MetaMuse

Longboarding the Long Walk

Joined some gentlemen last Friday   called the BastardBombers in their pursuit of speed on a skateboard. Basically they are a bunch of 30 something longboarders who get together every week or two, intoxicate themselves (social drinking, really) and skateboard down hills. I'm officially "BB42".   Check out their web site. Yes, I wore full my full body armour (sans fullface helmet) -- if you saw what we went down, you would too! We rode down the Long Walk from the Copper Horse towards the castle (see first picture at this site), then again from the castle (via a narrow street of Windsor) and back down. Fun stuff. Jenny met these guys on the Long Walk last Fall and made the connection. I remember Chesney calling me right then while I was in a taxi between meetings with investment banks -- suit and all. What contrast.

Why "Kickstand"?

As much as I'd like to believe, Kickstand is not a phallic reference. After giving notice at 121Media, I wanted to change my display name when I logged onto MSN messenger -- the whole "out of sight, out of mind" objective. The fewer reminders of my existence, the less likely Kent would think of me. I was listening to Soundgarden on the way back from a great DH, freeride and dirtjump session at Chicksands (http://bedsfattrax.org) in Bedfordshire, when the tune "Kickstand" came on. Sounded like a good moniker for me, I thought. After working very hard buiding companies the last many years, I needed to simplify my purpose for a short bit -- until on to the next project. I then decided that my purpose (amongst others that can't be avoided) was to keep my bike up and not eat shit, whichever of my bikes I happened to be on.