표
coping, leaning into a front-
side grind followed by T.A. lift-
ing the same coping block out
of its slot and slamming it
back down...gnarly. Tater
and Fuzz spotted a piece of
plywood laying around and
put it up against the coping
for added height. The boyz.
proceeded to climb past the
coping and up to the top of
the plywood, wheeling, tapp-
ing and grinding off the top.
The force put on the plywood
got to be so great that the
makeshift wall would occa-
sionally fall back and pull
away from the wheels of the
skaters, leaving them sus-
pended in the air. They would
turn in mid flight, making it
time after time....
"Yeah, right," you say to
yourself. "That doesn't.
sound so rad. No 540's,
720's or handplants." What
you don't know is that ses-
sion was in the summer of
'77 and that those guys had
no pillows on their knees...
Now that takes balls.
...How 'bout the time at
Mount Baldy with Steve
Olson, David Hackett and
Steve Alba? Eleven o'clock
frontside thruster sliders,
rockwalks, high speed carving
el rollos, fifty-fifty grinds over
the lip and twelve o'clock.
click-outs were common
place. Not to mention exits
consisting of a channel ollie
over the pit into 50 mph runs
down the line. Or streaking
widow maker from the top in a
tuck...without pads.
Balls...a five letter word for
"no fear." Balls can be
displayed in different
ways-street balls, vertical
balls and speed balls. The
biggest fan of speed balls is
Roger Hickey. This is a crazy
man from Huntington Beach.
who likes to go fast. Real fast.
Like 81 mph while laying on
his back. Insane you say?
Well, that reminds me of
Opposite: Steve Schneer throws away
his board mid-flight frontside and
grabs a replacement from Tony Mag-
nusson during a demo at the NSA am
finals. Photo: Steve Keenan
Right: Upland Pipeline was THE
proving ground in 1978. Resident raver,
Charlie Ransom (top) edge-carves the
pipe bowl. Years before it was dubbed
the invert, handplant or whatever, Jay
Adams (bottom) called it skateboarding
and did it best in the backyards of L.A.
Photos: Bill Sharp
Z-FLEX
CRUZ
FSX
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