Falling

The summer after graduating high school I went up to Michigan to visit my friend, Eric Christiansen. He always spent his summers at his family’s lake house in a small town called Sister Lakes. Eric competed in wakeboarding, and when I came up that summer he was going through intense training, with plans of going pro. Him and his two friends Ryan and Nick–who were also training to go pro–all worked in a small wakeboard shop together, and they’ve been hanging out every summer since they were kids.

When I went into work with Eric one day, I got to watch them mess around on a rail they built behind the shop. The rail started on shore and ended in the lake. They built a canal made of wood, then lined it with a tarp so it could hold water that they filled up with a hose. Whoever was hitting the rail would start in the canal and get dragged by their boss driving a boat. The rider would then grind up the a-frame, then on top of it, and down the other side of the frame ideally making it safely into the water. They secured pipes about two feet into the ground that were its foundation and kept the rail sturdy providing a direct line to follow into the lake behind the shop. Eric, Ryan, and Nick all had a blast playing around on it while their boss laughed from behind the wheel of his boat whenever one of them ate it.

One of the perks of working in the shop was that they got everything at half price. Eric told me I could get the same deal if I wanted to buy anything, and I couldn’t pass up that chance to get a brand new Sector 9 longboard. That night we went down to Bent Harbor and bomb hills.

Before leaving for Bent Harbor, we stopped by Nick’s house so we could pick up his deck. While we were there his goofy neighbor was standing with his cousin–who also shared a similar goofy and disproportionate resemblance–noticed the boards.

“Where are you guys planning to go skate?” one of them asked us.

“Bent Harbor,” Nick answered.

“Do you mind if we come with?”

“Well, we don’t really have anymore room in the car for both of you,” Ryan said, from behind the wheel.

“It’s cool, I can follow you guys in my truck.”

They rode behind us all the way to Bent Harbor and the whole time we were
skating. The four of us had to stop and wait for them a few times on the drive, but even more when skating. It was surprising though, that neither of them fell considering the steep hills we were flying down.

Bent Harbor was beautiful. The best roads we skated were the freshly paved catwalks that ran next to the water. Sometimes the trees would open up and you could see the lake while you were coasting downhill. Ryan led our train, followed by Nick and I with Eric riding right behind us, and the tag-a-longs trailed a few yards behind him. After finishing one run, we’d have to pump uphill till reaching the top, take a quick breather, and then go downhill again.

“This is the best hill we’re going to hit once we get up to the top!” Ryan yelled from the front, confidently leading the rest of our crew.

“Just be careful toward the end and make sure you don’t pump to fast in the begining. You’re going to slowly pick up speed the whole way down,” Nick warned everyone.

They weren’t over-exaggerating either. To this day, that particular hill was the best long-distance ride I’ve ever had on a longboard. The trees would sporadically open up bringing the lake into vision as you soared downhill. Even though, we each started slow, you inevitably picked up speed on the way down, like Nick had promised. Eric and I started messing with one another, getting our boards as close as we could forcing the other person as far to the side of the road when making turns. But, that game quickly came to a halt once we really started moving.

“We’re about to get going really fast!” Ryan yelled back from the front.

When he yelled that, I couldn’t see him because he was a few yards in front of the bend the road, which we all started to lean with. Before long, Ryan came back into vision. But a slow wide turn came, and Nick I lost sight of him again. We started really moving and it almost reached that point where you aren't necessarily skating as much as trying to stay on. But, it didn’t bother us that we'd temporarily lost sight of Ryan, because he had to still be riding only a few yards ahead. What did scare everyone though, was when we started leaning hard to the left anticipating road’s last big curve,then heard Ryan yell: “Oh shit, you guys!”

When Nick and I came around the turn and straightened stance on our boards we realized what Ryan yelled about. A storm from the night before had blown a bunch of sand into the road. It collected right at the intersection where the catwalk we were riding on bottomed out, just before going uphill again. First, we saw his board that was stopped by the pile of sand scattered across the pavement. Then, we could see Ryan sticking face first in a bush with his feet out, on the far side of the sand. It looked like a huge puddle of death from our perspective, laying there in the middle of the intersecting catwalks. Immediately Nick led his board off the road and into the surrounding trees, then rolled in the grass until coming to a complete stop. There is no way you could run it out when moving that fast.

“Bail!” I yelled back to everyone still following, while jumping off my board and landing in the sand.

When I hit the ground my feet kicked sand up on impact. The sand hit this couple approaching from an intersecting trail. The guy’s first reaction was understandably pissed and he probably wanted to kick my ass. But, his facial expression pulled a 180 once he watched three other skaters eat shit. Eric heard the warnings and bailed into the first nice soft patch of grass he could find. But the awkward neighbor and cousin weren’t so lucky. One of them tried slowing down by dragging his back foot on the pavement, but it backfired. He had so much speed that his toes dug in and threw his body face-forward into a sloppy roll across the pavement once his foot touched the ground. Then his cousin’s board collided with him from behind, but luckily the collision was anticipated and he jumped off sending only the board and not his body.

When all the chaos finally passed you could still hear the guy who took sand in the face still laughing. Meanwhile, his girlfriend was in a panic saying: “Oh my God! Are you all O.K.?”

Other than the road burn on that kid who, for some reason–tried slowing himself down dragging his foot on the pavement–as if it we the break on the back of a roller blade–everyone walked away with minimal injuries. But he did reiterate something good thing to know.

Never drag your foot and try to stop when exceeding 25 MPH, you need to either try riding it out or tuck-and-roll.