A Day Out

Had a day off work today.
Went down to Brighton, parked in London Road Multi Storey near Preston Circus and walked into town.
Did the usual shops before a spot of lunch in favourite pub The Mesmerist.
Had one of these to wash it down.

Brewed with Chocolate and Crystal malts to produce this deep bronze-coloured beer with a subtle malty flavour. Bittered by the traditional Golding hop varieties, and then cask conditioned with Chinese stem ginger and other warming spices to add that distinctive aromatic warmth.

Very nice it was too.

Then it was off to favourite cinema, The Duke Of Yorks to watch The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
The new one with Daniel Craig in it. Hadn't seen the other one or read the book so can't compare them. Enjoyed it though.
Really heavy rain on the way home made the M23/M25 interesting.

Project Death Trap part 5

Slight cock up on the wheel front part 2.

I thought I'd nabbed a bargain on ebay when I picked up some Power Paw wheels for 99p + £2.75 p&p.

Should have asked how big they were before bidding I guess.

47mm dia x 40mm wide.

Doh!

Trucks Of The Past Part 6

How about these then?

I'm pretty sure that I saw a pair of these at Old Skool Jam 2.0 earlier this year on an old slalom board of Dave Boyles.

Here's a couple of DCS boys checking them out whilst Dave look on.

Christmas Cheer

A mate at work had a tour of The Windsor & Eton Brewery he was very impressed especially so by the Special Edition Black IPA, 7.4%.
He gave me a bottle.

Next day another mate at work who came to the end of his contract gave us all a bottle of Adnams Broadside as his leaving present to us to remind us of him as he's a Suffolk lad.
Cheers RCB, you'll be missed mate.

Say Cheese!

Had our works departmental photo taken the other day. This years car and trophies.

Motoboard Hero

Been busy recently, not busy with the Motoboard unfortunately.

Found this a while back.

Car jumping on a Motoboard. Looks like the record could still be 5 cars (for now).
Best get busy...



I wonder what happened to Vaughn Shafer?

Hey he's still doing it!!!!

Vertically Challenged

Click for bigger image

This was in the April 78 Road & Track magazine that I got the other day.

Carlsbad Mogul Maze. And hey look I found the picture here too.

Looks like Bryan Beardsley on the right and Ty Page on the left? Both wearing Free Former team shirts so I guess so.

Project Death Trap part 4

During research into the motoboard I discovered that US car mag Roar & Track ran a feature and road test on it in the April 1978 issue, I managed to track a copy down on eBay.

I've scanned it here. (click on pages for supersize readable pics)

There's some great ad's and articles in the mag too, I might scan some of them at a later date.

Project Death Trap part 3

No work on D-T today.

Here's a picture from Skateboard! magazine issue 5 (January 1978).

I've also discovered that mine is a pre 1979 board dated by the two addresses, Sunnyvale and Carlsbad on the sticker.

Think I'll swap the ACS 500 on the front for something a bit wider, the original in the ad looks to be Fultrak size, I've got some ACS651 knockoff rollerskate hangers so think I'll bung one of those on until I can track down an original Motoboard International front truck.

Original price tag was a hefty $650

Project Death Trap part 2

Started to strip the board down today.
Non-drive rear wheel is a Motoboard International branded 63.5mm (2") diameter, it had no bearings but a strange arrangement of washers, spacers and locknuts.

The back has a moulded in metal insert which is threaded, look like at sometime somebody has attempted to fit the sprocket to it.

The drive wheel is a Blue 65mm Kryptonic (2nd gen) which is worn down to 59mm.

This had bearings in it (gasp) but they were a slightly unusual size. Should have dug out the vernier calliper and had a proper measure up but look like 10mm internal diameter, 22mm outside diameter and 8.5mm thick. As opposed to normal bearings 8x22x7.

Now obviously I'll need some 10mm internal bearings to fit on the axle. I see Octane sell some for £18.50 a set of 8, can probably find cheaper from a non skate supplier I reckon and I'll only need 4 anyway.

Screwed to the back of the Kryp is the sprocket, fixed in place with 4 x 1.5" self tappers. As you can see I started loosening them before I remembered to take the photo.

This sprocket looks in okay condition but the one on the engine end has a tooth or two missing. The chain is fairly knackered too.

The engine is fixed to the rear truck so that it leans meaning that the chain runs straight as you turn.
It had a bottom bushing which had been compressed to death and no top bushing. Kingpin nut is oversized.

I had planned to fit some Hang Ten wheels that I purchased a while back from ebay but they are only 59mm diameter so a bit on the small side. I have some old Powerflex 5's which I turned down years ago to use on my rollerskates. They have a flat back which is good and at 65mm a nice size.
I'll have to keep an eye out for other options I guess.

Realised as I was packing everything away this evening that I haven't checked to see if I've got a spark at the plug yet, turns over okay so hopefully if I've got a spark it should run.
A friend at work has a petrol strimmer engine which may have to be brought in to service as a very last resort.

Project Death Trap

A few years ago I saw something bulky for sale on ebay which was collection only in Nottingham, got in touch with TonyG from MAS ( a man I've never met but knew he lived in Nottingham) and asked if he could pick it up for me if I won the auction, he said of course he could.
Well, I won the auction and he duly picked it up for me, after photographing it for me he passed it on to MonkeyLegs Pete from MAS so that it could make it's journey further south towards me, and it then sat in Pete's garage for a couple of years as we couldn't get our arses into gear to organise anything.
Recently I realised that a guy from work was making regular trips to the vicinity of Petes house and mentioned I needed to pick it up, he offered to collect it for me and delivered it to work for me.

Ladies and Gentlemen I give you the Motoboard...

Obviously mine isn't in as good nick as one in a 33 year old advert and will be an ongoing project for some time I should think.
Got the original stickers on the bottom though.

Handy as it's got the 2 stroke mix ratio on it.

Lots of work to do on it, wheel bearings have collapsed for a start, front truck is a replacement ACS500 with no name wheels and strange looking bearings. HT lead is cracked, pull start missing, carrying handle missing, air filter box missing (?) the list goes on.

More Spooky Tweaking

Finally got around to putting the Spooky back together after the recent repair.

I'd also recently ordered a drop through mounting kit from Octane Sports which contains some thin rubber shockpads which sit between the baseplate and the deck, in fact they are so thin I don't think they'll actually do much and some funky rubber backed washers for the underside.

Whilst I was at it I also installed my new carbon fibre baseplate covers.

That griptape and sticker job is still bugging me though.

Day Off To Skate

Went up to XC again today

Took a few photos, this chap was good.

Bloody Shrink Wrap

I hate it, why do this to wheels?

The people at Abec11 are tormenting me, they know I can't bring myself to open it.

Snot Shots and Big-Zigs

Alex Barton

I took this at XC on the 3rd October.

I like it.

Taken with the Canon from a distance with the 28-200 zoom, 79mm f5 1/200.

Alex Barton - Lovenskate team rider.

Project Spooky

The Spooky had a small chunk out of the tail when I bought it.

now thanks to one of my mates at work it doesn't, carbon fibre implant bonded in.

thanks Russ.

Happy 50th Des Mondo

I made the long trek to the far north (of Essex) for Des Jam.

The old fella was 50 yesterday, showing no signs of slowing down yet though.
Good job there weren't candles on his cake...

I had a bit of a bad day photo wise, the battery on the Canon is shagged and went flat after only 4 photos. Looks like I can get a 3rd party replacement for under 20 quid mind.
I'm also still struggling to get the settings right with the K20d and my timing was a bit out too.

Managed to get a couple of ones I was semi pleased with.

This guy was crazily good or maybe just crazy, this wasn't a make. He did drop in from here though and made it half way across the flat.

Sean Goff was there too, good to see him enjoying himself,  Rock 'n' Roll in the big bowl. The only semi acceptable shot I took of him.

Jellyhead was trying to wear the coping out.

Dean was too, in the pool...

...and in the bi bo

I managed a few scratchers in the pool, but still struggle in there with the uphill to the deep end.
I did hear a rumour that phase 2 of the park is planned and Dreamland are building a clover and a snakerun, fingers crossed it's true (and that they aren't uphill)

I Want One

Wanted one of these for a while now after reading about it in a camera magazine.

The Kalimar Action Shot 16.

16 lenses take 16 small pictures on 2 frames of 35mm film over a 2 second period, originally designed and marketed for golfers to analyze their swing.

I've had a search on ebay going, I was excited when I saw one pop up, until I saw the price.
Action Shot 16 on ebay


A bit like my Lomo Action Sampler but with 4 times as many lenses.

Wiggle & Bomb

Had a text from Trev on Saturday inviting me along to Ash Ranges for a longboard session. Not the first time he's invited me to be honest, usually had family things going on or have used up my skatepass already in the morning.

Nearly didn't make it again as I had a house full of sister-in-laws, a brother-in-law and a nephew. Got rid of them in time though, that sounds harsh but needed a skate on the Spooky.

Met up in the station car park and after a short walk/skate reached the hills, some people already there including a guy with a Slick Willie's Pool Rider complete with some nice Trackers, I would rather have seen some period correct wheels, Road Rider 4's, Powerflex 3's or 5's or something along those lines instead of the Krypto Impulses.

So the slalom cones were set up and then after a while we went off to walk/skate the hills to the top.
Then set off back down avoiding the dogwalkers.

The last ride back to the cars was interesting as the light faded very quickly and it was darker under the trees.

p.s Agent Orange soundtrack as demanded by GoofyFootGray. 

Seeing As It's Nearly Halloween

I bought myself a Lush Spooky.

eBay (sort of) purchase, Lush team rider/warehouse manager Mark Penman's 2010 Spooky Prototype with Sabre trucks and Cult Death Ray wheels.

Those random stickers are gonna have to go. There's a small 2 ply delam chunk out of the back which I will patch up.

And There's More

Two photos taken yesterday with the Canon, I'm quite liking the shots taken with the zoom, makes a change to the fisheye shots.

Here's Paul on the miniramp...

And here's Des going over the deathbox...

More XC

Another day off and another trip to XC.
Trev suggested we take the 8 wheelers so we did.

Trev warmed up on the mini ramp

before taking it to the pool...

I hadn't skated mine for over a year, in fact it was the first skate on it since I redrilled it and chopped the nose off.

It was all coming together by the time I was too tired to do anything about it.

Des was there today and was doing his usual ripping, including this deathbox grind...

And an over the steps shot ended in a front wheel to fisheye lens incident...

resulting in a crack lens hood...