wheelie

when we were kids, me and mr doo used to spend hours on BMX bikes learning to wheelie. We spent most evenings in a wisbech car park, which was always empty, and we could use the lines of the car parking spaces to gauge our success. In the early days I was lucky to keep the front wheel up for more than 2 or 3 spaces, but this soon became 10, 20 spaces until I was clearing the lot, leaving the car park, turning the corner and riding all the way past st. peters gardens to the market place on one wheel.

Fast forward a few years and I would be trying the same thing (on smoother tarmac) on a skateboard, except they are known as manual rolls, but the principle is the same – keep moving, keep the front wheels off the floor. car park spaces make the ideal yard stick

This morning skateboarding to work in the pissing rain I was struck by the urge to start doing manual rolls seeing if I could get the whole way across a section of different coloured tarmac as I skated along by the docks at hotwells. The whole strip is divided into these sections and I know if I succeed in clearing one, then i’m going to want to try for two, (three…..)

and so the commute to work gets that little bit more interesting 🙂