Hilo Hawaii Mini Skateboarding Tour!

[@johnthomas2877]

I dig your grip tape design it looks outstanding and cooler than plain black.

[@johnthomas2877]

This video brings back fond memories when I skateboarded there in my 20's. Thanks!

[@jackietreehorn8643]

I appreciate how you spiffied up for your court date. Most people wouldn’t bother! That’s how we do in the radii zone!

[@ryanrowe1975]

Great tour!

[@goofyfootgreg]

Glad you were able to get the charges dropped 👍👍

[@johnthomas2877]

There is also some bigger steeper 10 foot banked walls way upstream by the traffic lights that we also used to skateboard on but not so much anymore that we used to call upside trench which if you were able to skateboard it was definitely a badge of honor. I was one of the few that could start from the top on both sides frontside and backside. It felt like dropping down a big wave to us as most of us were surfers too.

[@barbarapenaroza6175]

Free Man forever‼️💯🙌

[@johnthomas2877]

The big rounded bump with the freckled colors we called the big drop. Only a handful of skateboarders could make the drop from the top in the 1970s and I was one of them. You needed to wheels your front wheels right before you hit the bottom or else the nose of your skateboard would dig straight down into the concrete and you would slam. Most of the time peoples front trucks broke right off the deck! Those days the noses of the skateboards were really really short almost non-existent called a flat no kick snub nose yet it still made contact with the concrete because the transition is so gnar!

[@Dezelbub]

Sweet ditch skating man!

[@johnthomas2877]

This was my skate spot everyday for 4 years in the late 1970s! This spot was called the big trench. The other smaller ditch that was in the middle of downtown Hilo was called small trench or baby trench. That one was torn down in the late 1980's. It was the Hotspot for skateboarding back then. It had a mellow long 4 foot bank with a 7 foot vert wall where we did the first ever wall rides on a vertical wall there in the late 70's. All of that is gone now and replaced with no banks at the bottom only pure vertical walls. But way upstream at the top of the canal is some other bank to walls that the city built in the 1990's but not specifically for skateboarding and be aware that there is a barking dog behind the fence that will usually alert the homeowners and they will call the police to kick you out pretty quickly since the main police station is right up that same road a few minutes away! We called this skate spot the Chinese trench because it's right next to a Chinese cemetery.

[@TheRaddiiZone]

Awesome to here a bit of history! It was super rough indeed, but had heaps of fun 👍

[@newvocabulary]

In the 90s used to call it sun-sun lau trench. Then they built the chinese cemetery trench which was ridiculously smooth and had wall rides at the far end. That thing was cherry. Wild times. The 80s skaters in hilo were nuts. Guys doing big handrails at the UH before it was really a thing in the mainland even. Even the 90s skaters were wild. The 90s rollerbladers actually were doing the worlds best shit, and made fruit booting look extremely cool. There are youtube videos of 90s skaters I can send you, as well as rollerblade shit. Hilo has crazy history, and no one would expect it to happen here in the rainiest town in the USA.

[@johnthomas2877]

We would never have to foot paddle on the flatbottom to get more speed because there was a surplus of speed back then when it was smoother. But I give you alot of credit for braving the gnarliness of today!

[@johnthomas2877]

This one time my skateboard snapped in half at the bottom of the drop and I literally body surfed across the whole flatbottom on my chest, but luckily in the 1970s the concrete was alot smoother and my tee shirt saved me from getting major road rash!

[@johnthomas2877]

Today you would need some really soft 78a or softer bigger skateboard wheels with riser pads. I would suggest ordering the new 65mm or 70mm cloud wheels with the super cushy nautilus style internal core. They just were created recently by a very popular electric skateboard wheel company called cloud wheels. The wheels are called lollipops and macrons. They are probably the smoothest skateboard wheels that you can buy today but it's only available by ordering online.

[@johnthomas2877]

In the 70's when it was smoother it was easily possible to kickturn or do high speed Bert's at the top of all of the walls.

[@johnthomas2877]

The big trench was alot smoother in the 1970s but today the bottom and banked walls are super rough!!! Nobody hardly ever skates it anymore since 2000. There are lots of big cracks puddles and debris that can easily stop skateboard wheels dead in their tracks and you go flying to the rough rugged concrete. I would suggest using a bmx bike instead if you are adamant about riding it as the bigger softer riding bike wheels will easily ride right over all the nasty cracks and super rough concrete. ,

[@freddysinke9575]

Fantastic little wild tour very good for the single skater proficiat 👋

[@johnthomas2877]

In the 70's there weren't much filming, no videos, cell phone cameras or the internet. Everything was raw and new. Stoker wheels and clear red road rider 2, 4 and 6 precision bearing wheels was the go to wheels back then. I melted a brand new set of small road rider 2 wheels one hot summer day while carving across the big banked walls. The bearing seats just became so loose because they melted and the precision bearings could just drop out of wheels. This never happened with the bigger 4's or biggest 6's because there was more meat on the urethane. You live and learn.

[@thomassawicki2065]

In 1975 I made the same search of Hilo's canals for skateboarding.

[@mrvaltinho]

How did you erase the selfie-stick? That's awesome!

[@TheRaddiiZone]

Check out @insta360 - camera does all automatic, did a review with settings a few videos back!

[@davidpope9231]

What kind of wheels you rocking on this vid?

[@newvocabulary]

In 1998, JR Grant ollied the giant dropoff in that trench.

[@normie.business.genius]

Criminal littering sounds like the premise of that song Alice’s Restaurant 😂 Rad Video. When searching for Animal Chin, always check the ditches first, right?

[@johnthomas2877]

To climb down into the Chinese cemetery trench you need to walk all the way up the cemetery then squeeze through the end of the chain link fence then walk down the right side bank. But remember watch out for the barking dog behind the fence on the left don't stay for more than 5 minutes because the home residents will call the police to kick you out.

[@misan2]

What wheels are you using there?

[@TheRaddiiZone]

Check out @SpeedlabWheels - I’m using the 97a Nomads 👍

[@Luke-Emmanuel]

Da place hadda gehh sweep out and yuh use soff wheels tuh rip dem black scapes yo

[@azra.akhiru2194]

Wild skater

[@denomapa]

Nice

[@JohnAnderson4242]

Best ditch evea!? It's basically a skate park.

[@newvocabulary]

Nah, it's harsh concrete and at the bottoms there's a little curved quarter thing that makes it a gnarly spot. It's fun, but if you eat it you get the cheese grater.

[@meilancon5765]

💥 "PromoSM"