S
Backside off-the-lip, street ditch
Upland Pipeline, granddaddy of skate parks, core of
the "Badlands." Micke Alba grinds with authority.
Backside grind-in, Steve Shelton, "the Pool"
"Hey, let's go!"
Driving, tapes and a nightmare Upland grandma traffic session
(all in big Buicks, complete with compass on the dash. Buicks so
big, if you swing 'em into the wind, you could land jets on 'em)
and we're at the 6th St. wave. Meeting us was a fence to hop, a
police helicopter nearby, a few of the Alba bro's friends and beer.
The 6th St. wave is a two sided ditch that has huge mellow
banks at the top and runs downhill with the walls dropping to
about 10 feet high and getting progressively steeper until they
are unrideable and vertical into the bridge at the bottom of the
hill. Oh yeah-there's also a 3 foot wide "deep enough to hurt
trench that blocks side to side action in the intermediate part
between the mellow and unrideable sections. Salba pushed off,
careening down the bank for speed, cranked a hard bottom turn
(narrowly missing "the trench") and rode straight up the most
unrideable part forcing a both truck, no coper, carve grind before
re-entering with a loud clack-clack and a laugh. Micke pushed off
into a Bertelman slide and the session was on. The police
helicopter circled nearby and a sheriff drove past. A few beers
later, the session raged on and everybody was skating. About
this time, a couple of local farmers showed with a rifle and sat
directly across from us. We continued to skate and they con-
tinued to watch until almost sunset. Somewhere in there, the
police helicopter must have bailed, I guess. I'm also guessing
that the farmers with the gun left when we did, I don't know, I
never looked back: we had a curtain call (sunset) date with Mt.
Baldy pipeline.
More "Badlands" driving and we're dropping off one car at a
square ditch in the heart of Upland and all of us are piling into the
truck. I snapped a few cold windblown mountain sunset shots
and saw a reservoir in between changing pool wheels for softer.
flatback, "yro" (another extinct brand) wheels. When we checked
out the pipe (wet) it was damn cold. We skated down way gnarly
twisted asphalt trails to enter the ditch anyway. It was under a
fence and "Hey loan me that truck wrench," as we paused at the
top of an 8 mile square downhill full vanishing point" ditch. As I
stood there contemplating the speed that would be attained
carrying my camera down an 8 mile downhill, Salba and Malba
were explaining the rules of "rollerball to the six or so assembled
riders preparing to "shoot the line." What?
"Anything's legal (like rocks, glass, pipe and barbed wire) to
knock somebody off their board as long as you're moving when
you pick it up... in other words nobody's holding going into it, and
after that everything's legal," they informed me as we pushed off
and quickly picked up speed in the smooth ditch. It got hairy
quick without anybody trying. Large amounts of barbed wire
were strewn across the first mile or so. Dodging it at over 30 mph
was imperative...it was like a video game except you didn't get
a "free guy." If there wasn't a line through the barbed wire you
simply had to ollie it.
When the barbed wire cleared up, I snapped a couple of pics
of Malba speeding past me bouncing large rocks off of the
ground. Great, I forgot about the Rollerball. The rocks bounced
at different heights and different directions for maximum effec-
tiveness. They (rocks) were also pummeling down a mountain in
a square ditch at well over 30 mph like I was. Dropping into a
tuck, I discovered, added a good 10 mph and I was able to pass
the rocks and catch up to whomever I wanted to snap photos.
The pack spread out a bit. Then, while virtually alone in the
middle, I pulled up to the sidewall, put 5 toes over the nose and
got a screaming endless cement "tube ride," as bridges whisked
overhead dragging my fingers just off the cement wall which was
blazing past me.
At the peak of my speed I hear a loud growl as Salba, breaking
the silence, whips by me, pointing to my feet and a length of pipe
he was holding indicating he could have killed me right there. I
dropped into a tuck, chasing him as we whipped past a body
(one of ours) all tangled in a heap of barbed wire where there
was only one makeable line in the whole ditch. Guess he took
the wrong one. After 8 miles of balls-out fast skating, I couldn't
believe how long, smooth and fast "shooting the line" was. We
slowed down and climbed out of the ditch where we left the other
car. The two wounded luged down and were only scraped. We
then regrouped at the Alba household and were offered a raging
dinner but had to decline due to time constraints. Me and Scott
5
Don slides into a bert at the 6th St wave.