THEY are thicker through the middle these days, and sometimes a little grey around the temples, but they still know how to carve.
These days, however, they come out only at night.
They are a group of veteran skaters travelling across Melbourne, from Fitzroy to Frankston, Coburg to Box Hill, to skating together as the city sleeps.
But they were recently spotted out at Newport Skate Park.
Trevor McQuade, who rode the Spotswood drains in the 1970s as one the first wave Australian skaters, has skated at Newport since the park opened.
He was dodging younger riders, who would certainly come off second best if they met at speed, and was happy to have found his place among like-minded veteran skaters at the evening sessions.
“The idea behind coming down in the evenings is that most of us are working during the day and it’s dark by the time we all get home.
“You get beautiful clear nights, and we realised we could have the park to ourselves.
“I come down here with my boy, but tonight he’s working while I’m out playing for a change.”
Mr McQuade said his mind was still willing as he padded up, oiled his wheel bearings and took to the bowls and ramps of Melbourne, but he quickly realised a few things had changed since the ’70s.
“It takes a while to get back into shape. You realise how unfit you’ve become, and the recovery rate is a bit slower.
“I don’t remember injuring myself when I was younger, but I noticed all the slams when I got to this age.
“Our Saturday night party drugs these days are anti-inflammatories.”
Bernie Griffiths, of Newport, is another regular on the late-night veteran skate scene and said the group lit the skate parks using low-noise generators and work lights, as the city’s younger skaters headed reluctantly to bed.
Mr Griffiths said it was a myth that skating was a youth sport, a myth that paid no due to the more than 30-year history of the pastime now regarded as a legitimate sport.
“These sessions are mostly people getting back into it. We go out at night, light up a park and away we go.
“The kids don’t really bother us – it’s past their bed time. If they do show up, we tell them to put money in for petrol. They usually take off.”
Hamish Cheyne of Newport is another veteran who hasn’t managed to shake the skating bug since it bit way back in the 1970s. Not that he has tried too hard.
Mr Cheyne has been back on his board since the start of the year, when he was attracted, like a moth, to the lights and the familiar sounds of sliding polyurethane wheels and the slap of plywood on concrete.
“A lot of us were from the first generation of skaters, from when the craze first hit in the ’70s. I had about 25 years off.”
“We never had skate parks in the ’70s, they hadn’t been invented. Having these perfect curves to ride on is really a new experience.”
Mr Cheyne said like many veteran skaters, domestic issues – rather than homework – could interfere with time at the park, and ‘skate points’ had to be earned from ‘better halves’ before they could pad-up and head for some late-night action.
“Skate points is definitely an understood term among the older skaters. I’ve got to get certain things out of the way, things around the house, that give me a few credits,” he said.
