How to battle speed wobbles, death wobbles, confidence wobbles.

The best way to battle speed wobbles is to NOT get speed wobbles. Easy enough and it actually is. I think about 95% of the speed wobbles people get are from skating a hill that is way beyond their skill level and not knowing how to footbrake. The other 5% is out of your control and may be due to hitting a rock you did not see, going over a man-hole cover, hitting a patch of rough road, etc. But for the most part if you read what I have to say below you should avoid getting the wobbles…. for the most part.

Keep in mind that how calm you are will determine how bad the wobbles can get. If you remain calm and loose you may be able to ride out even the gnarliest death wobbles. Just let it flow.

This is a good rule of thumb and you should follow it: DON”T SKATE A HILL THAT YOU CAN’T FOOTBRAKE DOWN.

Too many kids just hop on a board and go down a hill without even knowing how to footbrake. You must take the time to learn how to footbrake and with this simple skill you can avoid a lot of unnecessary wobbles. Because the key is you footbrake before the wobbles happen.

FOOTBRAKING TIPS

Find a nice gradual mellow hill in your neighborhood. Start from the top and get going at a slow speed and then put your back foot down (heel first of course) and drag it until you almost come to a complete stop. Then get up to speed again a little faster, not much faster and do this again. Keep on doing this and increasing your speed until you are comfortable.

Next step would be to go to a bigger hill and do the same thing. Here are some instructions on how to footbrake, haha I look Amish.. FOOT BRAKE

The good thing is that once you can footbrake well and you gain confidence with it you can skate almost any hill out there. If you get going too fast then you just footbrake to slow yourself down to a speed you are comfortable with and bam you are golden.

Please practice. Once you get your footbrake down, other methods of controlling speed are learning how to coleman slide and hands free slides.

HOW TO SKATE A NEW NEIGHBORHOOD HILL

Please don’t go to a new hill and start from the top and get going too fast and go splat on the ground. For beginners and especially those that do not have strong foot braking skills go to a spot on the hill where you know you can skate down with no problem and cruz down. Next time work your way up a little higher and do the same. Build up your confidence. There is no need to show off and go right from the top, because if you fall and get injured you won’t be able to skate for some time and it is not worth it.

With time and experience, just by looking at a hill you will know if you can do it or not and where to start.

IN A SPEED WOBBLE

If you are an experienced rider you should for the most part not have to deal with speed wobbles because you can sense when they are coming and before they come you either lay down a footbrake or a slide. If you get a wobble from hitting a weird object in the road, you know to relax and ride it out or gain your balance and throw down a foot if you think you need to.

For the less experienced rider here are a couple situations to help…

SITUATION 1…..You come to a new hill and you think you can go down it from this high. Well you get pretty close but towards the bottom of the hill you start to develop wobbles, what should you do?

If you are close to the bottom of the hill I would say ride that puppy out, do not try to run it off because most of the time you end up supermaning it on the ground. 1) Relax do not stiffen up, take a deep breathe.. this helps. 2) Do not lean back, keep your weigh over your front foot. 3) Bend your knees slightly and put your arms out for balance. 4) Ride that puppy to safety with a smile.

If you are in a crouched position (different than a speed tuck) and you get the wobbles do not try standing up quickly. The motion of standing up and changing your weigh may throw you right off.

SITUATION 2…..You come to a hill and you start pretty high up, and you start to go down. All of a sudden you got a case of the wobbles and you still have a good chunk of the hill left to do and you are picking up speed.

If this happens to you, well I am sorry to say your chances of surviving really depend on how well you can footbrake. 1) Remember to stay calm, breathe, relax. 2) Try to gain your balance standing up straight with your arms out. 3) HOPEFULLY you know how to footbrake and you might want to try this, really concentrate, this is basically your only hope, get that foot down smoothly and you will be golden. 4) If you can’t commit to footbraking you can try riding it out but if you have a lot of the hill left chances are your wobbles are going to become so intense that by the end it will be impossible to stay on. 5) If there is grass around you, you might want to steer your board to the grass, better to bite it on grass than pavement. 6) If you have slide gloves on and you know how to slide, squatting down from a stand up position can be very sketchy but you might be able to pull it off and get your hands down to slide.

Anyways, as you see, in this situation you are over your head because if you knew how to footbrake you would have footbraked before you got the wobbles because you would have been like crap I am going way too fast already.

END NOTE

Regardless we will all fall from a speed wobble, it happens. But there are definitely steps you can take to limit the wobbles you get in your life. Be safe and remember to learn how to footbrake.

Adam C.

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