As seems to be happening to an increasing number of people, I have been evangelized by James Peters and company over at Pavedwave into building a longboard optimized for pumping (where you use a surfing motion to propel the board, rather than pushing off with your back foot.) As a father and an old fart, I can’t get much joy out of aggressive hill-bombing or sharing the road with cars, so surfing bike trails sounded just about perfect.

My RoeRacing Mermaid LDP deck arrived the other day in a giant flat cardboard envelope, and I bolted on some Carver CX trucks and some giant sticky 3dm Avila wheels and went out to give it a try.

I spent the whole session howling with laughter (which was probably creepy to watch, given that I was all alone,) but I’ve got the thing self-propelling (slowly) up and down small hills, and I can surf parking lots without ever putting a foot down. It will be a long time before I’m logging respectable mile times, but who cares!