Skateboarding the Mountain This Morning

It used to be a rite of passage for serious teenage skaters in my small town to skate a local mountain road on full moon nights. It’s a 1-1/2-mile pretty steep (in some sections) curving downhill road that is closed off to cars at night. It’s way too fast for me on a normal board, but I can negotiate much of it on a Carveboard, which has pneumatic wheels, and can carve very steep turns.

   I got up at 5AM, drove to the mountain, parked and towed my Carveboard up on a rope (like dog on leash). Unfortunately, I had let too much air out of the tires, and couldn’t get a rhythm going, except for a stretch at the end.

   BUT — I got to see the full moon going down over the ocean in platinum brilliance, while the sunrise lit up the east in an orange glow — ain’t complainin. Got back to town and skated downtown, which has just been paved. No people, no cars. Bombed a hill 3 times, with no worries about running into humans or vehicles. FUN!

About Lloyd Kahn

Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include Shelter, Shelter II (1978), Home Work (2004), Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008), Tiny Homes (2012), and Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:

3 Responses to Skateboarding the Mountain This Morning

  1. Yeehaa! Hey Lloyd, better to work out halfway down the hill that you have too little pressure than too much! Though that could be way more exciting. Thanks for sharing. Terry in Oz

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