Wondering if there are any other gay skaters out there...and if so, what's up and where do you skate. Want to get back into it...but none of my friends skate!

Welcome to the board. Having recently salvaged a late 70s G&S team deck during my fair city's spring cleaning, I am awfully tempted to give skateboarding a try, though I'd probably end up breaking every bone in my body.

The board I scavenged looks a lot like this one, but the wheels on mine have a wider stance and a lower profile. Way old skool. The board is in good enough condition to ride, but what we have here is a case of the spirit being willing while the flesh is weak, if you see what I'm getting at.

I hope that the rampant name-calling at alt.skate-board is not typical of boarders. There's also an alt.skateboard, but it gets a lot less traffic.

If you go to the Outsports home page and click on the appropriate link, you'll up at the page Local Gay Sports Groups. Select "skiing, snowboarding" as the sport in question to find local and national groups. Another option is "rollerskating," but I'll bet that's more for inline skaters than for skateboarders.

There were fifteen hits for "skiing, snowboarding", including some that are new to me. I'm familiar with OutBoard. It currently has 3176 members, some of whom I'm certain are in New York.

I'd also enquire at the Yahoo! group gayboarders2. To no surprise, there are few posts during the warm months.

A search of Yahoo! groups for gay skatebaord yields two hits, GaySkateboarders, with 228 members, and sk8terdudes2001, with 298 members.

rec.skiing.snowboard is a busy board for snowboarding.

I'm busily searching for a picture of that G&S deck of mine. Meanwhile, the trash piles of my fair city also coughed up this spring one of Sherman Poppen's original snowboards, a Snurfer made by Brunswick. It's in good enough condition to ride too. Mine looks exactly like the one in the first link. Gee, Flakezine; I haven't seen that in years. I miss it. You'll see it hasn't been updated since 1999.

That's enough old skool for one night.

Best wishes.

[ July 10, 2004, 10:25 PM: Message edited by: twin58 ]

Hey there Twin 58. I'm psyched I got a response. That board is way old-school. I just bought a Tony Hawk (the newer kinds that are difficult to tell which side is front vs. back -- unlike my old Tommy Guerrero from the 80's that had a huge tail). Thanks for all the links and info...hoping to be able to get out on the streets soon. I'm gathering that you don't do a lot of street/ramp skating from you post? Do you ever get out on your board?

"I'm gathering that you don't do a lot of street/ramp skating from you post?"

El correcto. I watch it on TV; that's about it.

"Do you ever get out on your board? "

Nope. I don't do any skating, though I might try it out in an abandoned parking lot. I'm way past the stage of caring what other people think of my idiotic efforts, but I don't want to snap too many body parts.

My fair city, Alexandria VA, recently built a skatepark. It's better than nothing, but from the perspective of a taxpayer, I don't think they got their money's worth. As much money as this city wastes, the least they could have come up with is a park along the lines of Louisville's skatepark. Instead we have something that looks as if it were made of parts bought one afternoon at Toys "R" Us and then plopped down on a basketball court.

Portland OR's Burnside park is far more impressive. As you look at the picture, remind yourself that it was constructed by boarders themselves, with no official backing, and that it has no fee for use.

Neighboring Arlington County has had one in the planning stages for years. The closest big one is the Vans park in Potomac Mills VA.

As you can see, I'm 100% in favor of skateparks.

There were three articles about skateboarding in the Friday Washington Post "Weekend" section. Two were about skateparks in the DC area.

Roll Play

and

Get on Your Feet At Area Parks

The article goes on to say what equipment is required, when the parks are open, how much it costs to use them, and so forth.

The third article was a glossary of skateboarding terms.

What's the Word? A Skating Glossary

[ July 18, 2004, 11:45 AM: Message edited by: twin58 ]