The Youth Rally rocked! Still, I can’t believe it is over already…Totally miss you peeps that I just got to know and, I hope to get to know those other people that I didn’t get to meet. Nevermind, I’m gonna go to the Rally in KL in December. Can’t wait!

Hmm, it seems like I have not posted in some time. I wonder what happened to me. Since the, I have plenty of skateboarding related injuries. Now it really seems like a good time to get some legit protective gear. I do not really have much to type in this post. So I’ll end it here. This is just a filler post and not an informative post. That is coming later kut…lol

You Are 32% Vain

Okay, so you’re slightly vain from time to time, but you’re not superficial at all. You are realistic. You know that looks matter. You just try to make them matter less.

How Vain Are You?

Year after year without failing, those polite neighbours slash and burn their land. But WE instead have to suffer…this sucks. After some complaints, they say “Sorry lorr”. Moreover, Malaysian government are actually going over there to spend money to stop the wild fires. Which would happen again next year…

My geography teacher suggested that we line up a wall of ‘big fan’ on the West Coast to blow/tiup the blardy haze back to those ‘extremely kind’ neighbours. Worse thing is, I can’t skate. Jerebu wad. Can’t release ‘tension’ by skating…Inhaling the thick air in a very humid condition really irritates me…sweat n sweat..*haih* MIGRATION!!! But can’t leave my beloved teh tarik back home…Enough rantingdot dot dot

Well, there have been rumours circulating around recently concerning about deck quality. It is said that some chinese manufacturers uses only two plys of Canadian maple in their boards although they claim they are 7-ply canadian maple.

There is a clear difference in the wood grains of the canadian maple and chinese maple.  The grains are more compact on the canadian maple compared to chinese ones. People who knows this usually chooses decks with compact wood grains because they know that it is canadian maple. Ah, but here is where the trick comes in.

Manufacturers uses only canadian maple wood plys on the top and bottom. Then, they use cheap and weak chinese maple. Sometimes, even the distributors get ripped off. They order for a full canadian maple deck from the manufacturers. They pay the manuf. the full price for full canadian maple decks but they only manufacture decks with two canadian maple plys. So the manufacturers reap the ‘extra’ cost paid to them by using cheap chinese maple.

This happens to most distributors that have their decks made in chin, thinking that they can save on labour cost. Not only the distributors is on the losing end, the skaters is the ones that also loses out. They are paying the full price for a full canadian maple deck but have a weak deck consisting mainly of chinese maple. Even worse, most skaters who does not know how to distinguish chinese and canadian maple can be tricked with a full Chinese Maple deck with a ‘100% Canadian Maple’ sticker on it.

But these are all rumours only. Either way, beware of who you are buying from or where the deck is made. If possible, STAY OUT OF CHINA. Although I may be a big fan of ‘Made in China’ products, but decks is not somewhere I am willing to get tricked on.

I’m sure all who skates have met this problem before. Be it a BMX, heely kid, scooters, rusted bikes low life, ass planters, sliders and much more. The catagories is kinda self explantory execpt rusted bike low lifes, ass planters and sliders.

Rusted bike low life

These are the kind of people that tries to fit in the skatepark and fail horriblly. They wet the park by coming in after bathing themselves in a public pool, litter all around, act like morons and leave their bikes at the bottom of ramps, race around the park like it was some race course and stops people in their tracks. Most importantly, they come in those ‘kampung style’ bikes. Some groups even smokes just for the fun/cool of it. Most are are way underaged. Not smart to find problem with these kinda people. They come in gangs. In my book, these are brainless people wasting rice and oxygen.

Ass planters

These are the pople that sits on, above, at the bottom ramps and on rails. They block considerate skaters that are trying to skate. When the skaters hold back till the limit, they either get yelled at or get hit.

Sliders

This kind of humans are those that slides down ramps like it was a playground slide. Wet sliders are worse. It makes the painted surfaces unsafe. Why are they wet you ask? Well, the came directly from the nearby puclic swimming pool.

One part of me says run all living obstacle over with no mercy. Whereas another part says that I have a role in out skaters reputation. I could easily send someone into a coma by only going down a 10 foot bank.

I’m fine with some BMXers. We even trade skates and bikes for a while. Respecting others gets retured with respect for each other. But then there are as*holes which thinks they rule the park because of their ‘Made in Golok’ BMX…They can’t do anything except going in a big circle, cutting off everyone.

Then there is the rusted bike people which do not even have proper bikes and tries to fit in by parking the idiotic, rusting bike at the bottom of a bank or ramp. Once upon a time, I broke a spine off their rims and they tried to ’settle’ it out. They were both chunky/fat so I bailed to the highest, steepest, stairless ramp. They were shouting like chimpanzees at the bottom and I ignored them. What a day.

Next, we have people that plays various sports in the skatepark itself. HELLO! A skatepark is for skating. Not badminton, futtsal, squash, football, frisbee along with other unimagineable things. There is a HUGE field enough for each individual sport to played out but they decided it would be ‘hip’ to block off others in the skatepark.

Another thing is those ’smart parents’ that guide their children, parading along with bags, mats and a plethora of thing to carry, THROUGH the main area which we skate. Not only that, they take their own, sweet, time. I just really feel like clipping one of them in the ankle. But with the speed I can obtain, they might not walk again with a shattered ankle. So I reconsidered.

Scooters are fine if they do not cut me off on my big airs. There is a 3 foot funbox area and I do not bother them there. If they act bossy and race round the park, somebody’s gonna get hurt real bad.

Heelies are fine in the ‘beginner area’. Any cutting off people and there will be some shouting. Then we have people that climbs our concrete ramps and slide down like it was a slide in a playground. This is not only youngsters but old, fat, jobless folks do that too. Childrens are understandable, but when their brainless folks encourage it and joins along, that is unimagineable. It makes me sick.
All who are mentioned are ’supposed’ to be mature enogh to think, but I guess not. This is just a post to express what I feel about them, RUBBISH.

Some time ago, I thought that bearings with very little lube would be beneficial in terms of speed. So I washed my bearings and lubed them with very little lube. At first, it does feel slightly faster.

But upon my regular checkup, I found that the balls and raceway have slightly turned silver-ish blue. Looked like it overheated and changed colour almost to the point of welding together. So I washed the bearing and lubed accordingly and the dis-colouration disappered.

Conclusion, lube with ample ammount of oil. Meaning 2 drops of oil for each bearing. But for sidewalk/street skating, a thin grease would protect the bearing better. Use roughly the ammount of grease needed to fill three ball pockets aka three blobs of grease the size of three balls.

This is what I did when I got too much time…

A nice design only fits a great deck from Rupert Rage…

The underlayed stickers are prisim[sword handle], reflective[skull & headband] and chrome[blade of sword]. Looks nicer in person…

I just remembered the meaning of xoxo after reading this. Simplified, x means kisses and the o means hugs. I also learned S.W.A.K. whick is Sealed With A Kiss. But SWAK sounds funny ler…like the sound that comes out when somebody gets slapped. Haha…

If you didn’t know, I designed some skateboards for Phe William, the owner of Rupert Rage sometime ago. It was for his upcoming Pop Pop Skateboards.

Here is the ad.

I designed a few more but they did not have space to squeeze them in.

In return for the designs and photos, he sent me four decks, two set of trucks, one set bushings, lots of stickers and four sheets of griptape.

I gave my younger brother one set of trucks, one deck and griptape. Before I could snap a photo, he has already assembled them…

The decks came in assorted coloured veneer

Here is the bushing

Well, this bushing have a unique design where the top bushing interlocks with the bottom one. Tensor actually sell trucks and other things also.

*No photos of trucks*

Back on topic, the total cost of the whole shipment is about RM550. This is way more than what my designs and photos cost. Yet Phe is generous enough to send them to me. He even called me to tell me that he have sent the package. He is a real nice guy.

On the testing bench or board or whatever,

Well, after setting up my own deck, I anxiously waited to skate later in the evening. When it was time, I took my new setup out. At first, it felt kinda awkward but it was a WHOLE new setup. So I skated around to get used to it. Strangely, it did not took as long as it did with other decks. Must be something to do with their decks’ concave.

The pop in the deck is unbeliveable. Really crisp feeling. My ollies got slightly higher than usual. The trucks were carving smoothly. Thanks to the trucks design and also the unique bushing. The griptape is okay, compareable with some name brands ones. Really keeps your feet on the deck.

This all I can say on my first test. I’ll report back when I get to further test it.

Thank you Phe, for the products.