Racing skateboards (or not)

I like writing about skateboarding, but not as much as I like actually skateboarding.

So why do some of us not care about going racing on skateboards? Erm well...

So to try and explain, lets murder fun down in a really cold manner into an equation.

Fun on a skateboard= Time spent having fun on a skateboard * How fun it actually is

Ish. There are so many other things that weigh in but that sums most of it up.

And then racing. I've done some racing at Hog Hill up in london. It can be quite cool being in a pack and trying to overtake people, I get it. But it's the extras that come with racing that, certainly for me, puts me off the idea.

Such as you don't magic into your heats. Somebody has to be super organised and sort people out. Even if they are really good, it still means everybody who isn't racing at that time gets to sit around and watch. To me, sitting around and watching skateboarding is for when you hurt yourself at a session, or when it's the middle of the week and somebody has released a cool edit.

Also, the IGSA racing system is not for me. Not being fast enough is NOT reason to have to sit around doing nothing because you dont make the qualy cut, or get rinsed in a heat, or whatever. Moving forward, with the IDF or whoever, racing inevitably means that eventually, you have to sit around and let the faster people skate the hill. I want to be skating the hill as much as possible, as much as everybody else. You dont buy a book and have it slam shut halfway through because somebody else grasps the concepts of it better. If you buy a day of freeride, you get a day of freeride. If you buy a day of racing, you might get a day of racing, if you are fast.

For me, racing goes against how I like to skate. I like to get as many runs as I can. Thats why even though I get out to a hill so little due to various factors, when I do, I get as many runs as I can manage. When you die you want to be able to say you lived, when I'm done skating I want to say that I skated as much as I could and got maximum fun from it.

But then it comes back to that really crude equation I made right?

Fun on a skateboard= Time spent having fun on a skateboard * How fun it actually is

For some people that race, they get more fun from racing than not racing. So the less time spent having fun is offset by having more fun with the time they get.

A long while ago now, I spoke to a very fast dude who likes his racing. Whilst conveying how much fun a race heat is for him, he explained that the qualifying is also fun for him, because even though there is time sitting around before and after your go, you have the hill to yourself, and you can just go for it and push things.

At the moment I don't get the fun from the same things, but I respect the pursuit of fun in downhill skateboarding that we share.

And I suppose theres a bit of a conclusion. We're all able to respect each others different approaches to fun on a skateboard, right? Being able to say "I have a different opinion to you", before hooning down a hill with somebody and laughing the same when you get to the bottom and crashing the same when you mess up and sharing the same amazing, absurd, ridiculous moments of life spent travelling fast (or slow, or sideways, or on your face), down hills, on skateboards.

Cheers for reading.


Will