Old Dude Skater Crew: How One Group Is Changing Who Skateparks Are For

I run adult skate sessions in Portland, so I pay attention when another group figures out how to make this work at scale. Old Dude Skater Crew — ODSC — has done exactly that, and it’s worth looking at what they’re doing right.

What ODSC is

Old Dude Skater Crew started in Corpus Christi, Texas, and the name itself came from one of its early members, Arnold Mendiola. From there, the group’s real growth happened in Denver, and it’s since built active chapters in Denver, Phoenix, and Portland, Oregon, where Irving Savage runs the crew that makes its shirts. It operates as a nonprofit, and proceeds from merchandise sales go to charitable causes rather than back into the organization. (A July 2026 Valley News feature on the rise of the middle-aged skateboarder tells the origin story in more detail.)

The crew is open to a wide range of people: some members are returning to skating after decades away, others are picking up a board for the first time in their 40s, 50s, or beyond. What unites them isn’t skill level — it’s the decision to reconnect with skating, and each other, later in life than the sport typically expects.

Why a named crew works better than a loose meetup

Plenty of cities have informal adult skater networks — people who recognize each other at the park and nod hello. What ODSC has built is a step beyond that: an actual organization with a name, a shared identity, and enough structure to spread from one city to the next.

That structure matters more than it might seem. A loose, unnamed group of regulars is fragile — it depends entirely on a handful of specific people continuing to show up. A named crew with an identity, even an informal one, survives turnover. People move cities, get injured, or drift away, and the group continues because it’s bigger than any one member. That’s exactly how ODSC managed to go from one city to three.

There’s also a practical benefit to having a name and an online presence: it makes you findable. Someone new to a city, or newly returning to skating, can search for “old dude skater crew [city]” and find an actual entry point — a Facebook group, an Instagram account, a next meetup — rather than having to stumble into the right people at the right time at the park.

What it reveals about the broader trend

ODSC isn’t an isolated phenomenon. It’s one visible example of something happening in a lot of places at once: adults who skated when they were young, or who never did but always wanted to, finding each other in enough numbers to build real organizations around it. The fact that a group that started with a handful of skaters in one Texas city now has active chapters in three states says something about how much demand for this kind of community already existed — it just didn’t have anywhere to organize around yet.

It’s also a useful myth-buster. Skateparks have a long-standing reputation, not entirely unearned, as spaces built for and dominated by teenagers. A visible, active crew of adults regularly showing up, skating, and clearly enjoying themselves does more to dismantle that reputation than any single blog post or PSA could. Seeing is believing, especially for someone hesitant about whether they’ll be welcome.

How to find or start something similar

Search for existing chapters or crews in your area first. Search “[your city] adult skate crew” or “[your city] old skaters” on Facebook and Instagram before assuming nothing exists. Groups like ODSC are often more locally active than their web presence suggests. Our guide to finding other adult skaters covers the other channels worth checking.

If nothing exists, don’t wait for someone else to build it. The pattern with groups like this is almost always the same: a small handful of people who kept showing up at the same park, started recognizing each other, and eventually decided to make it official with a name and a group page. You don’t need permission or a big plan — you need three or four regulars and a shared name.

Give the group an identity, not just a schedule. A name, a simple logo, a hashtag — these sound like small things, but they’re what turns “some people I skate with sometimes” into something new members can find, join, and feel part of.

Keep the bar for entry low. The crews that grow are the ones where nobody has to prove anything to show up — whether you’re returning after 20 years or picking up a board for the first time at 55, you’re in.

If you’ve been skating alone and wondering whether there’s a place for you at your local park, groups like ODSC are the proof that the answer is yes — and increasingly, that place already has a name.