This weekend in the cities of San Marcos and Austin, Texas, downhill skateboarding enthusiasts gathered for the 2007 Cold Fusion Sizzler, which included giant slalom and downhill speed events.
Here is a link to some video from Saturday. If it looks like they were going fast, they were. Top speed was over 50 mph. For those who aren’t skaters out there, 25mph is fast enough on a skateboard to be scarey. Over 25 and you really need a good helmet and safety equipment. In the 35+ range most serious riders use a full motorcycle helmet. At speeds over 20 mph, there’s a phenomenon called “speed wobbles”. Your front and rears trucks hit a weird point there they sort of sync into a wobbling oscillation, which is scarey. Usually if you just stay calm you pass the particular speed range and get out of the wobbles. Of course, at those speeds you really can’t just jump off. Doing giant slalom on a 50 mph hill is very ballsy. So my point here is that these guys are “real men” – even the women.
Congrats to everyone, in particular Chris Doan, aka gorillabisuits, and Greg Stubbs, representing DFW.