"Shaka bra dude, whats cracklin'?"

I was rountinely greeted with the above question many years ago by the manager of the surf shop where I worked. I always thought it sounded stupid for several reasons. 1. We were in Virginia Beach not Hawaii. 2. I hated the laid back surfer mentality that pervaded the town. 3. Virginia Beach has no waves at least not during the summer. I could never figure out why the surfers and the zillion wannabe's in VB thought their shit did not stink because they had little to no surf to act so cocky about.

Compounding my misgivings about the aforemnetioned lifestyle was the zenith of my immersion into hardcore punk and specifically skateboarding. As skateboarding was breaking away from the surf culture that spawned it, it became way more aggressive and the pasttime of choice of punkers across the US when they weren't getting into other trouble. This was well documented in the film Dogtown and the Z-Boys . My friends and I who skated went out to travel around town to find interesting places to hit and tear up and give the finger to anyone who challenged us. We were tossed or run off many locations by owners and cops. Never deterred, we would just go look for the next place to wreak havoc.

Minor Threat: Great DC tunes to get fired up to and then go skate.


I came to really enjoy covering great distances whilst hitting places along the way to rip, fall on my ass, whatever. These epics became routine for me during my time in college in DC. My buddies and I would start up near Bethesda and skate all the way downtown to the mall. We'd stop and tear up curbs, transitions or walls and then tear down some of the amazing downhill streets through Georgetown. Sometimes we'd stop at book or record stores or bars and grab a brew for additional fuel. On multiple occasions after skating all day we'd creep back to Georgetown and get Sushi and Sake all the while filthy, reeking and usually bloody from playing in the street for hours. I found these epics and street skating far more enjoyable than ramp skating. I skated ramps and vert and was okay, but I just would get bored too quickly trying to the same tricks or lines over and over. Not to mention often waiting to get a run or having to snake someone to drop in. The "sessioning" never did it for me. Its like going through same door over and over and expecting something different on the inside. The 1st time is fun, but it gets old fast. The same is true for many things.

Now I ride. I do not "session" on my bike although there are many that do. It bored me back than and it still does. I love hitting nasty lines, jumps, stunts and obstacles while riding, but I want to do them within the course of a ride. I may stop and try a section once maybe twice, but then its time to move on. I don't like to "practice" on my bike and to me that is what "sessioning" feels like. My favorite rides are long flowing trails with many technical sections and opportunities to get nutty. I climb and descend and flow through all of it. If I do not make a section I might try it again or maybe not; its not that important or entertaining.

The most entertaining trail in my vicinity is Freedom Park in Williamsburg, VA. Over the last year+ a number of stunts have been very well incorporated into the trail and more are going in all the time. I am very pleased that the building and design has been top-notch as it becomes very easy for these kinds of things to look awfull or worse be unsafe. As much as I love hitting these spots throughout the trail I believe that they would suck if all clustered together w/o the trail. Sure you could "session" them but interest would be rapidly lost as it has on another local trail where all the stunts are in one small area that is not part of the system. I stopped to "session" a new spot that was finished yesterday out there and while fun, I found myself becoming agitated just sitting around after hitting it a few times. I did not get to ride the bulk of the trail as the sunlight was dwindling and we had spent more time talking than riding. I will try to avoid this during my future visits. The best thing about yesterday's ride for me was seeing and talking with a family who were riding with their young daughter. The mom said that she and her daughter mostly stuck to the fire roads, but they did get out onto one of the fast downhill sections. The daughter excitedly said that she went so fast that her face turned "pale". Now that little girl has an epic under her belt. Cool.