ISSA - International Slalom Skateboarding Association

Summer of '75, my brother and all my friends had taken up skateboarding. I had saved up $25 and was looking at a new fishing pole. My brother convinced me I should geta a skateboard instead. Bahne 24" green fiberglass, Chicagos and Cadillacs. Spent that summer learning to ride, how to push (I was headed down the road to goofy foot until my evil ways were quickly corrected), and finally tick-tacking and "rollercoastering" (pumping). Surfed all the driveways in the neighborhood, and set up our first "ramp" (a 4 x 8 sheet of 1/4"...yes 1/4"...plywood propped up against a sawhorse. My path was toward ramps/parks/vert, although I always thought slalom looked cool. Never took it up because I couldn't afford the specialized equipment. I did manage to snag a couple of FibreFlex slalom boards a few years later on clearance for about $5 apiece, but never could afford trucks and wheels.

The 80's found me in college, living the life of a skate punk. Rode my board everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE. Well, everywhere except parks, ramps, and pools. Couldn't find any, outside of the trip or two to Tommy Kaye's ramp.

After school, I always had a board, but only rode occasionally. The Santa Cruz Duane Peters gave way to a Powell longboard in the mid 90's, and I started to settle in to a happy middle-aged life of longboarding. A perusal of Longboard Magazine (the surfing one), led me to a RealWood set-up as a treat a few years ago. Got one along with a buddy who wanted to skate to keep in shape for snowboarding. Me, I just wanted a stylish ride.

Last year, I decided to treat myself to yet another longboard for my birthday, this one a Fatboy Coffin, 52" of leopard-and-purple solid oak love, baby! It was the search for a source for Exkate trucks for the coffin that brought me into the fold. Couldn't find 'em at the local skate shop (imagine that), so I got a copy of Thrasher or some such nonsense. Didn't take me long to figure out all they were selling was tiny wheels, attitude, and shoes. Ah hah, the internet! Had no odea where to go, but soon found the FibreFlex website...that led to "the other" skate site, and a couple of online retailers of stuff we like. Found my Exkates, and I noticed everyone on the Slalom forum of the "other" site seemed to be having a pretty good time. So, I also ordered some Seismics and Trackers (little did I know I happened into a pair of RT-X first prototypes for the week or so they were available), and some Kryptonics and Turner wheels. Slapped the hardware on the 25 year old FibreFlex slalom boards I still had (and still had not ridden). Started running coffe cans in my driveway, first at 6', then 5', then 4". Decided, hey I can do this and thanks to a shockingly large tax return ordered my first REAL slalom board...a Roe Hester. Whoa. Found out what fast was, and the rest is hsitory...

Oh yeah, tried vertical again a few times last year after, what, 20, 25 years? I sucked out loud. I think I'm too old for that now.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Chuck Gill on 2003-05-22 23:58 ]</font>

In the spring of 1975 I lived in Indianapolis, Indiana. One morning, on our way home from church, an older girl neighbor was gliding on skateboard in her driveway. That image is ingrained forever on my memory. Just a few short months later, we ended up moving to Wilmington, Delaware at the bottom of a nice steep hill. Well in the summer of 1975 you can imagine that hill teeming with skateboarders. I remember the "hot" board being a Bahne with Chicago trucks and Cadillac wheels. I had a Nash Shark with metal wheels.

I soon had an inexpsensive fiberglass deck with loose ball bearing urethane wheels. I learned how to tack and pump in circles around my driveway, and skated the hill daily. Saving my allowance it wasn't long until I had a set of blue Kryptonics, Bennett trucks and assorted early maple ply kicktail decks.

We naturally gravitated to transition riding, but I've always skated hills and harbored that lust for a Turner Summer Ski. The re-birth of slalom racing got me hook, line and sinker, enjoying every moment of it (even the keyboard racing).

Since I'm moderating this ho down, I wanted to post one more topic before I call it a night.

If everyone would take the time to reminisce a little and tell more or less "where you come from?" How did you get into slalom, did you do it with the rest of us when Gerald Ford was president, do you remember the old United States Amateur Skateboard Association with their medals for winning contests? Just so as to not be a welcher, I'll reprint here a story I wrote a couple of years ago for Michael Brooks' "Skategeezer" website. It's not up to date as I wrote long before I got back into racing last spring, but it does tell the story of why I race instead of spin 360 or try to hit coping:

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My background? In the summer of '75, when I was 14, I got a cheap k-mart stick and almost killed myself. By November, I had a 27" Bahne with Stobies (Man, how long has it been since I saw that in print?)
By then we were all buying SKATEBOARDER every month and really getting into skating. But, as my friends were digging on Jay Adams and Steve Cathey, I ripped through every issue looking for pics of Big H and Skoldberg and Piercy and Yandall.
In June of '76, almost a year after I started skating, I got my first set of Road Rider 4s. That day I carved my favorite hill, cut a turn to the right (I ride Goofy Foot,) and felt SOMETHING. Almost like acceleration. So, that's what those guys were talking about. You could PUMP a skateboard and go faster. And having Road Riders meant you went FORWARD, and didn't SLIDE sideways (ah, yes, it's all coming back to me now!)
I never looked back. I spent the next 20 years skating regularly. Never tried to do a 360, carve a pool or do a handstand. All I wanted to do was GO FAST. My dedication to racing finally was complete when that same summer I graduated from a Bahne to a FibreFlex.
I skated at the Amateur Level all up and down the Eastern Seaboard for five or six years, until racing petered out in around '81 or 82. But, I still set up my cones and rode on my own. (By the way, my race record was 26-1 in those years.) And I also continued to dowhill. As a matter of fact, (and no, I can't prove this, it's just me saying so,) I was in the mountains around Boone North Carolina and reached a top speed of 89.65 mph. sustained. Clocked by radar. I missed a mile-and-a-half per minuted by tha-a-a-a-t much. Oh, well.)
And, another milestone was in the summer of '78. Remember when Turner finally broke down and spent some money to advertise in SKATEBOARDER? Those beautiful full page black layouts with the multicolor arrangement of photos of cutaways? Well, those ads also finally revealed to us kids on the East Coast what a Summer Ski cost: $80.00? They may as well have been a million. Oh, well. Anyway, I finally had an address, so I wrote a letter to TSK and asked if they had a brochure or a catalog or something detailing the boards and the different configurations.
Well, nothing. three weeks went by with no response. Then, one night while eating dinner with my family, the doorbell rang. There stood UPS with a box. I signed for it and brought it in. No COD, no Bill, No Invoice. But inside was a 28" yellow medium cutaway Summer Ski. I was flabbergasted and screamed at my mom and dad, "I swear I didn't order this!"
But, there was also a letter ( which I still have) from TOMMY RYAN. Tommy sent me a free Summer Ski as a sample. 16 years old and I owned a Turner Summer Ski. Who woulda thunk it?
Suffice it to say, I was the envy of the neighborhood (actually, I was the envy of the state of South Carolina, but that's another story entirely.) And I continued to ride and continued to go fast and still am.
My current quiver is three Summer Skis' (that I DO NOT ride), one Santa Cruz H-Bomb (what I still ride) a freestyle board I haven't touched in years, three Ick Sticks (two cutaways and the downhill board) plus I still got my 27' Bahne. My only problem now is my weight. I don't ride the Summer Skis or Icks anymore because I am way too heavy to ride. I'm petrified of breaking one of those antiques, so I leave them be. Also, my boards are set up exclusively now with Kryptonics, Park Riders (still), Tracker Halfs, Full, and Independents.
And that's my story (and I'm stickin' to it!)

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Just as a quick update: my weight is down 45 pounds since I wrote that, I do ride two of my Summer Skis again. I have since retired my Red Ick and have purchased my first new deck in 13 years: a PocketPistol Stealth. Maybe in the not too distant future I'll have the cash to not only have a new deck, but maybe put some offset Indys and a set of Avalons on it?