MIKE VALLELY
BONES BEARINGS
PRECISION SWISS
GATOR
Continued from Pg 2
It's still going to be as fulfilling. There will
still be that thrill.
Do you enjoy the attention you receive
from people as they respond to your
skating performance?
Sure, who doesn't? I'm not saying I'm a
ham, but I think humans enjoy getting visual
recognition. I get bummed when kids come
up to me at a contest, when they know
there's a lot of pros there, and they push the
pen and paper in my face. It makes me feel
more like "Skater-X." It makes me feel like
I'm pretentious, "Well, you're Gator, so you
are important." I'd rather have them say,
"Hey, have you ever skated a deck with a
notch cut out of it, like three inches deep,
in the side, then went and skated a backyard
pool and hung-up on a frontside slash-back
and pulled it back in because you had that
notch in there?" Something related to
skating, not "Let's get autographs from pro
skaters." "What's your name, can I have
your autograph?" I'd rather have somebody
compliment me for doing, say, a frontside
disaster or something.
Could you estimate about how many
boards you've gone through, ridden and
wasted, since you first began skating?
I've been skating like eight years, so
about seventy-five to a hundred. I'll go.
through street boards really quick. In about
in a week, two weeks they're beyond
recognition. A ramp board I can keep like
three months, riding it two or three times
a week. A backyard pool board, I'd say I
shrap one of those in about a month. That
gives you an idea of which type of skating
is most harsh.
Do you have a different board set up for
each kind of riding?
For a backyard pool with tight transitions
I'd wanna have loose trucks, and in the
street I like to have loose trucks, too, so that
means I can use those boards both ways.
On vert I like to have a board with a good
tail, one that's not scraped down, and tighter
trucks, harder wheels, 95 to 97, 98. Pools,
you can go 90 to 97, but on street it's 90 to
94 durometer, nothing harder than that.
Unless you've got real smooth cement,
that's a different story.
How do you set up a board when starting
from scratch?
For all of my boards I use these rubber
shock pads that go between the actual riser
pad and the board. A thin 1/16" piece of rub-
ber that absorbs a lot of the shock and helps
keep your nuts and bolts from coming loose.
It helps eliminate the vibration. I use very
strong aircraft hardware. For bushings I use
a white Tracker bushing on the bottoms and
a hard, clear, coned Tracker bushing on the
top, replacing them when they become
deformed, or bent out of shape. As far as
adjusting the truck tightness, I crank the nut
down 'til about 6" of the bolt is sticking
out over the nut. When I ride loose trucks
I use semi-hard bottoms and semi-hard tops
and tighten the nuts 'til they're flush with
the top of the kingpin.
As for the decks, I like a basic shape with
a lot of nose, like four inches, flat tail with
a flat back and rounded corners. I don't
think too much about concave. I like four-
teen to fifteen inches of wheelbase,
mandatory, and six inches of tail.
I stretch before I skate and I like to be
healthy and physically in tune. If I'm not
skating, I ride a bike or do sit-ups or an all-
around workout in the gym.
Where were you born?
I was born Puerto Rican in Brooklyn, New
York. Moved out of there when I was three
to Old Town, San Diego. I now live in Escon-
dido. I'm a Leo, I like to play guitar, acoustic.
I love the Beatles; they're the dieties of rock
'n roll.
What would you say is one of the
highlights of your professional career?
Not to say that this is the most important
thing, but I beat Tony Hawk at the Del Mar
spring contest in '84. Reflecting back, Tony
and I used to skate against each other in
contests as amateurs, like small-time San
Diego contests, and I used to always beat
him. As far as other highlights, every time
I skate is a highlight.
What do you see in Mark Rogowski's
future?
I have corporate interests (Cont on page 109)
BIG UGLY
RAILS
NEW MATERIAL
30% LIGHTER
MORE FLEXIBLE
SUPERIOR SHAPE
AND SLIDE CONTROL
ROB
ROSKOPP
MEL-O-DEE
UGLY STIX UGLY NOSE RAIL BIRD
BIRD I SUPER BIRD TAIL
FEATHER RISER PADS
18903 ANELO
GARDENA, CA
POWELL PERALTA
101