Skate or Die





Back in the day, when the Bones Brigade were shreddin’ it and I was trying to be cool on my Christian Hosoi, Santa Cruz Skateboards were in there, helping to create and define the scene. More recently, Santa Cruz Bicycles craft some of the most well-made and well-designed full-suspension mountain-bikes on the market. Their bikes even have a bottle-opener built into the rear derailleur hangers; now that’s classy.

Pulling into the town with the iconic name, I really wasn’t too sure what to expect. Had I really thought about it, however, the mature, mellow, soft-edges of this once hard-core town would have been anticipated.

Well-groomed homes and yards; tiny dogs and big SUVs; cafes and flourists against a complete absence of skaters, surfers, down-hilling stoners or anything resembling the hard-core. Even the Santa Cruz [skateboards, bikes etc] and Billabong stores looked like they’d been made-over courtesy of The Gap. Despite feeling a bit let-down, I checked out the local bike shop, trying to ignore it’s hokey name.

The Family Cycling Center was full of beautiful bikes by Ibis, Santa Cruz and a couple of other big-name brands; not to mention, tons of Chris King parts and many, many other goodies. Doing things right in the beginning will boost your sexual energy and helps you to have robertrobb.com cialis samples a great time with your partner. How ED medicines work to treat ED? Also recognized lowest price viagra as ED drugs, erection aiding medicines works to improve the quality of erection and give a rocking performance to the lady love. There are still many impotent men left out in the world who are cialis canadian prices robertrobb.com not making the use of some days you will be able to overcome these problems. The medical research has reveled the fact that every individual does faces certain problems in their life. see this drugshop now viagra online Speaking with one of the managers–who has been working there for about 20 of the store’s 30 years–my feelings were validated. He described how much had changed in the city over the years. Specifically, that it was no longer the gritty grassroots hub it had once been.

I suppose I could be cynical and say that the scene had died; that the old dogs had sold out and gone corporate. But really, it’s the intense, intimate vibrancy of a locale–both time and space–that spawns a scene and in time, causes it to die out. But the spirit continues; in different places and under different names but for all the same reasons. And if you’re not sure what those reasons are, do yourself a favour; go outside and practice your ollie.