This morning I made the somewhat questionable decision to skateboard down the hill to work. I realised that I was running about five minutes late, meaning I was going to have to run a good 200 yards of the journey anyway, so a glance at my skateboard in the hall cupboard as I was putting on my coat was all the convincing I needed.
The ground was wet, so I wasn’t going to use it until about half way through the journey, where I knew the paths were comparitively smooth. I say comparitively, because Helensburgh’s roads and paths are in a dire state. The path running past the nearby school was pretty good, actually, so even though it’s uphill I used it to dial my balance in. Didn’t much fancy the steep, leaf-strewn descent that followed, though, and bided my time until I was down by Crazy Uncle John’s place.
After letting a man and his dog pass by, I was rolling. Precariously, yes, but rolling all the same and making up pretty good time. The rough path on the downhill stretch past the cemetery proved to be quite beneficial – slowing me down just enough that I didn’t go too fast in the damp conditions.
Round the corner from that and the pavement took a turn from the worse, like a patchwork quilt of tarmac that’s been dug up and filled in so many times it’s impossible to tell what the original surface looked like. I made it along with a bit of effort – it took lots of pushing to keep up momentum over the bumps – but this was the last skateable stretch and I had to carry my ‘board the last 200 yards.
Sadly, I don’t think I’ll be attempting this again until the weather is better, if at all. The poor condition of the paths just make it too risky, even on the bits I can actually use with a skateboard. A scooter might just have large enough wheels to cope, but what I really fancy is one of those Sinclair A-Bikes. £200 on a wee fold up bike seems a bit steep, considering I only spent about £180 more than that on my first mountain bike, so it’ll need to wait until I’m rolling in cash at some point in the future.
Until then, it looks like I’m back to walking.
