A little history for those who don’t know me well… Before falling head over heels with riding bikes of all shapes and sizes I spent most of my teens seeking out the steepest twistiest smoothest bits of tarmac to ride down on my longboard. I took this pretty seriously, had a fancy leather suit with my name on the back and a pointy mushroom aero helmet, and did a load of road trips into Europe in search of mountains to skate down, Jaegermeister to drink, and goth metal to listen to whilst auf die autobahn. I made some lifelong freinds, went to some awesome places, and couldnt really imagine a time when it wouldnt be a big part of my life.

I gradually moved away from that world for a number of reasons. The obvious one being that cycling was becoming a huge passion, and getting into road racing meant that the thought of ruining my legs playing about on boards when I had a bike race at the weekend was enough to put me off. The other factor was an accident at an event in Slovenia in which one of our crew was very seriously injured. Nobody needs to hear the details and fortunately he’s all fixed up now, but it was a pretty dark day and definitely flipped a switch somwhere in my brain that made me much more concious of my own fragility. I stopped feeling like I could ‘let go’ and enjoy it the same way after that, and couldnt really shake that feeling.

Fast forward nearly ten(!!!) years, and I rode my downhill board again last night. Only on a small urban road, but pushing flat out and squeezing my tuck like it was a race run. I was barely scraping 30mph, which In downhill skate terms is sort of where it starts, but it felt amazing. On coming back to this stuff I’m seeing it through such different eyes. I don’t care about being fast, have zero desire to race, or do what’s ‘cool’ or be competitive, I’m just loving the pure joy of flying down a road with the wind in my face. and hitting the corners with my hands down, grabbing rail, like its 2012.

I’ve included a few snaps from ‘The Old Days’ below for anybody who might be curious about what the heck I’m talking about here.