I thought this may have been a good way to maintain a bit of fitness over winter but at almost 60, I figured it would be a really stupid thing to try since I had not been on a skateboard since I was 13 and I was not too good at it back then.
But hey, I've never let me being stupid stand in my way before so why should I start now
I didn't want to do it with all the exy gear right off because there would be a good chance that I would be in hospital after the 1st attempt and/or the whole shebang would be relegated to the rafters of the shed until it went out in a Council cleanup in around 10 years time.
I found a 46" longboard on the good old interwebs for 195 clams delivered to my door so my only problem was the stick and I'm buggered if I was going to cough up 250 smackers for something I may only use once.
With my pragmatic (read tight arsed) attitude in tow I popped up to bunnings and spent a whopping 20 bucks on a 6ft lump of 30mm Tasmanian Ash dowel and a packet of 4 rubber furniture tips. Once I was home I did a bit of rounding on one end of the dowel where my hand would be and shoved a rubber tip on the other end (it's all beginning to sound a bit rude ain't it ?)
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Fully equipped with my 2 bob set up, I waited until nightfall to pounce, primarily to avoid embarrassment.
Well folks, I just returned from the local netball courts and I can tell you that it was one of the best workouts I've had and bit of fun as well.
The courts had a really gentle slope on them and I was easily able to stick back up the hill and zig zag my way back down. It really surprised me how easily I was able to get the hang of the heal toe rear foot action and switching the stick from side to side.
I'll have a few more goes and maybe have a think about investing a proper stick, although the lump of dowel did work really well.
obct
> 9 months ago, 10 Apr 2010
