A quick update

Anyone know where the anterior cruciate ligament is? Cos I know where mine is, at least on my left leg. It sits below the kneecap in the gap between it and the tibia/fibia combo. And it hurts! Currently going with rest and Ibuprofen; the latter is easy, but the rest of life won't stop for me to hobble to keep up. I exaggerate; I can walk fine, I just tend to cuss when navigating stairs. Pro tip: if it hurts rest up - I'm going to the docs at some point so he can jab it with a pen and tell me to ice it regularly and to keep off it, but also to maybe get out of heavy lifting at work ;)

In other news Ms Mary Crossland came round this evening, and with plenty of cheesy dance music and a smattering of rain we built the top roller for the kickers, so mega props for her for sticking around and I probably owe her a drink. Tomorrow will herald the finishment of that but also the construction of the euro gap, and a couple of other obstacles. I'n really enjoying making this stuff; I hope everyone else enjoys racing on it as much ;)
I'm intending to order a pile more wood from Totton timber tomorrow for arrival on tuesday, The ASDA shop for BBQ ingredients happens either wednesday or thursday, and we get the energy drink from our local Londis (lodge road, go there, the crew in there are really sound and their beer is competitively priced).

Tomorrow,tomorrow, tomorrow, being possibly the busiest monday/tomorrow since ,like, ever will include me heading down to reskue with my business hat on to chat about the race to the shop owner, and to tie XSS in closer to the shop. We've got stuff to plan, and we hope it'll drop soon :)

BEDTIME
Sleep well guys!

Good luck, bad luck

So yeah, someone took my Dropspeed from outside mah hoose last night. BIG SAD FACE. Anyone in soton sees the board on the right of the picture (orange otang inheat wheels, '09 dropspeed (snake) bear grizzlys and the obvious IoW grip), ask the guy about it etc get him to at least come see me about it or tail him home or something.
Also it's raining. DOUBLE BIG SAD FACE.

The new conundrum is: what's next? What random board will I pick out to ride around on next?
Mindless creeper (or maverick?)?
Lush Lopez or Elevator?
The latest dropspeed?
A homemade boarderX / skyhook'd commuter board?
Place bets now!

Additionally, after a really nice chat to Steve from Reskue Skate Store we are looking at support for the outlaw from our local! With any luck we're talking business over lunch on Monday, and we have a few teeshirts, whatever crap is in the dusty corners of the store cupboard and some mega stencils for the ramps. Talking of ramps, progress has been slow but things are getting there. Both kickers are up and the roll for the top is going to be started (regardless of weather) approximately 10 minutes after I publish this waffle of a post. Other items will happen as the rain clears as the glue's going to take some time to dry and it's going to be a bitch working on some of the big low elements while it's raining. Ikea's stash of £1 chipboard, although heavy, will probably be well used for rib structures, while the University has some promising looking heavy machinery boxes which I may try to pilfer over the weekend.

One last bit of news, Evans cycles are currently doing Bullet helmets at mega cheap so go check 'em out here:
http://www.evanscycles.com/categories/safety-security/helmets/dh-jump-bmx-helmets

Until next time, which will probably have pictures of ramps, Have fun and stay safe.

Timber and Ramp design

So I went and bought what I thought was a massive pile of wood - turned out Totton timber is a huuuuuuuuuge warehouse full of wood, and full of very nice people. My pile of wood was not really all that big all things considered, but the nice people were nice enough to not charge for what was technically 5 cuts, at £1.50 each. SAVING!
Currently sat in the van are a pile of 4'x4' sheets ready for rampmaking, which will occur tomorrow during the day. Normally I acquire timber (rather than 'get wood' - that's quite different) and then hack something together with the stuff I have laying about. This time is different, and I've gone to a lot more trouble to produce nice CAD designs using Sketchup, one of which is right here. The ramps in the CAD are not to the same accuracy as the final ramps, and I'venot bothered to update a lot of final design features that evolved while I was in the thinking cupboard (toilet), which I'll explain below beside the picture.
Kickers
The kickers either side of the big rollover are identical. They are 18" tall, and the sloped surface is 4' square. This makes the base about 3'9 long, and saves on offcuts of wood in making a standard wood size ramp face. The ramp face itself is actually two 2'x4' panels that bolt together and then bolt to the triangular sides. With some extra braces that bolt in, one full kicker will dismantle into a stack 2' wide, 4' long
and under a foot high. That means with a seat down in the back of a normal car you can fit both kickers. I'm also going to make connector blocks so you can use it as an 8'wide flat bank. The ramp faces can also be used for tabletops, platforms, whatever! Everything will become mega modular, and then i'll post some cool plans up somewhere for people to copy. Or maybe I'll make ramps for a living. Or both....

Rollers, a Kerb and the Euro Gap
Rollers will be constructed from ribs of ply or more likely mega cheap chipboard (Pro tip: 7'x2'x11mm chipboard £1 a sheet from Ikea Southampton!) with some titebond2 and some technical woodwork/prayers to hold it all together. Once again the largest part of these will be 4'x2', but with a height of around 1" for each of the two halves of the big roller for the kickers. Incidentally, this will combine with the 6" kerbs to make a big ground level rollover if one so wishes.

The Euro gap is a standard bit of interest to add into a bank/ramp. As pictured to the right, it's like a step has been cut out. This gives the challenge of clearing it going down the ramp/bank, or clearing it on the way up. Both parts of the euro gap I intend to make can be used individually as kerbs to ride off, and together allow someone to either ride over like a kerb drop or like a ramp. I'm not putting a rail in, sorry (No welding kit!).



Keep your bananas eyes peeled for the pictures of how the construction goes over the weekend.

Peas out,
Timmy

Hello!

Erm, this is like those awkward parties where you have to break the ice cos you don't know anyone. So this blog post won't be all that interesting - mostly just a bit of background that'll end up in the "About me" tab once I get round to filling the blog with content.

I'm Tim or Timmy, and have been longboarding for almost 7 years. I started on Lush Longboards, owned a huge pile of the old style Lush legends before riding a tula solidly for a whole year and a half. I subsequently got an Evo, and destroyed in in just under 12 months of continuous non-stop riding. I replaced it with a dropspeed that's now on it's way out. I currently favour Otang  75mm In Heats (Tim Peters Prize for Best All Round Wheel, 2 years running), purple and green sabre bushings and bears or randals. None of this fancy stuff...yet.

One of my favourite things about my current setup is it's versatility - on slightly worn InHeats and with flippable washers I can commute my board to and from work, loosen up to boardwalk, tighten up to race, just go out and shred on it, and do anything. It's a jack of all trades, but it's fantastic fun no matter what I ride.

I organise lots of stuff as well, go check that out in the tabs once I get round to writing it.

'Til next time,

Timmy