The Shredder’s Rite

Travis Knight February 2, 2025 No Comments

$The Shredder's Rite - Essay by Travis Knight \ photo & video by Adam Crew$

photos & video by Adam Crew

Oh, that would actually look sick, I think to myself. The "Me" 20 years ago would have scoffed at the idea as whack; kook shit. But in my mid-30s, well let’s just say the inner kook grows stronger with every emerging gray.

So there I am, cutting across the sheet of grip tape with a small pair of blue scissors, that, outside of a kindergarten classroom, only live in my office. I cut a third of the sheet, leaving one shorter side and one longer. The board I’m setting up is an 8.25 Bobby Dodd FIREXSIDE, PS Stix wood, with artwork by the infamous Mike O’Haire. His signature is on the top of the deck, below it, the “FIREXSIDE” logo. And that’s my plan, to leave a slit on the top of my board so that the logo shows. I’m beaming like a youngin’ again, super hyped.

After the grip is cut, I carefully place it on the top of the board so that the factory edge is parallel to the bottom of the logo. I’m in deep concentration, my tongue laboriously peeking out from the right corner of my lips, my brow furrowed, a bead of sweat slithering forth. Got it. And no air bubbles. Now for the longer side.

I repeat the process, this time even more carefully, because if I fuck it up, it’s gonna look stupid, and we can’t have that. Oh no. I get it on there, almost fucking it up, leaving just a half-inch overhang on one side. Another 1/4” and I would have fucked it up. But again, success, and no air bubbles.

The screech of the throwaway Milwaukee screwdriver files down the gripped edges erupts into the quiet night. I just hope Adam Crew can’t hear this upstairs. I can already hear him:

“What the fuck are you doing gripping a board at 2:00 am?!”

Using the screwdriver as a file, I gently and slowly carve out the board, and that sweet shape of the thing emerges from what was just two rectangles. I grab my painter’s razor blade and start to slice off the access edges. I must be careful with this, too, because I have been known to fuck the cut up around the nose or tail, which again, fucks the whole thing up. The last touch—super crucial—I use the scrap pieces of grip tape to do a final file-down along the board’s edges, where grip and wood meet like land and sea. Now I’m looking at a skateboard, glistening new grip and sparkling black like the sands that lay along the coast just north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

I’ve lost three completes since I arrived in Bremerton just under a year ago. And I’m not skating them hard and wearing them out. Oh hell no; I’m lucky to skate once a month. I just can't seem to hold onto the damn things. The last one disappeared at an especially drunken run-in at the SEA-TAC airport, on my way to see my brother, Brandon Hurley get married. Since then, I was given a flat ass, hand me down from the illusive and legendary Chris Baldwin. Now it’s time to shed this old friend. She’s still got breath in her yet, so I’ll likely send her off to a local grom at the Bremerton skatepark. This Cattledog Construction collab WILL live to see another day.

The ACE Trucks are almost new, and the wheels are ok; they are just worn down where one side of the wheel is a bit taller than the other. Skating the raw and crusty Northwest spots will wear out any wheel’s wits. I’ll address that later. She just needs a tire rotation, that's all.

Although I have enough power tools to build a house from the feet up, I will not be using them for this. And where the fuck is that thing? Oh, it’s… no it’s not in there. Shit. Wait, I know where it is. Now I’m in my tool shed (also known as the laundry room), quietly scouring through an old green backpack I use to hold PPE from my days in the trades. Boom. Got it. A black T-shaped object with NC Boardshop printed on the top part. This relic was exactly what I needed: the skate tool.

I’m removing the trucks, one crank at a time, each twist a love-filled labor. Sure, I could just crank this shit off with a screwdriver and an impact drill, but that’s bad etiquette. No, you must savor each turn of the tool, using the tiny L-shaped Phillips tool for the top side, whether it cramps your fingers or not. The twisting and turning, a ritual as sacred as the spoken word itself.

Now that the trucks are off. The latter step is repeated, but instead of releasing the hardware, I am securing it, merging truck with board. My eyes are gleaming, youth is replenished, and I sink further into Nirvana as the top of each screw sinks further and further into the wood; little by little.

The wheels are a little lumpy, so I use the top part of my tool to take each wheel off, flipping each one around so the taller side of the wheel faces outward to bring balance back into a world where such things have long since abated. I look at the shiny new setup, and I can’t wait to get it in the streets. I set the board next to my door, where the shadow of its wheel-marks welcomes it home. Until tomorrow, new friend.

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Travis Knight Writer/Author

Travis Knight is an American author who has written two books of poetry, "PorchSide Poems" and "character." He has spent most of his professional writing life as a skateboard journalist and a copywriter. He is also a writer and editor for his website, knight-writes.com.