Misc Posts on sliding.

Gutter slides

4/6/2001 Cliff Coleman wrote in from 216.224.xxx.xxx:

gutter/dirt grinds, both one and two footed.

Approach the side of your road with at least 20 mph of speed. Then do the first half of a Pendulum slide. When you slide back around to your normal stance let your board actually go into the gutter or off the edge of the road and into the dirt. Drop your hand that isn't on the ground to the ground. Your weight will now be over your hands which are still on the pavement drifting on your plastic sliding surfaces. Now let your feet drag the board through the gutter or dirt. It's more fun if there are some leaves to scatter as you drift through the gutter/dirt. When you begin to slow down, just bring the board back under your body and back onto the road surface. Then stand back up and ride away. With a little skill and because your weight is over your hands, you can also remove the back foot from the board and do one footers. These slides look awesome but are relatively easy to learn.

What is described above is for regular footed riders and would be done on the right hand side of the road. If you live where traffic proceeds on the left hand side of the road, then the above discription would be for goofy footers. If you do the slide on the right hand side of the road and are goofy footed, then just do a 180 slide to the gutter or dirt. Reverse this if your regular footed and riding on the left hand side of the road.

Good luck,

Cliff Coleman

--------------------------------------

bert/coleman?

On 4/14/2001 Cliff Coleman wrote in from 216.224.xxx.xxx:

Brad knows what he is talking about when he asks, "isn't a Coleman really a Bertleman or Bert slide? If you can get your hands on a Thrasher from September 1982, read the article I wrote titled, "Street Slidin'". At the beginning of the third paragraph I write about which slides and how to. The first sentence reads as follows, "The first two slides to learn would be the Bert and Layback slides".

Now you ask, how can this be? Why do people call it a Coleman? If you check the archives under "Techniques" you will find a post by Randle. The post is very flattering to me. Randle gives me the credit for developing a sliding style of riding that we did indeed create in the Berkeley Hills. However, Randle at that time called a basic Bert slide a Coleman slide and
the rest is history.

I have ridden those same Berkeley Hills since the days of steel wheels and then as a member of the Hobie team during the clay wheel era in 1965. I still ride those hills and will until my body won't let me anymore. I don't see that happening anytime soon. Myself and my good friends that ride the hills with me use many sliding techniques. All of them except the standing slides DEMAND that the rider have a sliding glove.

The sliding technique that is described as the Coleman slide is the exact same technique as the Bertleman or Bert slide. Brad you are 100% correct on this one. The difference is that Bertleman did his on Waves and mostly on Banks. We did the Bert slides and many other slides with slide gloves that allowed our slides to lengthen to what has now been measured at the longest at, 250 feet. This was done at Hiller Drive in Oakland, California by Chris Gilmartin. He was going Approximately 50 when he began his slide.

Being recognized around the world as the individual who started this sliding style of riding brings incredible pride. This is enough! I get to meet skaters and make friends In Australia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Japan, France and Korea. If I had the money you would have to know that I would travel to every race and as many countries as I could to continue skating and sharing the thrill of this activity, Skatebording.

Let's honor Larry Bertleman, a fantastic multi-sport individual by setting the record strait and continue to call what is commonly know as a Coleman slide a Bert slide.

There is a slide called a "Cliff Slide", named by Rich Dunlap, famous for doing the sliding stunt work in both "Thrashin" and "Gleaming the Cube". The Cliff Slide is where a regular footed rider approaches a sharp right hand turn and does the first half of a Pendulum slide, then takes the rest of the turn backwards before reverting 180 degrees back to your normal stance. Reverse this for goofy footed riders. Is anyone getting confused yet?

As I told Manu when he actually appologized unnecessarly to me regarding the Media calling the sliding techniques, "Euro Style". My response was and still is, Call sliding what you want. Just keep teaching it to everyone you can. The more people that learn sliding techniques will make it a much safer sport. MAKING THE SPORT SAFER IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THE WHOLE SLIDING PHONOMENA! The skating world now has these techniques but not everyone uses them. They are easy techniques, getting people to try it is often the task. Please pass these techniques along to others.

Enough said,

Cliff Coleman