Foam Core?

One of my first "cool" boards was a kryptonics foam core.

Awesome board. This model was 10 x 30. It had a P-Tex base, a rubberized bumper around the outside, and a pretty cool shape.

They were also really heavy. Any real attempt to repair the P-Tex base like you would skis, only seemed to magnify the damage. You tended to wear holes in the base revealing the foam core.  I think I broke a couple of these in half.. ( This model, and the other 10" model.)

Because of the unique styling, it was almost popsicle like... The nose and the tail were very similar, although the nose did not have a kick and these things were flat as pancakes.

I had a dream to reproduce this board, only with a modern twist... Make it concave and have a double kick.  Why not just make is a full popsicle shape?

Woot!  That is what I was thinking of..

The top of the old board was distinctive as well.

You can clearly see the bumper ( more in the tip and tail than sides ) and the 3 kyrpto stickers in the middle.

Here is my pop core remake.

I have to let the core paint cure, and then I will finish the lettering, pop some green kyrpto wheels on, and skate this thing.

Feels just like 1978...

The Greatest Board Never Made

Here is a shot of my favorite skate photo...

Ted Terrebone took this photo at the 1979 Dog Bowl Pro at the Marina Skatepark. There were so many cool things about this shot. It is a colorized Black and White giving it depth. It was one of the first shots of a west coast rider doing an Ollie air. Gelfand had been shown pulling ollies in Florida, and it was only a matter of time before more people started pulling them off. But this shot of Bowman really captured the move.  At this contest, I think only Dennis "Polar Bear" Agnew and Bowman were doing ollies.  **The shot of Polar Bear olie'ing the hip at Marina is pretty famous too. 

Another classic Terrebone shot.

I loved that Bowman shot... I probably looked at it a thousand times, and then I really looked at it... What board is that?  Just prior to this picture in the April 1979 Skateboarder magazine, all Bowman shots where of him on the Sims Bowman 10" board. All shots after, were of him on the Sims BB superman board. 

Clearly this is a prototype board. What was the story on the board? Luckily, I am friends with Brad Bowman on facebook, and he was asked about this particular board recently.

Another friend of Bowmans asked :

"HI BRAD....CAN YOU TELL ME MORE ABOUT THIS PIC FROM THE DOG BOWL PRO AT MARINA APRIL 1979...EARLY PROTO DECK?...SIMS CONICALS?"

And Bowman Responded :

"Yes-early proto for the 10.75 pig that I made in my yard. 2 were made by myself for Bert Lamar and I to ride in the Oasis Gold Cup and Dogbowl Pro. Super collectors items. I have no idea where either are!"

So, there we have it, right from Bowman.  Now I had to make one.  First off the only photo I had was the colorized black and white. And that, while super cool, is not the true color of the board. So I started digging for another shot. I finally found a shot, that someone (**sorry I did not get a name of the photographer. )  took at the practice session for the dogbowl.

Awesome shot of Bowman, the invert, and the board.  And now we know the real color of the board. 

The good news, is that the shape is classic Bowman.  Scaled of course, to 10.75 wide.  That is easy to do.

Calculating the routes, based on the truck size, and the angle that the shot was taken from is a little more difficult...

And here we go :

Yes, I need to finish it.. I had a little trouble with the screen, so I am going to redo the signatures.. I will post those up when I finish.   But, isn't that the most awesome board that never got made?

Longboards

I used to think that longboards were not that fun. Oh sure, every once in a while it was a good time to bomb a hill, or carve big S turns down a slope. Even then, I never really had a dedicated longboard. I would use and old school pool shape and throw some big soft wheels on, and go cruise.

When I started skating a lot more, and building my own decks, I nabbed one long board to have in my quiver. I took it out a couple of times and it was fun, but I was almost entirely focused on vert skating and building pool decks. ( Still my primary focus for builds )

I just took a new job, were parking stinks. If I want to park near my office, I have to pay at least $20 / day, or
buy a parking pass for $250 / quarter. Ouch!  I found a place about 8-10 blocks away that I can park, and walk in... or skate in!  ( I don't have a bike rack for my mini cooper, but that may happen for snow days. )

The first day I took my Beer Run deck. It is a really fun deck to ride, and a good overall cruiser.

11 X 30.  Deck, nice and stable, Tracker Darts 215's with bones SPF wheels.  The bad thing about the ride to work, is that the streets and sidewalks are like cobblestone. Our office is in a older section of town, where the sidewalks are pretty narrow, lots of heaving ground, and lots of commuters on them walking, and riding.
The Beer Run is a blast to ride around my neighborhood, and some at the skatepark, but in these conditions it was not the right deck for me.

I busted out my trusty old longboard.  It is a vision 9 ply, with Randal trucks, and Red Kytponics 70mm wheels.  Rides great, stable while I have my backpack on, and is a lot of fun. The notion returned to me of my skateboard, not only as a great way to have fun, but also as a great mode of transport. When I was a kid, I would skate for miles to get to a ramp or a ditch, so that I could skate that for hours. Now my commute to work was fun again.

Now I have a trio of longboards.

Never Summer ; Sector 9 ; Vision

Three great ways to get to work.