I remember the moment that ended my downhill skateboarding career long before it could get started. Let’s just say I still have the dark crater scar on the inside of my elbow as a result, a solid two decades later, reminding me of that Pete Rose style head first dive down a hill. And I’m pretty sure that spill permanently marked my personal fight or flight threshold; the point of hanging on with grace or just flat out bailing at the possibility of a wipeout.
We all have those boundaries, some people are just better at paying absolutely no attention to them at all – a lot like my childhood self before leaving a chunk of my left arm behind. These downhill skateboarders in Santa Barbara seem to be just like that. Hell, their sport is so dangerous that county law enforcement use the rash of recent accidents as justification to ban the activity altogether. It adds a whole new element to the idea of dodging cars on winding roads, finding ways to “gracefully” navigate a wipeout, and eventually dodging the police once it’s all done.
These are legitimate outlaw athletes, a theme filmmaker Paul Mathieu uses to explore government’s role in its citizens’ lives and independence. The product of it all is Wheels Over Paradise, a documentary Mathieu started making when he realized the impending ban was coming to his home of the past 11 years.
“As a community we really came together and represented ourselves beyond what anyone expected,” he says. “In the end we still lost and they banned downhill skating specifically on three of our most skated and best roads. It’s just the hand that skating has always been dealt. I’m ok with the ban. We’ve been running from the police avoiding tickets since day one. I’m ok with skating staying illegal. Personally I think it’s how it should be.”
