3152: Skateboard

2025-10-09T08:22:26Z

Popiel: Insinuation -> Implication

{{comic
| number = 3152
| date = October 8, 2025
| title = Skateboard
| image = skateboard_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x267px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I understand it's hard to do more than 300 feet on these 90-second rush jobs, but with a smaller ramp I'm worried the gee forces will be too high for me to do any tricks.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by a extremely expedited half pipe. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

In this comic, [[Cueball]] appears to have gone {{w|skydiving}}. In mid-fall, he opens what he thought was his parachute, only to discover the bag in fact contains {{w|skateboarding}} gear. This may be a reference to a 1988 incident{{acn}} where a skydiver switched his skydiving equipment for his camera equipment backpack and perished. Cueball blames himself for the error, pointing out that having something that is not a parachute in a bag that looks a lot like a parachute bag is practically inviting disaster.

After a beat panel, Cueball (still in mid-fall) procures his phone and makes a call to a company responsible for {{w|skatepark}}s, hoping to place an order for a {{w|half-pipe}}. Half-pipes are skating ramps consisting of a semi-circular surface that forms 180 degrees of an arc, allowing skaters to ascend vertically to perform tricks and then descend onto the same ramp. It seems Cueball's intention is to have a very large half-pipe transported to (or constructed at) his landing zone, then use his skateboard to land on the ramp. From there, he could either transfer his downward momentum into much more survivable horizontal momentum, or continue into the opposing ramp to transfer into upward momentum, which would be counteracted by gravity and produce a more meaningful fall.

Obviously, this idea is absurd; half-pipes are very large structures, and it would be difficult to move such a structure ''any'' meaningful distance in the time it would take Cueball to hit the ground. The title text plays this for laughs, suggesting that the skatepark representative only takes issue with the ''size'' of the ramp that Cueball is requesting (600 feet), with the implication that a smaller half-pipe (300 feet) would be perfectly within their capabilities. Cueball tries to convince the rep to accept his original request due to his falling speed; making a high-speed turn inflicts significantly more gee forces on the turner the tighter the turn is and the faster the turner is going, and humans have a tendency to black out under extreme gees. While Cueball is confident in his ability to endure the gees of a 600-foot halfpipe turn, he has less confidence regarding a much tighter 300-foot halfpipe - and, of course, because he is falling without a parachute, he does not have the option of slowing down in order to make the tighter turn more manageable.

The human record for a controlled skateboard descent on an extremely tall ramp [https://www.redbull.com/int-en/sandro-dias-ultimate-skate-ramp was set in September 2025] by Brazilian professional skateboarder Sandro Dias, who completed a controlled 70-meter skating descent on a skateboard ramp built to match the curved contour of {{w|Centro Administrativo Fernando Ferrari|an office building in Porto Alegre, Brazil, with a shape somewhat similar to a half-pipe}}. Dias started from rest, on a platform attached to the skate ramp, rather than first jumping out of an airplane and reaching terminal velocity, but he was able to maintain control throughout the extremely steep and high descent, reaching speeds of over 100 km/h without falling. Cueball is in a much more challenging position in various ways. Dias's feat actually confirms the conceptual plausibility of a 300-foot halfpipe, although he is currently the only person in the world ever to have safely descended such a large ramp, and the ramp built for his challenge was constructed on the side of an existing building over the course of an entire month, not in a matter of seconds.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[Cueball falling in the sky facing, his back down, him facing upwards. He has a backpack on his back and a skateboard in his hand. Clouds are seen in the background.]
:Cueball: I guess this is on me. I should really keep my skateboarding gear and my parachutes in different-looking bags.

:[Cueball looking at his skateboard, still falling, now facing downwards]

:[Cueball dialing on his phone, almost completely upside down]
:BEEP BEEP

:[Cueball talking on his phone, back facing upwards, similar to the first panel]
:Cueball: Hello, Pro Skate Parks LLC? I'd like an extremely expedited order for a 600-foot halfpipe.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Skateboard]]

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3152: Skateboard