Skate Anatomy | Pete Eldridge

LEFT SIDE:
Off-Road Rage
We were riding minibikes, like dirtbikes. My friend had a lawnmower bike and I had a little 50. We were riding around and he used to live right behind the train tracks. I was riding my 50 around and his lawnmower bike, and his brake was on the other side than where it was on my 50. So, I was blazing down this trail right next to this cornfield and it goes to this big, huge hill, like a gully, where the train tracks are right in the middle. I wasn’t going that fast, but fast enough where I tried to stop and it didn’t stop. I tried to jump off, the bike went over the hill and I went flying into this tree and these sticker bushes and shit. I cut up my arm pretty bad and have a couple scars from that.

CENTER:
My First Broken Nose
In baseball, I wasn’t looking, turned around and got hit right in the nose. It broke.

Who Nose?
I don’t know if you can tell the story that goes along with this, but the end of it was that I got punched in the nose and it broke again. We can leave it at that.

Black Eye Brawler
Like I said, I’ve been in a couple fights where my nose got broken. Had to get stitches one time. Had some black eyes.

KO’d
I forget what gap it was. It’s in San Francisco, that street gap right by the Newell, probably in ’99 when I rode for Stereo. I was trying to backside flip it, landed 90 and started running backwards and then tripped, fell back, smacked my head, flipped back over, and I remember standing up, then waking up on the ground.

Golden Deceiver
When I was really little, I was cutting through this yard in Jersey by my parents’ house and this Golden Retriever tackled me off of my bike and got me on the ground. It didn’t really bite me or anything, just tackled me and pinned me to the ground. I was fine though.

Mickey De-commissioned
Got food poisoning from McDonald’s McNuggets, believe it or not. I was puking my face off.

Pete’s Ambulance Ride
When I was little, I probably had, like, six or seven concussions. One of them, I was really little and my friend across the street, we were racing on our skateboards on our knees, we were that little. He was in front of me and was winning and his shoe fell off. I f**kin’ caught it right in my front truck and went head-first, slid my face across the ground, and right as I was sliding my friend’s mom pulled into the driveway and stopped right away and I almost hit the car. My face was all cut up and all kinds of good stuff there. Had a concussion and went to my grandmother’s house and was puking. That was tight. She called the ambulance, so I got to ride in the ambulance. I think that’s the only time I’ve gotten to do that.

Nevermind the Gap
I broke my tooth in half pushing my bike up a hill. I was really little, and I guess something was in front of me. I hit a stop and just went face-first right into the handlebars and broke my tooth in half, the front right one.

Gravel Rabble
I busted my lip open when I was wasted one time. I fell right on my face. I was in this parking lot and I think it was gravel. I walked out of the bar and threw my board down thinking I was going to skate. It was right into some rocks or whatever, so I went flat to my face, cut my forehead, my tooth went through my lip. So I went to 7-Eleven and got a Hungry-Man microwave dinner to ease the pain.

RIGHT SIDE:
Curbside Checkout I cracked my right wrist, but it was only the little bone on the outside, that nub right there. It’s when I was younger and me and my friends were riding BMX trying to jump out of this retention basin where you could roll in on one side and jump out on the other. I landed, came down and hit the curb. Both my hands popped off the handlebars. I slid and landed on my wrist wrong or something. I got a cast on that one.

Spur of the Moment
Bone spur in my right foot. Actually, there were four of them stuck between my middle toe and the one next to that one. They were pointing out, and it cut a hole from the inside out on my foot. I thought it was really bad athlete’s foot or something that I couldn’t get rid of, but it turns out it was bone spurs. I had to go in and get my foot cut open all the way in between my toes and up the top of my foot to grind all those bone spurs off. That was about 10 years ago and put me out for about six months.