holy mother of god they're nuts

This ranks as one of the craziest videos I've ever seen.

Some of the commenters aren't fans of the couple minute preamble of them suiting up in powder blue and heading to the top of the hill, but I think it's perfect -- it adds a nice sense of ritual to the insanity of what they're doing.

The road they're on is a few miles from where I live -- it's Claremont Avenue, and hey start at the top of the hill at the corner of Claremont and Grizzly Peak Boulevard, and then head straight down to Russell Avenue; that's the Claremont Hotel they zoom past right near the end of both runs.

Here's the Google topo map of the route...

It's absolutely nuts to do that on a skateboard.

Comments

[Mike McCallum]

Yeah? They should go down Centennial. THAT would be something. For pure speed, they should try South Park.

Cheers

[dolface]

The problem with South Park is the stop at the bottom...

[dave]

How about linking them together? This used to be a mashup of Claude Lelouch's Rendezvous with a live Google Map. The video's gone but if you click "Go" you get the idea.

http://bhendrix.com/wall/Gmaps_GVideo_Mashup_Rendezvous.html

[Michael Sippey]

Really nuts would be going down the Marin Avenue hill. If they could navigate through the circle at the bottom, and make their way to the fire house at the corner of The Alameda, super great.

[Peter Steinberg]

Any chance you can do the math on the distance and the time it took and figure out their average speed?

[simon]

Have you seen this video of German skateboarders on
the Autobahn?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piIpz1tewEg

Or for that matter, this video of a guy skiing down the escalator at Angel Tube station in London?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFqQOlYE4EE

[fltii]

what was the person video taping this riding on?

[Michael Sippey]

@peter -- i haven't calculated their average speed yet, was thinking about doing that but then got lazy. lazyweb to the rescue?

@simon -- thanks for the links!

@fltii -- i *think* the camera was handheld and passed between the two riders. at least from the couple of times i've watched the video that's my best guess about how they actually did it...

[Ted]

Looks like it's about ~18 - 20 miles per hour average. The road you've drawn is 1.9-2.0 miles total and the majority of their trip goes from 2:30 - 9:00.

It looks way faster than that because of the low camera, and I'd bet that they get up to about 30 MPH on some of the faster spots (which would really hurt to fall from :).

[Michael Sippey]

@ted -- alright! thanks for calculating that; I really appreciate it. and man, on a skateboard that seems *fast*.

[redant]

Apparently, they *do* ride down Centennial, but in full body armor

[dan]

actually, it looks like they made the 1.8 mile run between 2:33 and 5:36, so about 3 min for the route; thats ~35 miles an hour. slick.

[barndweller]

beeeeeeeeeeee-youteefullllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!!

[G Spot]

According to this google map: http://maps.google.com/maps?lsm=1&saddr=start+%4037.868315,-122.218094&geocode=&dirflg=&daddr=Claremont+Ave+and+Russell+St&f=li&hl=en&sll=37.869636,-122.210884&sspn=0.023714,0.036478&a

It's 2.0mi, which in a car takes about 5 min (estimate).

The full ride appears to go from 2:33 to 5:47, which equals 3:14 or 194s.

(2.0mi/194s)*(3600s/h)=37.1 mph (average). They're probably getting around 50mph at the fastest, I don't ride a longboard but that's pretty fast.

[Troy]

the majority of their trip goes from 2:30 - 9:00

um yeah, but they did it TWICE in that timeframe ;)

[VANCOUVER LONGBOARDER]

These guys are professional racers. i have met them and raced with them. i can tell you they are hitting closer to 50mph. and yes they are passing the camera

[bike chicken]

I don't even like going down that hill on my bicycle!!! The guys are insane!!! I was shitting my pants just watching the video!!! Beautifully done too, with the passing of the camera. Kudos to them!

[Krissy]

I can't believe I just watched that. Completely insane.

[dead_drederS]

Priveet!! Medveed!!!

[Miles]

Hey, I figured out why these guys wore the nice blue suits!

They did that so that if they missed one of those turns (or got dumped on that sidewalk section!) they'd already be dressed for their own funerals.

Smart move, guys!

And those titanium balls you have, while not a fashion accessory, seem to be an absolute must.

Best,
An x-downhiller

[jeffersonhuxley]

I think 40 or 50 mph top speed is possible in these videos.

Even if they never got above 30mph it's still amazing...I've rarely gotten above 20mph and it was enough to make my ass cheeks pinch together.

[Stu Sweatman]

That is EXTREME...
Thanks guys.

[Michael Sippey]

centennial would be nuts. like marin and claremont, i get nervous just driving down those.