MySlalomStory

[Chris Eggers]

I just thought about how I got into this again and thought it would be great to know how others took the journey back into this, so I´ll let you know my story first.


I started skating in 1976 when there was nothing else but going down a hill doing turns, going up and down curbs and doing downhill runs.
The following years I started to compete in contests that included freestyle, slalom and jumping disciplines. The jumping thing never got me so I did freestyle and slalom. Boring slalom, straight 6 feet 25 cones, indoor gymnastik halls, bad surface, slow ramps, but I did it and was never any good.
Then the ramps came up and I skipped slalom totally, skated a little freestyle and took my Hester H-Bomb for a few runs when the dust settled on it. Not more than 2 times a year.
That was around 1982.
I had several injuries during my 30 years skateboarding, the most severe being a dislocated elbow 3 times. The last time was in 2002. The doctors noticed a torn ligament in my elbow making the joint instable.
It was during this time that I discovered the slalom scene on the internet and found my old friend Attila Aszodi after 20 years

http://www.sk8mag.de/People/Attila_Aszodi/index-en.html

2002 I found out about the Grueningen races in Switzerland and went for it. I visited Attila, raced in Morro Bay and the Tunnel race the same year.

I was back on it.
I had surgery on the elbow in 2004 and I am so stoked to still be a part of skateboarding.
Thanks to everyone who accompanied me on the way, Attila, Yoyo, Georg, Jadranko, Jani, Donald.....all the racers.
The courses are getting tighter and I still feel I am getting better.


Skateboarding rules.

[Stephen Lavin]

Chris, I love your story. I have recently been "reborn" to skating after taking maybe 14+ years from the wheels. Two guys in the area (Chicago) have opened their arms to including me in some local skating festivities; thanks to Tod Oles and Chris Favero for sharing some new modern slalom insights.

I started skating in 1973 on the campus of USF at the age of 11. That plastic skateboard I think had Chicago trucks and like plastic wheels with open balls. Cadillacs were still a year or two away. Took to downhill and slalom first, competed AM first in freestyle but couldn't get the board to spin more than 4 times (I think I have a tendon loose in my brain - instability like your elbow!).

Moved to NYC in 1975, bought a Bonzai, a Panther, and a Santa Cruz board, (stole my first FiberFlex I think - too stoned to recall at the time), got my first comp wheels from George Powell before Peralta joined him and rode Park Rider wheels (the mulit-colored ones) all day everyday during summers in Central Park. Joined Blizzard skis skateboard team in 1976 or '77 - all still fuzzy, and competed soley in slalom for them. I hated those Blizzard boards but praise the day when a friend gave his Hobie Flex cutaway - he simply had no use for a non-bowl performing board (he's still a jerk - slalom rules now and forever). Rode Sims, Power Paws, Belaires, RR4's, HHesters, OJ's, and Krypto greens, blues, and reds.

My scars have scars, my boards have scars, my mother has scars, and now my kids have scars. I'm bald, 44, and still have some juice. I'm back to stay...

[Chris Barrett]

I hope you guys don't mind a story from the perspective of some newbie youngin such as myself? Not nearly as cool...but a different angle.

I was developed, and made in 1985, which means I was brought up in the worst years of skating history. All my life I had watched technical skating and even though I tried my best, couldn't get into it. My skating story starts in 1997. I had been riding skateboards for years before, mostly injection molded thermoplastic boards with rubber bushings and loose ball bearings, stuff left over from before I was born. I started "racing" in the 7th grade after purchasing a used blind deck with some manner of random trucks and wheels from my "friend". Our school was in a ravine, and had a number of bike paths around it that were at steep inclines and curved and wrapped. While my friends were busy practicing kickflips and grinds at the stairwell by the entrance I was in the ravine with my board just going as fast as I could down those hills. I put together "races" with my friends and even made a trophy out of an old bannana board I had. To me it made more sense to do that then do tricks.. it was more fun. But the fallout with the other skaters was intense. I was not welcomed or accepted.. and I kinda lost interest in skating (and sports in general) and turned to computers and technology for a while.

It wasn't untill my last year of high school that a couple friends got longboards and the thrill was back. These guys are still my closest and dearest friends (I make skates with one of them now) and their positivity and stoke kept me going. I started to shy away from the longer boards, and went back to my love of surf-skating 30-31" boards, fast, stylishly, and with technical menouevers and cutbacks the filled my need for the G-forces most pilots and drivers take for granted.

Within the next 2 years the longboarding scene exploded in Toronto, and soon we needed a place to converse. Being a big nerd, I had already setup a free forum so the responsibility fell on my to start Ontariolongboarding.com. It was there I really got to know Rob Sydia and Mike Cividino, the two most active slalom skaters in Ontario (next to claude ofcourse!). And they told me about this magical thing called slalom..

I came to one of their sessions and I was HOOKED, went to my first race around july of last year. The rest has been and hopefully will continue to be a blast. Looking back, its funny how all this time I had been looking for something like slalom, but because the media I was looking to never mentioned it, I always felt unfulfilled. I almost dropped skating for good..

I'm just glad that things happened the way they did and now I'm running cones every week instead of sitting around.


first session at seneca.

[Ramón Königshausen]

My Rider Profile

rmn

[Tom Mangelsdorf]

I started skating back in the middle 1960's at the age of 5 or 6. My older brother is 10 years older than me and I always did whatever he did. I survived the steel wheel era, the clay wheel era, and I even had a rubber-wheeled board between the clay and urethane eras.

In the late 70's I was in my late teens and good enough to be sponsored. I did that for about a year and a half. Went to a lot of contests and won a shelf full of trophies. Back in those days we didn't specialize, so I skated freestyle, slalom, high jump, long jump and once they came along ramps and parks.

I always loved going fast and was drawn to slalom and downhill prolly because I started skiing about the same time I started skateboarding. (The skiing thing was once again the influence of my older brother)

The last contest I was ever in was in 1978 or 1979 - I'm pretty sure it was '78. It was the Wisconsin State Championships and it was a slalom race. They held it in Sauk City at this nice park with a nice, smooth, dowhill road. They only had about 20 cones. They set up a simple course with a mix of straights and offsets. I won the 18 and older division.

Also in 1978 I bought my first longboard - a 44" Sims Taperkick. As I rolled into the 80's and got married and started a family, I was riding the longboard more and more and doing less and less freestyle and slalom.

We moved to Alsaka for 13 years and I lived out in the gravel road territory, so I did very limited skateboarding then. We moved back to the midwest about 10 years ago and I started doing a lot more longboarding. Just this past Christmas my wife and kids bought me some cones and since we were having the warmest Wisconsin winter on record in January (most consecutive days with a high temp over 30*F) I started to run cones on my short board. I fell in love with it all over again.

It's not quite like riding a bike - I was a little rusty at first. But the pumping action came back quick enough. I ran just straight tight slalom for the first month or so before I started putting in offsets.

One of these days I'm gonna get some pictures of me to post. Maybe a video or two.

See ya!