Right now, as long as people are not blowing spots, EVERYone benifits from more people in these sports: more people to hang with, more events, larger events, happieness from sharing our stoke.
What can people do to grow the sport?
Right now, as long as people are not blowing spots, EVERYone benifits from more people in these sports: more people to hang with, more events, larger events, happieness from sharing our stoke.
What can people do to grow the sport?
For the sport to grow, we need to make it
-Accessible, affordable, safe, fun
Unfortunately- this is inherently an outlaw sport. It's hard to practice it regularly. When it is legal, it's usually really expensive or it's a mild road/driveway that our skill set quickly grows out of.
The thought of having a "kamloops" type of park in multiple areas has crossed my mind, and that checks the boxes.
There would need to be many so there is a variety.
AN OFFICIAL/LEGAL SAFE SPACE TO LEARN AND RIDE.
I've been wanting to send a pitch to Vail Resorts about how the world is changing permanently and how they need to change too. These last few years in Ohio there has been only about 2 weeks of snow conditions capable of holding the business up. If they invested into gravity parks, they'd be the first commercial gravity parks in the world. Drawing huge attention and support to these sports and their fun/VAST communities.
Drift trikes, Luges, Dh Skateboards, Inline Skaters, Carts, and more, could give them money YEAR ROUND.
They have the means of getting people up and down the mountains, the systems to implement season passes, the land, and the funds to do it! The only reason I've been delayed in my pitch is because of DISNEYS recent acquisition of them. Now it's a whole nother beast, BUT they have even more money now to make this happen now!
I think a community like ours, or gravity sports as a total, pooling our numbers into a petition/proposal, could convince them to pave dh paths in their resorts for summer skating. It's a legal space for us, we could help coordinate and design the runs, host events, IT WOULD CHANGE OUR ENTIRE GRAVITY ENTHUSIAST COMMUNITY PERMANENTLY!
That's one very optimistic idea how to save/grow our scene, but it's one I'll die on a hill for that's gonna be a guaranteed W for us.
@Tim Cernanec This is huge. That would bring such a positive light to the sport- checking all the boxes of @Mark Anthony minus affordable most likely.
Find a way to have fun pushing around with people. Progress together that builds commraderie and stoke when everyone can skate together and have a good time.
I think the most important thing that the scene can do right now is put out content that is relatable, and also to elevate skaters of lower levels by welcoming them to the sport. A lot the "higher ups" in the sport have been seeking viral video views exclusively, or only skating at the highest levels while not taking a minute to include some groms or intermediates. Even if that means you have to lower the temperature of the hills you're skating in order to include the up and comers, you should be doing so.
Vancouver had a super robust scene in the peak boom years because it was inclusive and communicative. Every single session was posted on Coastlongboarding for all to see. We have cliqued up, mostly into higher level groups, and our sessions tend to be organized privately. I get it, you just want to run one car up the hill with 4-5 people in it and you've got your crew, but making sure everyone who's able to skate the hill knows about the session even if you do not love the skater personally you should attempt to include them in the sessions. We are so small. We need to link up and have fun together.
@Kevin Reimer My opinion on this is similar, content is no longer relateable due to being more clickbait oreanted, as well as having a faster average than years prior.
I'd argue that we are less cliqued up more, but that it's just less aparent as there are less to join into. I'd even say we are less clqued up since a higher percentage of people don't have their 5-6 buddies that they got into skating with or joined into quickly, since there are less people in the scene.
I feel it is the accesability to getting in touch with others that provides the biggest hurdle. As you mentioned, inclusivity and comunication are huge, I think it's the comunication that is lacking.
I think what we see going on isn't intentional, more than ever people want to skate with other people, as I origianaly posted, we are at a critical point where it's undeniable that we will all benifit from more homies on skateboards, huge reason for this site btw.
Agreed that we need to link up to have fun, I love downhill skating, I love downhill skating with the homies 10x more.
We gotta make things accessible to the masses. As viral videos get out there, we're seeing the top 10% of the sport take off...as Penny Boards and cheapo supremo Amazon boards have proliferated over the years, the bottom 10% has taken off as well. I'm only throwing minor shade here, but I can recall seeing a post on /r/longboarding about a fella who bought a fullface helmet that "gave him the confidence for a hands-down slide at 15mph," and being celebrated for it which...like... that's not me saying"don't wear a helmet" but to me it's definitely catering that bottom 10%.
The cool thing about the Silverfish era that I came up in was that you were connected to hundreds of other riders that were the same level as you, and not that mediocrity was necessarily celebrated, but it was expected. We were there to help the newbies, and we definitely fanboi'd over the greats, but there's a wide swath in the middle that was really cool to be a part of (flashbacks to the images of Malakai Kingston carving down Maryhill on a Neversummer pintail).
Big agreement with Kevin's reply above. In order to grow the scene, we need new riders, media catered to learning, and sessions on hills that allow beginners to build their skill.
I love what edge crew is doing in san diego with our group sessions. Regularly scheduled sessions that also cater to beginners are great, and I'm very glad to participate.
I try to make an effort to teach people at our weekly freeride sessions. It's so much harder to figure this stuff out solo, because you don't know what you're doing wrong and therefore can't fix it. When someone experienced can diagnose"youre not turning enough and need more front foot weight", it can save you a lot of time and effort. Trying to learn all of this solo pre 2010 was incredibly hard.
What I'd like to see is a reboot of basic tutorial content. Style and body positioning has changed a lot in 15 years, and some of those old videos don't hold up.
For example, watching someone do standups on a demonseed with their feet at 90* and chest facing sideways isn't going to be helpful if you're riding a trendy modern board with 8" less wheelbase and no double drop. So a modern version of that video explaining that your feet and body should be more straight, you need to carve more, etc. Would be very helpful imo
@Gabriel Fockler
What I'd like to see is a reboot of basic tutorial content. Style and body positioning has changed a lot in 15 years, and some of those old videos don't hold up.
This is something that I've noticed a lot, too. I'm in the process of relearning, and mostly it seems like I'm doing it on my own (which isn't necessarily an issue) since all of the old videos are outdated. I think that it's more than just tutorials, too, like basic deck, wheels, and trucks info. I think that a lot of companies do a good job in terms of explaining their new stuff, but there's much less beginner-oriented content centered around modern products in general.
@Zach Maxon I think vids do that best, and a lot of stuff out there is retired/ NEEDS to be updated to get people going with as little issues as possible. As Gabe just said lol.
We have been pushing as hard as we feel won't be annoying on here for people to start writing up some writen instructions for how to's because me and @Teplitzskate think this is a big hole in information that can be fixed. Our secondary giveaway for this month through however long will revolve around pushing for this in a new format. I'd do it all myself but I value comunity involvement, and honestly don't think I could do the writing myself at a level above average.
@Gabriel Fockler
It's so much harder to figure this stuff out solo, because you don't know what you're doing wrong and therefore can't fix it. When someone experienced can diagnose"youre not turning enough and need more front foot weight", it can save you a lot of time and effort.
Agreed, and I am super happy with how SD has been for the past ~5 years.
Not to sound like an ad in this thread but, I beleive in this site, and our long term strategy to be more visable to an outsider, a place I am really hoping those who are welcoming of newbies will put their own information as well as group info is right here.
@Eric Sparrow Clickbait sells, I was photographed by a someone who happened to be on site at a spot 2 days ago with @Pete Hirsch and the dude photographing only knew of Spud and because of this he said all that we do is way to risky for him to join.... He was fairly unaware of the precautions 99% of us take to make sure we don't have issues or look bad to the Gov specificly (we've seen what can go wrong in Laguna Beach, LA and recently North Carolina.)
When people think of DH as wreckless and dangerous in ways that, for most of us, it is not, it sucks badly.
We need to show more of a positive, acheivable level of skating that is currently not in the spotlight, which is a uphill battle worth fighting.
@Matt Needs Wheels I think that a lot of people outside of the sport when given the term "downhill" confuse what we do with hill bombing on a skateboard. I think that the term "freeride" honestly does a really good job of differentiating the sport from hillbombing, but I do realize that term is limited (doesn't apply to people racing/skating handsdown etc).
@David Serate I don't even bother saying "downhill" most of the time lmao, puts the wrong idea in ppls head.
