There is nothing worse than a rainy day when all you want to do is go for a roll outside. Your brain and feet were ready for it, your board perched by the side of the door waiting to go! But rain is a skateboards kryptonite… So what should a skater do when it’s grey and miserable? Don’t let it stop you! Here’s 5 suggestions of ways you can still get your fix…
1) Hit your LOCAL INDOOR SPOT. Wherever you are in the world, these days you are never too far from an indoor skatepark. In London we have Bay 66 in the West and The XC out in Hemel Hempstead. Both enjoyable options for a bit of indoor playtime, each providing a bowl, and street area. Plus the XC has a killer mini ramp! A great substitute when the outdoor cement is slippy. Go during the day when the kids are at school and not only will the rain not stop you, it will brighten your day!
2) A spot of BEARING MAINTENANCE, a practical suggestion from skater Lucy Adams. It’s probably been a while since you gave them a clean, if you ever have, and got all that skatepark muck out. As Lucy puts it:
‘get your hands/carpet/kitchen sink all greasy and then if that wasn’t enough to make you wish you hadn’t bothered, you’ve ended up threading your axle and the bloody wheel won’t go back on!’
Hmmm.. don’t say we didn’t warn you.
3) Some SKATE SPECTATING of the TV variety. Line up all your favourite parts back to back and watch them on repeat. Lucy’s line up would be: ‘Peter Smolik in ‘Fulfil the Dream’, PJ Ladd in ‘PJ Ladds Wonderful Horrible Life’, Adrian Lopez in Zero ‘Dyling to Live’ and then probably the whole of ‘Chomp on This’.’ And we were going to say put ‘Pretty Sweet’ on again…
4) Play some S.K.A.T.E. or if you are a 90’s gamer Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Both are considered revolutionary video games of the past few decades and are great virtual substitutes for the real thing. In fact we spend most of our time in S.K.A.T.E. attempting to ollie with our lifelike computer created character and crashing into walls. Pretty realistic…
5) CRAFT something from your old skate decks like Thrashion do. If you’ve successfully managed to break a board or upgraded to a new deck, you’ll likely have your old forgotten friend perched somewhere getting dusty. Time to give it new life! Nat from Thrashion makes jewellery and playing cards from old broken decks, and a friend of ours made us a picture frame from a snapped board! All you need is a shed full of DIY equipment or a B&Q nearby..and a bit of time and YouTube and the skill to do it…
There you have it, 5 suggestions for a rainy days skate. Oh wait… the suns just come back out.
