What you wish you knew before starting street skiing

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OldParkRatAnybody spray a layer of clear coat on a rail before hitting it in order to fly under the radar of property owners?

We take pictures of the already fucked up parts of the rail to claim that the damage was already there

In terms of preparation, bring more food and water than you think you'll need. Always good to have extra water if other people run out. As mentioned earlier, it will often take more time than you anticipate.

If you're filming, have plenty of layers, good shoes/boots, and some gloves that you can film with. Layers are super important because if you don't have enough, your extremities will start feeling cold first, even if you have gloves.

Not only should you bring spare batteries but switch them out pre-emptively so that they don't die unexpectedly. Always have a second angle whenever possible.

Salting can help a lot, especially since there will often be less speed than you think. It's also a good idea to invest in a good reliable shovel that won't break.

Don't build the lip too big. This matters less if you're just hitting spots for fun, but if you're filming then you should definitely keep it as small as you can while still being manageable for whatever you're trying. Also build the lip over the stairs whenever possible. From personal experience, it really sucks to be watching a clip later on and realize that it didn't look as good as it could have if you had done things differently.

When you're skiing, it's easy to just be super focused on the trick and not worried about the filming but I would recommend playing back at least one clip just to check that it's getting filmed in the way that you want.

The topic of shoveling the stairs can be controversial. I wouldn't ever recommend leaving the stairs buried since that would somewhat defeat the purpose of skiing street. While it's always more impressive to have less snow on the stairs, my hot take is that it sometimes makes sense to leave/add some snow. For example, if you have concrete stairs that are dry and sticky then you may want to sprinkle some snow on them so that you won't go over the handlebars when you land on them. I find that wooden stairs slide really well and don't need any snow. I think what it comes down to is that you want to keep the essence of street skiing by not having so much snow that the rail might as well be in a park. But at the same time, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, and it's ok to make compromises

rojo.grandeThis thread didn’t age well

Come hit street with me in Augusta next winter my dude there are tons of small and large spots with natural speed

hi_vis360Come hit street with me in Augusta next winter my dude there are tons of small and large spots with natural speed

I’m beyond there. I’ll be living in Farmington so won’t be too far, and the boys will for sure be down. Clips on the house!

There's also this one rail in belfast outside of Adam's house I'd really like to hit.

hi_vis360Come hit street with me in Augusta next winter my dude there are tons of small and large spots with natural speed

CeleryThere's also this one rail in belfast outside of Adam's house I'd really like to hit.

You talkin bout Adam tangerone? He greased that this year which is fucked cause that thing is aluminum I’m pretty sure

rojo.grandeThis thread didn’t age well

What went wrong?

I am, I had no idea it was aluminum. I ran into him at the skatepark and he showed me the clip.

hi_vis360You talkin bout Adam tangerone? He greased that this year which is fucked cause that thing is aluminum I’m pretty sure

muffMan.What went wrong?

East coast having shitty winter is my guess

WhacksonEast coast having shitty winter is my guess

Nah in most of Maine we had good snowcover from mid January to mid march

biggest challenge of street skiing is convincing a bunch of baked and hungover dudes to go hit a scary rail instead of ripping laps at the resort. I usually just go solo because of that

hi_vis360biggest challenge of street skiing is convincing a bunch of baked and hungover dudes to go hit a scary rail instead of ripping laps at the resort. I usually just go solo because of that

Yeah this is the real struggle. It really can be a tough sell. "Let's go shoveling in the cold and hit a scary rail instead of spinning some laps at the hill. Don't worry, it will all be worth it for our video that probably won't get many views." I personally do think it's worth it, but it can be tough. Respect for going on solo street missions.

switchlip2Speed bumps are OP

Yeah this