How to stay motivated skating alone?

Any one on here have to skateboard alone. I have one or two friends that skate but i’ve only skated with them a couple of times and i’m left to skate alone.

How do i stay motivated as at the minute i can only skate for maybe 30-40 mins at a time. Appart from my friends i never see any skaters around and the park is full of scooter or BMX riders.

Any suggestions?

I skate alone half the time. It doesn’t really make much difference to me if I skate with someone else or not.

Maybe try going to another park where there are more skaters. I guess most of the time I head to my local alone there’s always someone skating which is good.

I often find that the park down the road is completly empty but i’m not sure if i should skate as i know nothing about riding a half pipe and i don’t want to get hurt and be alone. Am i worrying too much?

If you’re worried about riding half pipe, watch some ‘how to’ videos and get some pads and a helmet. I’d say you’re worrying too much. Start slow or at a pace that you’re comfortable at and go from there.

Also, let someone know that you’re going to skate alone (mum/dad/mates/etc), that way if you do get hurt, they’ll know where you are. I wouldn’t worry too much about it though.

sometimes I skate alone, but I do find it less motivating than when I have some friends there to push you along. i dont know what it is… just seems more fun with friends.
I try to set myself some sort of goal when I skate alone. like a certain amount of flawless tricks before I leave. say 20 rock n rolls or something.
or maybe step it up to something I cant do and dont let myself leave untill I have either nailed it or improved.

Thanks guys.
I’ll try the goal setting next time i skate. I have been trying to heelflip now that i can ollie so i’ll try to improve them next time.

I also took your advice koper and went down to the park to find it was completley empty so i had a bit of a skate. I was trying to carve up the side of the half pipe thats maybe 6” but just kept sliding back sideways or falling off. So i just tried to kick turn up there and got a bit better.

Ok for my first go there.

Listening to music and sometimes just cruising around brings back that raw feeling. If I am not going good with tricks, just going out rolling is the best feeling in the world.

Yeah I love to just roll around too… except uphill then it sucks.
but if I have to go to the shops or something I will skate there.
being in tune with your board makes you much more stable and more likely to be able to land tricks when you try.
also just skating to the shops there are natural gaps and obstacles that you will have to overcome.

Normally ride down to the shops if i have to go which is always good.

Rode down to the local park again today. Terrible ride aginst the wind to get there but once i was there it was okay. Couldn’t quite grasp pumping but i did get the courage to go down a roll in which is the same height as the half pipe. A bit easier than dropping in.

Now i need to learn to ride and pump properly so i can do something with the new found speed.

I actually found the roll ins more daunting than dropping in. I could drop into most things before i got the courage to roll in.
I found that once I could drop in on something small it was just the same for all the bigger ramps.
its like 90% mental and 10% physical.

If that’s the case i might try to drop in next time down there. Although i found the roll in a little less daunting for some reason. might be because the pipe is a little steeper than the roll in.

I also had trouble coming back down the other side fakie, once again i think this was a mental thing too as i was higher than iv’e been before.

yeah fakie feels weird at first. I just would pump up and down the ramp until i was about to hit the coping on both sides before I could drop in. That gave me a good chance to practice fakie before I dropped in on anything.

Another day stuck at home so i thought i might go down to find it empty again.

Worked on my pumping as you said LowGuido and it just clicked and i could get to about three quarter height sometimes higher consistently. Great to finally see some progress, although after about an hour of pumping around my legs got pretty sore especially after riding fakie.

I’m also going to get new wheels as mine are now under 50mm from 52 new. I’m going to take CJ’s recommendation and get STF’s but what size is good for a bit of street and transition. I was thinking 54-52 mm.

I find the best way is to maybe listen to some music so it feels like there is someone around you or if you don’t have a ipod etc avalible then set youself a certain trick to try and that should keep you motivate.

I hope I helped you out mate

For me, I either film videos, focus on one new trick, play skate with myself (when I’m dire), or just try weird things, and skate the park creatively. There are online games of skate you can participate in, or making videos on how to do something or your attempts at something can be fun too.

This is an interesting thread.
I almost always skate alone. Which has been weird for me to deal with since I almost always snowboard with friends.

I only skate in between snow seasons so I don’t know anyone in the town where I am.
I find the hardest thing to do is just to make myself go to the park. Once I’m there and I start rolling the banks etc. I’m not looking for a purpose any more. The feeling takes over and that’s all I need.

I do set myself goals like LowGuido said. And I will say too, set yourself a goal you can achieve THAT DAY. You can have other goals to play around with, but a goal you can achieve that day will get you stoked every session you have. And you will go home feeling good. Even if it’s tiny, just a variation of a trick u can already do. ANYTHING you can actually land that day.

I’m interested to see if I can get some tips for myself from this thread too. Cause it’s been a slow ass process getting into skating alone.