53 'Til Infinity: Ron Allen Part One

Ron Allen gets a lot of respect for skating hard and putting out street parts at 53, but to really get it you have to put that number in perspective:  at 53, that makes Allen 4 years older than Mark Gonzales, 4 years older than Eric Dressen, and 3 years older than Natas Kaupas. When H-Street exploded with Shackle Me Not way back in 1988, Ron was already 25 years old… practically ancient by 1980’s pro standards… but he’s still going, and going all out.

But Ron Allen is not just a skate rat with a storied career, He’s a man who really thinks about skating, a man who has taken decades of experience and refined it into real insight.

So, when I ask Ron the million dollar question: is today’s big-time, mass popularity era of skating better than the nostalgic, underground hard scrabble days of the 80’s, I get an answer that spins us off into a lot of different directions.

A Wheel/Journalistic Ethics Review, Or, Why Skateboard Product Reviews Have Always Sucked

For decades, skateboard magazines have dealt mostly in celebrity.  Skaters buy mags to see and read about the exploits of famous skaters, not to get practical information that helps them skate. Sure, there are occasionally gear reviews and trick tips, but these are inevitably useless.  Skateboarding is not a spectator sport, our culture is driven almost 100% by actual participants, yet our mags are basically selling spectatorship. Compare that with the mags that serve cyclists and runners or particpants in any other physical hobby: in other disciplines, the media is driven by things like training tips and comically exhaustive equipment previews and reviews. Nobody would buy a copy of Runner’s World if it was nothing but pictures of famous runners doing laps, but that’s kind of what skaters re doing when they buy a copy of Thrasher or Transworld.

The last thing I want is for Thrasher to mutate into Golf Digest, but I’ve always felt that there is a place for something more “rider-oriented”, in skating. Figuring out how to do this, however, is not so simple, and plunges a writer deep into the weird, murky depths of skating’s unique nature, revealing just how complex and substantive skateboarding really is.

Keeping Things Rolling With Speedlab Wheels

Bill likes them.

When Speedlab Wheels started in 2002 it wasn't about cashing in, it wasn’t even an act of rebellion against big time skateboarding. Speedlab started because a skater named David Rogerson couldn’t find a wheel like he wanted to ride.

“Speedlab began because no one was making bigger wheels.” Explains Speedlab's current owner, Alan Keller “Back then, you couldn’t find anything over 58 millimeters.”

Now Speedlab has changed hands, but Speedlab is still all about getting skaters the kind of wheels they want and deserve but can’t always get.