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.
