The skateboarders of today are quite possibly the most talented athletes in the world. When you compare the difficulty, danger, skill level, variety and competition of the sport it is really not hard to see why. There are also a number of avenues that the sport of skateboarding has been down that solidified it as an extreme sport, avenues like the X Games and the Gravity Games.

When you think of an athlete you generally think of a football, baseball or basketball player. Perhaps you think of a track and field athlete, swimmer or tap dancer (kidding). Before the recent skateboard revolution in the 90’s and today not many people would have lumped skateboarders into the category of athlete; thug, trouble maker, talented or maybe skilled, but not athlete. But now when you compare the types of tricks skateboarders are doing, and the unbelievable things they get their bodies to do when they are 15 feet in the air and then land smooth just to hit another huge air seconds later to the things “typical” athletes do, people are actually starting to say that skateboarders are arguably MORE athletic then a what we know as a “typical” athlete. After watching competitions like the X Games I am not one to argue that point. What professional skateboarders are able to do with a chunk of wood on wheels is uncanny.

Simply the danger and difficulty of skateboarding are enough to steer thousands of hopeful professional skaters away from the scene, but those that press through know what it took to get there. There are not too many other sports that draw comparisons of difficulty to skateboarding. Take this for example you take off going extremely fast launch into the air, while your in the air you flip your body, rotate the board under your feet, catch the board with your hand, put the board back under your feet, land on the board and keep riding… oh and do it all with style.

It is pretty amazing what skateboarders are able to do these days and very fun to watch. Luckily the main stream has caught on to this incredible sport and competitions like x games and gravity games now highlight skateboarding as one of their main events. This gets the word out and shows the world that these guys are in the most extreme sport and deserve to be called world class athletes.

Josh owns a skateboard store where you’ll find loads of great skateboards to choose from. Check out their ripstick caster board

Tasks:

Hood slide a cop car in a Ninja turtle suit!

Ollie over a CRX!

Sing the Blitzkrieg Bop on a rooftop dressed as Buddy Holly!

Interview a cop about the negative side of rehab!

Ollie over 5 Flaming pizza boxes!

Get hit with a tazer for 5 seconds!

Get 6 autographs from bums, making then think, that you think they are someone famous!

Convince 3 Emo kids to go to church!

A Little History of Skateboarding

True skateboarding fans will know that in the 1950’s the first ever skateboard was introduced. It was a homemade type of board and it was made of simple wooden planks which were connected to roller skate wheels and trucks. It was closely connected to surfing and most early skaters used similar moves to surfers on the boards. The term ‘skateboarding’ was not yet developed and it was instead known as ‘sidewalk surfing’.

In the 1960’s skateboarding hit an all time high and it continued right until 1966 when for no apparent reason, people lost interest. Sales dropped and magazines that had been started were also dropped as the demand was no longer there. It was not until the early 1970’s came that skateboarding actually picked up again.

How Skateboarding Changed From 1970

It was the early 1970’s when a new skateboard was introduced. This newer board featured an improvement in traction and performance and once again skateboarding became increasingly popular. This was down to a new wheel improvement where the wheels were made out of polyurethane.

As skateboards once again became popular, more and more companies decided to get involved and they eventually started redesigning the boards themselves. They became wider and they were available in a large number of colors. Eventually the most common skateboards were formed out of maple wood, though there were some companies who explored by creating aluminium and fibreglass boards. Due to these improvements, skateboarders were now able to start learning more tricks and vert skating was created.

Skateboarding Today

Skateboarding is still extremely popular today and street skating is particular common. Wheels are still made from polyurethane and the durometers are extremely high so that there is reduced drag on hard surfaces.

The boards today tend to be a lot lighter than they were and smaller wheels are said to be the cause of this. This means that skaters can now do more tricks and they can also go a lot faster too. Boards can come in an extremely large amount of colors and styles to suit all tastes, so no matter what type of board you are after, you are bound to find one to suit you.

Overall skateboarding has come a long way and thousands of people enjoy taking part in the sport each year.    Read More

Once a skateboard graduate completes the skateboarding school of hard knocks and when they are ready to compete against any one who can skateboard, there are a few dress code rules to follow.

The first thing a new skateboarder needs to invest in is their wardrobe. They don’t have to go overboard when finding your new wardrobe. First, one should go through their current wardrobe and find styles that are fashionable as well as comfortable. Wear loose fitting jeans, slacks or shorts. Loose fitting pants should not be long enough to cover your shoes. The bottom of the pants leg should fall above the sneaker.

When a skateboarder wears pants that fall to the waist or the baggy grunge style pants, make sure that they do not fall to the waist while skateboarding. Pants that fall to the waist could fall completely off the body. A person trying to pull up their pants while skateboarding is not only embarrassing, it is a safety hazard.

When wearing sneakers, make sure that your laces are properly tied. Unlaced shoelaces can easily get tangled into the wheels of the skateboard. It is not recommended to wear sandals while skateboarding. A skateboarder should wear comfortable sneakers.

Choosing the top of the line or the ‘coolest’ skateboard man or woman can buy should not be your first preference. Always choose safety first, then work your way to selecting a skateboard that offers quality and then work your way down to style. There are several types of skateboard setups. Choosing a position on the hand will let you know if you are not sure which foot you should put in front while riding. Learning how to push your skateboard properly is very important. Once a skateboard learns how to ride like a ‘pro’ then one can advance to learning the tricks. Most of these tricks are based on jumping with the skateboard and allowing it to cruise at a smooth pace.

Safety Tips to Learn While Skateboarding

In order to skate like a pro a skateboarder has to know all of the safety tips involved with skateboarding. A skateboarding pro doesn’t just know all the dress code rules; they also follow them to the ‘T’. Learning to skateboard is more than learning the latest tricks. Its also about learning new ways to skateboard safely.

Dana Bradley writes about Skateboard savings

Me, at the end of skateboarding day…

Skateboarders everywhere will hold fundraisers, contests, protests, demo’s, they’ll skate across cities, gather in skateparks, stream into their local skate shop and some will even revel in the solitary act of skateboarding alone, all bringing together the skateboarding community in the grind heard around the world.

See the website Go Skateboarding Day

Download IASC’s Flyer on Go Skateboarding Day

One entry found for ollie.

Main Entry: ol·lie

Pronunciation: ‘ä-lE

Function: noun

Etymology: Ollie, nickname of Alan Gelfand b1963 U.S. skateboarder

1 : a maneuver in skateboarding in which the skater kicks the tail of the
board down while jumping in order to make the board pop into the air
2 :
a maneuver in snowboarding in which the rider transfers weight from the front to the back
foot to snap the board up off the ground
- ollie verb

2006 marks the bicentennial anniversary of America’s first dictionary—Noah Webster’s A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. To see what words were “new” in 1806, check out A Glossary of New Words in the special anniversary section of Merriam-Webster Online.

1- Quality: The quality of any bearings are classified by the American Bearing Manufacturers Association ABMA as ABEC rating, the more the ABEC rating the more precise bearings were manufactured, or tighter in tolerance; in other words, the most common and good choice ABEC rating is ABEC-7.

2- Inner and outer race material: Carbon, chrome, zirconia and stainless steel are your options. For regular skate, I wouldn’t choose anything but the Chrome Steel, well .. this is the widest used bearings steel. However, if you go to a race or a skate compition, you better sacrifice cash and go for the zirconia

3- Balls material: Again the bottom line is to reduce friction, your options are (sorted best to “not bad”) silicon nitride ceramic, Zirconia ceramic and steel.

4- Retainer material: Your options are (sorted best to “not bad”) zirconia, PTFE, bakelite, nylon, bronze and steel.

5- Lubrication: I suggest just any multi-purpose oil, since a skate-boarder can always take good care of his hardware, grease will make your wheels hard to free-spin

6- Closures: used to protect the moving parts of your ball bearings from outside contamination. If you are skate-boarding in a perfect environment (there is no such thing) with no dirt, no water and no humidity then you can always use your ball bearings without closures. Your options are (sorted best to “not bad”) Teflon seals, metal shields, non-contact rubber seals, and contact rubber seals.
Confusing, Huh?, I am sure it is. Fortunately, any of the above selections should be good for regular skate-boarding, for professional skating go for the following good choice:

8 ABEC-7 Skateboard Bearings:Ceramic:Sealed:Nylon Cage

VXB Ball Bearings

Article Source: Sustainable Living Articles

“Nike is a huge multimillion dollar corporation that never gave a shit about skateboarding. The jocks who used to beat me up for skating wore Nikes and now Nike wants to be in with skaters? Uh-uh. It’s not going to happen. We’ve had to fight and scrimp and save, and it wasn’t so giant corporations could come along and buy their way in.”

Read more… Skateboarding Sucks