Life's like that...Slipping and sliding and playing domino | Lefting and then righting, it's not a crime you know. | You gotta tell your story boy, before it's time to go. | Are you ready for the country because it's time to go? | Are you ready for the country because it's time to go?I parked the car at the top of Cumnor Road, dragged my board out, dropped it to the ground, and pushed off.
GoogleEarth tells me Cumnor has a
4.6 percent gradient over a quarter mile, dropping 60 feet through a long 'S'. I'd been subconsciously assessing its ride value for several years, feeling the incline and sweep of its bends when driving up to Main Road.
Since breaking my wrist a couple of years ago—having not skated for some twenty-five—a good board and high hills have featured prominently in my dreamsleep. So, a skateboard was the one thing I treated myself to on receiving a July production bonus. It was always going to happen—I just didn't know when. "Want to go and buy some jeans down at Access Park?" I asked my wife. She agreed and we set out by car under a rain-sodden sky. I headed in the opposite direction. I wasn't going to Access Park, a ghastly agglomeration of shops down at Kenilworth Center. Besides, they were advertising Lee jeans and I've gone off Lees.
I was set on Muizenberg and that's where we went—down to Peter Wright's Corner Surf Shop. I'd not bought anything from Peter Wright in thirty years, but he had what I wanted.
Okay, so maybe a few other people did too, but we've a long history with the Corner Surf Shop. We used to hang out there when it opened in the early '70s, when Peter made boards in the back and Tessa sold them, Zero wetsuits, dog leashes, baggies, and blocks of wax out front.
John Whitmore and
The Endless Summer were it in those days and Jonathan Paarman and little Davey Stolk carved up the southern surf better and far more aggressively than most.
I was no good as a surfer, but what the heck. It was a lifestyle and there are far worse ways to spend one's time than hanging out at the back when the surf rose above three feet. Besides, much as I loved the sea, I preferred skateboarding.
Peter put together a mongrel board designed for both speed and half-pipes; a 30" old school deck with
70mm Krypto Classic Ks on generic trucks. During a relatively dry spell on a rainy July Sunday afternoon, I decided to head for the hills, safe in the knowledge that my thirty-year memories of slicing hills atop a rigid oak board, Chicago trucks and 50-something millimeter polyeurethane wheels would stand me in good stead.
How I survived that first run, I'll never know. Nevertheless, I did. I'd not walked Cumnor Road, checking its surface for debris, potholes, cracks, tar fills or other obstacles. Nor had I scouted its two intersections or planned a suitable run-off area at the end of the quarter-mile slope. More, although gradient is a constant, the hill ramps steeply at the start, promising a fast drop in.
The blacktop was wet—emerald-green moss reared from its slick surface, the board fishtailed like crazy and, with the sharp incline at the top, it was a damned side faster than I first thought. The board's acceleration was awesome and although my balance, stance and technique flowed as easily as the bearings carrying me, I realized I'd just set off. Wearing only a pair of gardening gloves to protect myself against a fall, I had nowhere to go but down.
Once up and riding, it was too late for any reconnaissance missions. I knew I was going to die and fast jettisoned any thought of abandoning the board (I'd just paid for it, damn it). Using the sidewalk as a means of slowing my descent was out of the question. I'd cream myself against a parked car or wrap my broken body around a streetlight. Dread seeped through my bones and psyche and I reconciled myself to a brutal, thudding fall to the tarmac and a long skin-tearing slide—a dumb end to a long-standing dream.
I was in way over my head. Although doing only around 30 or 40km/h, this was my first ride in donkeys' years and I'd not taken care of the basics. Like stopping. Beyond using the full width of the road to carve long, hissing sweeps, how was I to slow a fast-accelerating board at the end of the hill? It ran into a busy T-junction and a wall fronting the railway line. To anybody watching, it must have been a hoot. I saw myself—dressed in normal weekend winter gear—standing atop a board rocketing at some 40km/h past elegant apartment blocks and imagined the stupefaction of any elderly type likely to be out on a balcony, i.e. "What the fuck was that?"
Cutting across the road several times, I felt the board getting away from me. Then, carving long sweeps, I started to feel the thrum of the high-tech wheels resonating through my body. It felt infinitely more than good. Somehow, through the foggy mix of fear and excitement experienced hurtling into the unknown with eyes unaccustomed to the oncoming rush of fast-moving road repairs, stones, manhole covers, etc., the high that comes from high-speed tar humming through singing wheels and the soles of the feet broke through.
Flashing past the second intersection—no cars—the road swung right again and I could see the gradient ease. The tarmac flattened and, along both sides of the road, parking bays appreciably broadened the scope for slowing turns. With the road and railway line fast approaching, I dropped to the deck. Using all the space given me and, although I'd not expected the twigs from the overhanging trees to present the problems they did, i.e. juddering the board to virtualy uncontrollable slides, my speed dropped off appreciably. At the end, I hit the tarmac running as fast as I could. And made it.
Perhaps, together with the configuration of Cumnor Road, the looseness of the board, the desperate carving, and my penchant for digging my right foot in deep on a backside turn that slowed me sufficiently to escape a nasty fall. I don't know. Either way, my first run in some thirty years was over. Residual memory saw me pick up the board, turn and start the long walk back.
Survival had me pumped, but I decided there and then that skateboarding was for either kids or old men in full body armor. It had been a truly frightening, albeit exhilarating experience. A couple of cars swooshed down to the junction and, further up, yellow indicators marked the entrance of more traffic. As my head cleared, my escape from an extremely ugly fall loomed ever larger. Looking at the hill, its gradient and, before the sweep, its length, I adjudged myself demented.
"This is not the sort of thing normal people do. You're fucking crazy."
"How the hell... how in God's name did I stay on?"
"You do not throw yourself off the top of hills."
"And if a car had turned in from one of these intersections? Minced meat, numbskull."
"I cannot do this again. I have a wife and kids."
From the first intersection, I looked back. Were the road dry, the parking bays gave ample room for some hard, slowing turns. There was a simple grace to the sweep flattening the hill.
"Okay, but not without protective gear. Phone Peter Wright. You need those wrist and knee pads."
"Jesus Christ."
Halfway up the hill, on the 'S' giving Cumnor Road its allure, I viewed the 'ramp' at the top and knew I was in trouble. I turned and took three or four more rides, acclimatizing myself to the board's demands and peculiarities—fast learning why Krypto Classics are renowned for being the first wheels suited to luge. My eyes adjusted quickly to the road ahead and I was able to pick out possible dangers. When it grew too dark to see, I headed home.
At work that Wednesday, the network went down and I headed out to Peter Wright's for wrist guards and kneepads. I came away with both and a
46" Sector9 deck atop
Randall RII 180mm trucks and
76mm 78A Krypto Classic K wheels. This was destined to be one fast motherfucker and, riding the short road outside The Corner Surf Shop, I fell in love with it.
Although I grew used to it, Cumnor Road proved unsuitable. The 'S' bend made it difficult to see traffic crossing the intersections and posting Wendy and Cathryn at these points seemed unfair. Oak Road, just above Main and closer to home, offered an equal gradient, a better surface, less traffic, no intersections and, if anything, a slightly longer ride. While parking bays preceding Main Road lent opportunity to slow, a large, sloping driveway near the bottom allowed me to rip off the road and do a wide, front-hand 360, coming back onto the road at suitable speed.
Ideal.
Or so I thought.
Oak Road seemed to end in a ninety degree corner at the top and, from my usual launch point, it looked as though it sloped away gently into the oaks and greenery of up-market Kenilworth. After a week or so, I took a closer look at the road on the 'other side'. It sloped down for several hundred feet before soaring seventy feet in just six hundred to Tennant Road, an
11 percent gradient. From where I had been standing, at the start of my quarter-mile run, there was no way I could see this monster but, once seen, I had to ride it.
![Cass Collier flying Dungeons [Pic: Wavescape]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sSbpxOMyH45NL1vwt0Z7SEaxriP2699RhCCHZx7JDZX3mm-LNS5IkCbZc3EgfXopc5XWE49Dpp2MNBLvVvpWOl9XvbHht8704=s0-d)
Cass Collier flying Dungeons [Wavescape]"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..."Jack KerouacA couple of months ago, we watched
Taking Back the Waves, the story of 1999 world big-wave champions Cass Collier and long-time friend and team mate, Ian Armstrong. Rastafari Cass, whose father owns a property business with offices across the road from us, is in his mid-thirties and it looks as though he's trading riding the big ones for teaching the little ones to surf. His work with township kids is paying dividends too, the oceans around the Cape becoming more representative of the people living on their shores.
The movie was about far more than Cass, Ian, Cape Town's history and today's generation of wave rippers. It was a gem, a true reflection of a Cape Town too few know. Besides the usual big-wave footage, Kalk Bay reef featured prominently and the ubiquitous J-Bay footage was visually stunning.
The waves that really impressed were the Crayfish Factory's southern ocean growlers, breaking off the storm-lashed coast on the peninsula's western tip. Not only had I not been out at Crayfish Factory; I'd not seen its wave from the water, a viewpoint offered by fantastic camera work.
At Crayfish Factory, Cass and Ian show big-wave riding at its most breath-taking, flying the vertical faces of unpredictable, fast-breaking bone-breakers prone to tempestuous behavior and outrageous venom. It was big-wave surfing at it's finest and I found my pumping heart choking my every breath. Awesome doesn't do the footage, or the film justice.
One Sunday morning, nobody felt like joining me and I wandered off to carve up old Oak Road glide. After a couple of easy swoops down the quarter mile, I walked up and around the corner. The hill loomed large and, with the knot of fear growing appreciably larger in my stomach, I slogged upwards.
This was no time for thinking or looking back. I'd made up my mind and all I could now do was ensure the trucks were steady and the board was in good shape. I focused on the run.
At the top, I sat on the deck and looked down a gradient exceeding ten percent. At its lowest point, past the first incoming intersection of two, where the road swept up to the ninety-degree turn and the Oak Road glide, trees obscured the view and I was unable to see oncoming traffic until too late to slow or turn back.
I'd have to negotiate anything booming towards me.
If sweaty, I was surprisingly calm. Sometimes, especially when alone, we realize that there are no excuses. Either we do something or we don't. We take whatever precautions we can when preparing to take on that which faces us, and we then go for it. Anything following our action is consequential and that, usually in ignorance, we accept.
The 46" CRZ SamoaI started low, pulling the board from one side of the road to the other, but I managed to do this only three or four times. Uncontrollable speed and momentum straightened the board over a couple of dozen yards and I had no choice but to rise to a half crouch and bomb the hill.
I reckon I must've hit 60kmh, and that's being conservative. A car rolls down at 90. I'd not experienced anything like it and, as the board climbed the hill towards Oak Road, I was in a fugue, overwhelmed by what had just taken place. 60kmh on anything is fast but, standing of a piece of wood, it is something else. If Cumnor Road had paid off the first board, the Oak Road hill ride paid for the second.
I had to do it again and did so, the initial fear appreciably greater. This time though, survival saw me throwing my arms aloft like some goofy cyclist as I ascended the rise following the rush of the hill. Driving home, the adrenalin exploded in a spontaneous Pacino-like "Hoo-haa!" Twice, three times. This was
kickass freedom and I was hooked.
The following weekend, I took Wendy and Zonker to the hill with me. Zonker's a lifelong friend and has been surfing as long. "Nah, man, I didn't want to watch" was his pithy comment after I'd thrown myself from the top. He took it from halfway up.
I've calmed down somewhat, taking more care. Although I've taken a tumble on Cumnor and chewed up my wrist guards, I've been fortunate. But fortune has a habit of running out on one and I'm not inclined to be doing 60kmh (or whatever speed they say you do on the bulletin boards) when it does. We've therefore taken to riding more familiar, less challenging hills or those recommended by older long boarders. We've been thrown off the former by belligerent cops in need of a good smack and found the latter to be not as good as those in my neighborhood.
Reaction to our skateboarding has also been interesting. This past weekend we rode the hills around Noordhoek, San Michelle and Capri. In the 70s, San Michelle was a downhill paradise. Today, it's rough tar, a steep initial gradient and a long, boring downhill slope. A kid, towed by another on a motorized scooter, was riding the hill on an ancient trick board with 50mm wheels. Watching him skate, we could see the immense difference made by the rider's weight and the wheels' diameter.
A woman in her mid-thirties stopped as cars backed up behind her. "It's really excellent to see the dads riding hills. Amazing."
Time to flirt.
"Fathers? What gave you that idea."
"I don't know, but you are, aren't you?"
"God, we're almost grandfathers."
There was too much traffic. She had to pull away. A couple of guys up Capri way made asinine comments. "The last time a kid took that hill, it cost me ZAR5,000. He took my door out." "My daughter does that hill all the time. Last time I tried it, I dislocated my shoulder, broke my ribs and wrists."
Liars and wimps. But others are cool. A little kid to his grandfather in Kenilworth. "How
old is that guy?" And my kids: "Mid-life crisis!"
I don't mind. We're riding high, low and every hill we can find.
I was talkin' to the preacher, said God was on my side | Then I ran into the hangman, he said it's time to die | You gotta tell your story boy, you know the reason why. | Are you ready for the country because it's time to go? | Are you ready for the country because it's time to go?Neil Young |
Are You Ready for the Country?Notes• I'm a novice hooked on speed and carving, not a downhill racer. There are many hills pros will rip to shreds when they're closed off. Our longboard friendly hills are, for the most part, jammed with traffic and I'm not messing about with that. There are too many crosses dressed with kitsch bouquets along the sides of our roads (when we speak of roadkill, we mean roadkill). So Chapman's Peak, the Glencairn Expressway and Boyes' Drive—which would soon put me in my place—are out. It's better to head for the country and a deserted national road.
• While skateboards have advanced immeasurably over the past twenty years, the bushings (or groms) tend towards softness and inbuilt redundancy—this stuff is not cheap. On the old-school board, the pivot seat cups, on which the trucks rest, crumbled after two weeks. Peter replaced them with Randall parts.
• By 'crouching', I mean 'squatting'. It both lowers your center of gravity, allows you to feel the road (with your feet, knees, backside and hands when necessary), lets you yank the board every which way, and makes for great maneuverability. As speed increases, and for reasons I've not worked out (possibly the sensitivity of the board to shifts in weight), it becomes unstable and a half-crouch is preferable. Standing with bent knees gives one a nice, laid-back cruise, the wind slowing you to boredom.
• Longboard pros stop their boards whenever and wherever they wish by sliding. Their ability to do so depends, to a degree, on the durometer or hardness of their wheels. The 78A is soft and grips like glue, making sliding difficult. Others brake by dragging their back foot on the tarmac. If you don't apply the correct pressure or have yet to build up bloody strong ankles, you're going to land on your head. Rather than slide or brake with my feet, I'll carve to a point where I can drag my back knee pad along the ground, applying increasing pressure.
Having done this a couple of times, I'm looking for some decent plastic or rubber compound I can stick to the kneepad cup, which is fast showing wear and tear.
• In the States, longboarding, i.e. cruising or going bloody fast while cutting the tricks has become a pastime favored by old men. At 47, I'm a kid.
Lloyd Kahn of
whole earth catalog fame, started
longboarding at 65,
Frank Paynter at 54,
Chris Locke at 57 and
Shelley Powers at an undisclosed age.
Tom Shugart was last seen heading for the Black Hills with a 54" pintail and hasn't been heard of in months.
• Skateboarding's illegal on South African roads and stretch the resources of the South African Police Service, who would rather rid our hills of Men Without Cars than fight the world's worst drivers and highest rate of murder, rape, property, white-collar and other crime. Seriously.
"Excuse me, Sir. Do you intend using this hill as a downflow for this vehicle?"(Where they get this shit, I don't know.)"Yeah. We've been doing it all morning. It's cool."
"Sir, I'm warning you. If you use this incline as a downflow once more, I'll have to arrest you."Despite his big fucking gun, I then blew my top (authority figures never were my strong point, but I'm working on them).
