Mind Surfing...

I have skated all my life (well 52 of the 58 years anyway), and by skated I obviously mean skateboarded. All different forms and types of skating and skateboards but there has always been one factor that linked them all together (apart from the few years of vert ramp action) - wherever I was skating, whatever I was skating on, in my head I was surfing... So much so my mate bought me this:

Life and skating takes it toll on one's body and hence a few years back I started looking at e-skates to save the hips and knees from even more abuse. But the few I tried were not cut out for commuting or riding on our insanely crap pavements and roads so got a ramp built in the garden instead... After even more strain and abuse on the knee and back I bought into the new kid on the block - the Onewheel. Possibly either the lamest marketing branding ever, or a stroke of genius as no one can ever forget its name, "what was that weird skate thing we saw today called, you know the onewheel thing.... " I was in mind surfing haven and have been ever since. Well apart from the 3 bad, bad slams I have taken due to nosediving and having my feet locked in by the optional 'fins' (now not on there). They are crazy, awesome machines and I love them. But, after about a year and a half of riding I came to the conclusion that they are there own beast and quite removed from the surfing feel. People will argue they are more like snowboarding than skating anyway so it is only to be expected. Either way broh.... it ain't surfing.

On the beach at Bournemouth 

 Now don't get me wrong, after what has been well over a 1000 miles on various Onewheels I LOVE mine to bits. People (not old farts like me) are pushing the limits daily and as a commuting vehicle (after the learning curve) it would be hard to beat. Even made going to work fairly pleasant, which I am not sure I actually like but still.

Justin 'bonking' at Lordship Lane - better than being stabbed there!

It has also provided a sense of community - much like my early surf days in the late 60s or the skate scene in the mid-late 80s. I have made friends, proper friends and until recently when the OWs have really taken off it was kind of a close knit wild west feeling community.

But, and you all know what's coming next ------ it wasn't surfing...

Enter a new would be rider who lives local to me... Andy wanted to try out a Onewheel and as I had two at the time I offered to let him ride it on a group ride at Olympic Park. He loved it and we agreed to meet up locally for a ride and he bought along his Evolve GTX bamboo board. Now, I knew Evolve were an Aussie company and their boards have a good rep on the whole, so I was happy to give it a go while Andy went on the OW.....

As they say on 'Love Island' my head was turned. Yes it was weird holding a remote, no it didn't turn on a dime like the OW but... carving was loose and it felt like surfing. Hold on, I hear you say, didn't turn but carved loose isn't that a contradiction? Well, not really, the OW turns very sharp especially with the 5.5 Hoosier tyre on it, basically you can turn in the width of a normal pavement/sidewalk and without doing a 180 kickturn like turn. The Evolve is no where near that, but carving wise it is another story, as in carving toe to heel side linked turns. You can carve deep (as in leaning over with your body) like you can in surfing but can't with the Onewheel. Obviously once adept at riding you can do everything you can on a normal longboard skate, Coleman slides, fishtails etc... plus you can walk the board. In other words you can MIND SURF.

Now fortunately or unfortunately (whichever way my retirement fund looks at it) this meeting occurred JUST as Evolve were bringing out their new GTR series of new improved (rebuilt and improved from ground up while keeping the same clean sleek look) boards and the Aussie crew were over the following weekend for a demo/launch day!

So, Andy drove me down and a good day was had by all :

https://www.instagram.com/p/BygHhCyF-bn/?igshid=qqr0lw81sq5k&fbclid=IwAR2PTof2tUK-Zgw8ZarGGHlIYSfggkiCDWSEzAJViiy7ZNiF3rOYkc5n_tw

I spent a lot of time trying out the various set ups they had for demo boards. Evolve do two main decks - bamboo and carbon. One flexi and one solid, both have their advocates and as a broad sweeping statement they are categorised as the bamboo flex being best for carving and the stiff carbon for stability at speed and on trails etc. I loved the bamboo more as the carving felt better and I am used to some flex in boards, the carbon felt weird as fuck as it was like being on the Onewheel give wise but not anything else wise. To me the bamboo felt more natural and certainly fitted the surf style approach more (but what do I know). Having double king pin trucks (which in theory means you can fine tune the tightness to avoid speed wobbles while at the same time affecting the looseness for carving) meant that the boards felt very different depending on the truck tuning. Anyway, my head was further turned and I came away being the nearly proud owner of a GTR Bamboo All terrain set up. Since then, street kit, shred lights and dedicated off road knobbly tyres have been added - oops, good job I sold the spare Onewheel then!

GTR Street with the All Terrain setup in the rear.

Carbon GTR - very sleek but loved the bamboo more

The Boys from the Gold Coast - obviously those beer barrels were empty by then :)

So, there we have it, my Onewheel is sulking in the corner thinking I am cheating on it  (it's the rain baby, that's the only reason we haven't been out - honest). Can't wait for the delivery and then I may even do an unboxing post and pretend I am a real 'social influencer' :) Or I may just get impatient, rip it out the box, charge it up and go 'surfing'... wait and see.