Skateboarding

Looks great! What do you call that aesthetic?

Reminds me of Baywatch.

It’s a logo I designed for him: He wanted something with 90s mtb feel. Baywatch logo is very much vibe-adjacent!

Old/New(old).

Thanks to @606 I now have another 10-15 years of NoSkoolzery ahead.

edit Geeking out here, but a quick bearing swap from the Skaterbuilt ditch wheels and a scoot around the streets and they're everything the Skaterbuilts are not.
The story I heard was the ditch wheels were cosmetic defects of 3dm wheels, conical lathed front and back for a Santa Cruz church glass type of profile. Narrower contact and bigger diameter, they should piss all over the NoSkoolz... mmnah.

Cool. Enjoy.

simpsons/onion/belt gif here

Bought my first skateboard, 25 years after last playing on one as a kid - any good resources/tips for a 30-something learner?

Get good at pushing, rolling around on different stuff, turning and carving. this is the foundation of your skating so take time on it. If your pushing is bad it doesn't matter how many tricks you can do you will not look good on a board.
Watch Stereo 'A Visual Sound'. This is what good style on a board looks like.
Try to stay relaxed.
Have fun.
Don't be embarrassed about being a beginner in front of other skaters. No one will give a shot, everyone learnt once and most will probably be very open to sharing tips.
The amazing resource beginners have now is that they can video themselves. So much easier to see where you are going wrong.

^ Excellent advice here.
Things I found useful -

1. Bend your fucking knees, even if it feels like you're pretending to do a shit. You'll be more stable and in control "but at the very least you'll have less distance to fall" - A pro skater from the San Francisco Bay Area.
   
2. Ride everywhere you can, as much as possible, over shit surfaces if necessary. Commute (now it's dry and warmer) if it's not too far, it'll drastically improve your pushing.
   
3. Learn all the things that might not be considered 'real' tricks, for example foot drag, throw downs, carving into corners, no-comply pick ups, kick-turns, tic-tacs, strawberry milkshakes, just jumping on the board (no ollie) whilst moving, manuals, pushing switch. - All things that even if you can't ollie (I can barely), will make you feel like less of an imposter and give you greater confidence on the board.
   
4. Make sure your first aid kit is topped up, you will fall, it's part of the process, otherwise you're not trying or you're not riding.
   
5. The community is generally welcoming and people are keen to help if you're struggling. The amount of off-hand advice I've got that immediately improved my skating is invaluable. - whilst on this point, when pushing, if you keep your front foot behind the front bolts, you'll be more stable and less likely to go flying if / when you hit a death pebble / fart stone.
   
   

I've been tempted to go to Hop-King's adult beginners night on Mondays if anyone is also keen?

Not much to add to the above. I started skating ‘properly’ again about a year ago (skated a bit as a teenager. Was shit). I initially was focussed on learning tricks - flips etc - like when I was a kid, skating car parks. Actually, I’m really near several skateparks now and after a while I worked out i should be just getting the hang of carving around a park: going up and down banks, carving transitions etc and not worry as much about tricks. After doing that for a bit, I’m now starting to add tricks in to the mix and it feels so much easier and more confidence inspiring. For a beginner (or re-learnerer) Knowing how to kickturn, pivot, manual and generally move about in different ways on a board with confidence > flippy spinny tricks.

Also the more confidence you have on a board, the less you’ll hurt yourself when you do inevitably slam. I find it always hurts more if I’m not feeling loose and confidence, because I’m more like to fall in a weird way, rather than just roll a bit.

get that ‘rangefinding’ slam done early then skate the adrenalin russssh

I had a dream I wa skateboarding last night. Was quite competent, carving around and doing that skid thing folks do to slow down these days. Maybe it's a sign.

I had a dream I had a dead dog (west highland terrier) called ‘Lucy’ who could only be seen by me while everyone else saw just a lead. Dun dun DUUUUNNN.

Ha, I like that term. I’ve had a few slams lately. Had a fun one on Saturday where I had to bail in a big bowl, when a kid on a scooter thought it was a great time to appear in front of me. I just rolled and slid and only skinned myself a little bit. The two before were those straight up and down slams, where you can’t roll - you’re just heading vertically in to the floor and that’s it 🤷‍♂️ Fucking hurt!

I am tempted to dig my old stick out for commuting.
Soon to be changing jobs and it will be pretty much a 3 mile, flat straight line from home to work, with about 90% on a cyclepath/footpath/park.

I have a couple of old decks, one is setup with longboard wheels and the other regular wheels.

Any tips on rolling over "shitty" surfaces? the roads adjacent to the cyclepaths are covered in that gravel crap which inevitably coats the other paths. I remember having stones send me flying before.
Different wheel compounds? Shark Wheels? HTFU?

I've been watching a lot of skating videos which teach you the basics, my 4yr old has been given a skateboard by his uncle, so I built one to make sure he had someone to skate with if he gets into it - never having skated in my life, but all of the above is great advice, I'm much more about getting comfortable rolling on the board, strengthening my front leg, being stable on it, when bent, getting better form with my pushing leg and swinging from the hip when pushing, rather than pushing just with my lower leg and foot.

Bigger, softer wheels. I've got 60mm 78a on my cruiser and I have little trouble with gravel. You could go even bigger I reckon, depending on whether the deck has wheel flares / arches you could add risers, but then you have further to bend down to push.

I've never used Shark wheels, but they seem like the skate equivalent of the "concept bikes" thread.

Edit:
Snake wheels I have are fine, disclaimer though, this is the first skateboard I've ever ridden so I have nothing to compare them with, going to give my BiL's board a spin at some point, once my foot heals up, and see how it feels (his is a more standard small/hard wheel board) in comparison.

Thanks all, I’m not hugely interested in flips n shit at the moment, just want to get rolling around confidently so there’s some good pointers here.

Back on the skateboard after a couple of months off with a foot injury.
Current issue is the movement of front foot from being sideways on the board to forward on the board for the start of the push.
I’m finding if my foot isn’t pretty much straight I push and go off to my right. I’ve got no confidence in my push currently, trying to move from pushing with my foot and calf to swinging from my hip to push but my balance goes out of whack when I try that.
Any suggestions or should I just keep attempting to push on the board? I’m thinking I need to strengthen my front knee, just get steadier with it, when it’s bent and I’m leaning over it.

On the optimism front, feel much better standing on the board even after the time away, much more comfortable on it as it rolls.

Going to spend next week just getting back into doing 30m to an hour on the board to see how I improve..

Just responding to say I read this and I understand it must be a brain bender to overcome that sense of not trusting your foot to hit the ‘right’ spot every time - or maybe equating imbalance with impending emergency dentistry. Either way, time and practice is going to make that better, so your plan to put the 30mins sessions in is solid.
One of the great things about concave on a deck (and for middle agers like me - the kicknose!) is the way you get positive feedback on heel and toe placement. Maybe think of other cues too - use 1 domehead bolt on the front truck as a ‘home key’? (Slalom skaters will often use a mount on top of the deck to get foot placement dialled and foot retention sorted).
I was trying to think of something that’s been an equivalent hurdle for me and the only thing I could think of was going clipless. Those first couple of goes where you panic because you can’t unclip ‘in time’ (stacking it in a busy Croydon st the first time I did a longer ride) when there’s actually loads of time … and later you realise you just do it unconsciously and wtf was that all about?
Good luck!

I've seen in a few places people talking about balancing one-footed on the board (and building up the length of time you can do that), as a decent beginner exercise. My balance is generally pretty good but I can't get anywhere near 30 seconds on the board yet!

Uncouth, and yet…

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yeah I started doing that for a little bit when I first got the board, just standing on the board on the carpet in the hall and pretending to push whilst standing and bending the front leg. My knee stability isn't the greatest (previous non skating injuries) so I could do with building up the strength in them anyways, without having to resort to buying, a balance board or similar.

I think I know what the answer will be, but: I have a rad 8.75" pool style board that I painted and failed to sell. Should I a) sell it super cheap or b) build it up myself in to a cruiser, which I will probably never skate ?