Chad Caruso Is Skating Across America
Images by Matt Dardano, Jaquie Testa, and Memento.
‘Seems like fun’? Seems fucking awful, more like.
Even driving across the Arizonan desert sounds like a grueling endeavor. Skating across it with nothing but a board and a backpack sounds like a nightmare. Chad Caruso—Long Island native with a nice back tail and more transition tricks than can be properly named or understood—reckons a two-month, 3000-mile push across the continental United States sounds like a fun time. Chad has long been one for the endeavor. He is attempting to visit every country in the world. He learned and filmed a trick each day for fifty days and in all fifty states. He likes a challenge. He’s a bit of an oddball. Lucky for us, we love an oddball as we are all oddballs, too. This journey, though, intended not only as a personal accomplishment but also to raise money for an organization that works to prevent kids from falling into drug and alcohol dependency, is extra odd, even for us. Fascinated by the ambition and curious about how he’s preparing, we sat to ask about his strategy, his setup, and if he is excited to have one enormous shotgun of a calf muscle.
Support Chad on his long-haul push here.
First, what is your setup?
I’ve got a 9.5 Chapman board with a tapered nose and tail, almost looks like a football. Indy’s to match it. I had to go almost into the longboard realm for wheels, so I’ve got these 68mm Seismic wheels. People have been telling me to use a longboard and that it’d be easier or whatever, and maybe that’s true, but it wouldn’t be the same - it wouldn’t count.
Why are you doing this to yourself?
I thought it seemed like fun - like it could be a cool experience. That’s really it.
There are a lot of fun, cool experiences. Why this?
I think I just enjoy doing things that are solitary and challenging. Being out there for two months, a lot of time to be introspective. It’s also easier to meet people when you’re alone. When you’re with a group, it’s really easy to just do whatever you guys are doing, but if you’re solo, you open yourself up to new experiences.
What’s the plan, then? You got a guy on a motorcycle following you with water?
Nah, it’s just me and a camelback—a little backpack that holds water. I’m bringing one outfit, and the outfit I’m wearing, and you know, a skate tool, extra bearings, and that’s it. I’ve been looking up the lightest version of all that stuff. I’m going to have it on my back 12 hours a day, so I want the smallest, lightest versions of everything.
What about sleeping?
I mean, I’m just going to figure it out each day. Like, ‘oh, I’ve skated 40 miles today; I’ll just stop here.’
What if ‘here’ is an Arizonan desert?
Well, I’ll have to pay attention to that.
I did a road trip around the United States that lasted about five weeks, and it was months of planning, and I was stressed. Are you finding that your lack of planning is better? Easier?
Yeah, definitely. I almost enjoy that - the chaos of having to figure something out. Having everything planned is boring. I like figuring things out on the fly. I know I’ll have somewhere to stay. I’ll meet someone, or I’ll find a hotel, I’ll figure it out.
What about your route? Earlier, you mentioned you were heading West to East so that the wind would be to your back. How’d you piece that together?
Oh yeah, that I couldn’t really skimp on. I really gave that a lot of thought. One thing that might be tough is that I decided to start in LA because it’d be easy to meet up with people there and sort of make that the beginning, but then if I start there, I have to skate over these massive hills and mountains. The elevation profile is insane, so I’m trying not to think about it.
Are you gonna walk up the hills?
100% pushing, no walking. Otherwise, it won’t count.
What if there’s no road? Or gravel?
I paid money for an app that shows you which roads are good and which aren’t and designed the route around that.
How long has this been in your head?
Maybe three years ago, I was going to skate across Italy with my cousin. Italy is thin, so it’d only take a few days or something. The pandemic happened, so we put it off, but the idea was still in my head. Once I have an idea, I tend to just obsess over it, and then it became more real the more I talked about it.
Are you ready to have one enormous calf muscle?
Oh, yeah, man. I’ve been pushing switch a lot because my body will just twist and burn out if I only push regular for all those miles.
What are you most worried about?
Really, my biggest concern is my knee. I’ve had a lot of injuries and problems with it—torn ACL, MCL, meniscus, crepitus—so I’m just hoping that it holds up. I know I can figure out any other obstacle, but the knee giving out is out of my hands. That and, I guess, getting hit by a truck.
This is to raise some money, too, right? Can you talk a bit about that?
Yeah! I feel like as I’ve gotten older, skateboarding has given me so much. I feel that I’ve taken so much and consumed so much, it’s time for me to start giving back in some way, so I help throw contests, raise money for parks, that kind of stuff, so there’s that. I’m donating 25% of everything raised from the GoFundMe to Natural High, which is an organization that tries to get kids to really invest in their passion rather than drug and alcohol abuse.
What drew you to that cause?
When I was younger, I got into drinking, got 2 DWIs, fell off skating, and just was not doing great. When I got sober, I got back into skating and fell back in love with it and realized that I never needed the alcohol and that it just sort of got in the way.
How are you preparing?
I’ve been trying to train my legs. I started doing long pushes maybe two months ago? Going on longer and longer journeys. The other day I did 60 miles and felt pretty okay after. I did a marathon a day for like a week, which is 26 miles, and that felt pretty easy. I’ve just been trying to build them up.
What’re the best ways that someone can support you on your journey?
I’ve been getting hit up a lot in the DM’s from people who are like, ‘Yo, you can stay with me I’ve got a mini ramp and a house in Arizona!’ That’s been great, I might call it an early day and skate if there’s a cool ramp or something, but if I skate 50 miles a day, it’ll take me two months and that’s a long time to take off of work, so I’m trying to shorten it down to a month and a half if I can, so I can’t stop too much.
Do you need places to stay? Do you want people to be hitting you up?
I mean, yeah, that’s great, but it can also be a little distracting, too. If too many people are just trying to hang out and talk or whatever, and I’ve just been skating for 12 hours or I need to be somewhere by a certain time, that can get in the way, but if someone hits me on the fly, I’ll try and make it happen for sure. I respond to everything, I’ll say what up. Honestly, the GoFundMe is the best way to support, and I’ll be trying to post videos about the journey every day if I can, so you can follow that, too.
It is very funny to me how casual you are about all this.
I don’t think about it generally as this giant thing. I try to think about it as one day. That day, I have to push 50 miles, but I pushed 50 miles yesterday and it wasn’t that bad. I just have to do that over and over.
Support Chad Caruso’s insane endeavor here.