Skateboarding

Skateboarding is the act of rolling on or interacting with a skateboard. Someone who skateboards is a skater (or skateboarder or most fully skateboard rider), though the shortest term may also refer to someone ice skating or roller skating.

History of the skateboard

The history of skateboarding goes hand in hand with the history of the skateboard. Improvements in skateboarding equipment have spurred advancement in skateboarding techniques and new techniques have required new equipment.

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Skateboarding has its origins in surfing, and was originally called "sidewalk surfing". While surfing influenced skateboarding in its early days, now the reverse is also true. Surfers are adapting skateboarding tricks into surfing, and the result is evolution in both sports.

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The first skateboard

The first commercial skateboard was the Roller Derby Skateboard that was introduced in 1959. Before this skateboards were home made pieces of wooden planks with roller skates attached to the bottom. At the time there was a rapidly growing interest in skateboarding (sometimes referred to as sidewalk surfing) and soon many other similar products emerged. The boards were from 6 to 7 inches wide. At first, wheels made of steel were used. They were not very high in quality and would dent if you hit a pebble. Then, clay wheels were made. They were a little better, but they would fall apart over time, and sometimes the bearings would come out, ejecting the skater and putting the board to a stop. They had poor traction and would come to a dead stop when rolling over even small pebbles. This made skateboarding inherently a dangerous sport and after a few years many cities banned skateboarding because of liability concerns. This development caused the first skateboarding fad to die completely in the fall of 1965. Many skateboard manufacturers went out of business because of losing money on cancelled orders for the Christmas holiday season.

Related Topics:
Roller Derby Skateboard - Roller skate

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The second generation

In 1970 Frank Nasworthy started to develop a skateboard wheel made of urethane. The improvement in traction and performance was so immense that popularity of skateboarding started to rise rapidly again. With the growing interest companies started to invest more in product development and many companies started to manufacture trucks (axles) especially designed for skateboarding. As the equipment became more maneuverable the decks started to get wider, reaching widths of 10 inches and over in the end, thus giving the skateboarder even more control. Manufacturers started to experiment with more exotic composites, like fiberglass and aluminium but the common skateboards were made of maple plywood. The skateboarders took advantage of the improved handling of their skateboards and started inventing new tricks. Skateboarders, most notably the Z-Boys, started to skate the vertical walls of swimming pools that were left empty in the 1976 California drought. With increased control skateboarders could skate faster and perform more dangerous tricks. This caused liability concerns and increased insurance costs to skatepark owners. Many skateparks went out of business and the parks were torn down or bulldozed. By the end of 1980, skateboarding had died again.

Related Topics:
Frank Nasworthy - Urethane - Z-Boys

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The third generation

The third skateboard generation, from early eighties to early nineties, was started by skateboard companies that actively promoted their sport. The focus was initially on halfpipe and vert ramp skateboarding. The invention of the ollie in 1978 made it possible for skaters to perform huge airs off vertical ramps. With vert skating being dominant decks were initially very wide with large and wide wheels, though as time progressed and skateparks became fewer in number, street skating was gaining popularity, causing a change in both deck shape and wheel size. Manufacturers preferred maple plywood over more exotic composite materials almost exclusively, and concave decks became ubiquitous. The third skateboarding generation was killed by the global economical recession in the early 90s.

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The current generation

The size and shape of the fourth and current generation of skateboards is dominated by one trick: the ollie. Most boards are about 7.75" wide and 31.5" long. The wheels have an extremely hard durometer so that they will slide better during grind and slide tricks. The wheel sizes are relatively small so that the boards will rotate more easily during flip tricks. In the early 1990s, the wheels were only marginally larger than the bearings they encased to make complicated flip tricks easier. A fad that lasted for a short time before dying out in 1994. Today, modern wheels are currently around 50 to 58mm in diameter and advances in technology have made them extremely light compared to the wheels of the '80s. The decks are still almost always constructed out of Canadian Maple, with 7-plys being the industry standard for strength and durability. Interest in high technology materials has increased slightly, although the cost of manufacturing them has dropped.

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