 90s but by then the street skating revolution had hit and I found it harder to relate to it all. By the mid 90s ice hockey had become everything and my poor old board probably ended up spending more time under the house gathering dust than the old E&M ever did.
The present day
"You didn't miss much" Spittle 2004
In January 2002 I got hit by a bombshell in the form of a movie called "Dogtown and Z-boys". It was like the old Skateboarder magazines coming to life on the big screen with a whole lot of new insight thrown in as well. The next day the board came out of retirement and that's pretty much how it remains to this day. Many of the friendships of old have been rekindled and a few new ones to boot. The parks in Auckland these days are pretty good and getting better all the time.
The story continues...............
Other boards I have owned
After the Trax board things pigged out. My first wide board was a 10 X 29 IPS and then a cut down Chris Strople came later in the Skatopia years. During the Mark's ramp era I became the very proud owner of a Powell McGill. That served me well for over 3 years till I replaced it with a Schmidtt Stix Monty Nolder. The Nolder got stolen in 1988 and it was replaced with the H-Street setup below. A few years later I scored an LSD Losi off Toneman which became my board of choice during those lean years of the 90s. There wasn't much around in the way of wide boards at first when I started skating again earlier this decade but that soon changed (I won't ride anything under 9 1/2 inches). First up came the Black Label DP in 2003. More recently I've added a Liberty Mike Smith and a re-issue Powell McGill. The McGill is set up with Gullwings and G-Bones, the Smith with Indys and OJ III's and the DP with Indys and Pig Super Cruisers.
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