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The growth of movements since the 1960s counterculture has spun off a variety of groups that are disinterested in the status quo. One simple example of this is the culture surrounding skateboards. Generally, the skaters have the opinion that the larger big man government has no right to tell them that they should not be skateboarding. The counterculture of this movement has ties to the punk rock movements of the 1980’s and the rise of angst amount skaters of that time period against authority. The image of the average person who uses skateboards is contested at the moment. Different publications appeal to different crowds touting different images of the idealized skateboarder. The publication Thrasher still portrays skateboarders as thoroughly linked to the punk culture, whereas a publication like Transworld Skateboarding attempts to show a more mellow sport with a diverse set of enthusiasts. Regardless of your impression, some cultures and neighborhoods still shy away from building a skate park because of the image that they will receive a higher number of crime and drug related activities. The substantiation to this pessimism has yet to be academically checked.

Skateboards are a relatively modern invention that is less than 100 years old. The innovation came from California where skateboarding was seen as the concrete extension of surfing. The exact source is contested, but several companies started producing skateboards around the same time period, resulting in a debate of who started what, when. The overall movement came to bear in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s, but it wasn’t immensely popular until some continued innovation in the 1970’s. In 1972, Frank Nasworthy developed and released the modern polyurethane wheels. These wheels were harder and allowed a better roll while enlarging the potential activities of the board to tricks. The rise in popularity from these wheels cause a new injection of innovation, and much of the board received an overhaul. The trucks were redesigned and reinvented specifically for the skateboard, and the decks got wider to support a wider stance and more control. By the middle of the 1970’s rib skateboards came into existence which has structural ribs on the underside of the board to provide another level of support. The movement was a fad however, and did not last long.

The ability of the polyurethane to withstand and transmit effort created a new culture of skateboard tricks. The most prevalent trick was the invention of the Ollie, named after its created Alan “Ollie” Gelfand. Gelfand created the no hands aerial where the skateboarder jumped into the air with their board. However, the rise in the difficulty of tricks meant that more individuals where skating. This lead to the increase in use of public and private property as locations for skating, and what followed was myriad of law suits that left the sport struggling to entice new boarders.

The modern edition of street skateboards can be attributed to the sports relatively small appeal to the masses. The international Association of Skateboarding Companies has knighted June 21 as the national go skateboarding day and it has received a wash of popularity since that time. Several larger cities have ordinances against skateboarding including Hot Springs, Arkansas. A now famous YouTube video depicts an officer arresting a group of friends while skateboarding in the city. The officer received a plethora of bad publicity because of a picture of him choking the boarding and then grappling two other boarders to the ground by their throats. After an internal affairs review, the officer was cleared of any misconduct, but advised to seek counseling for leaving a suspect in cuffs on the side of the road while attempting to apprehend another suspect.

With the cultural references to skateboarding taken care of, including the rising distain for police, the remainder of this website will be devoted to the structural implications of the skateboards, which outlines the physical components that are used to comprise the finished skateboard. There is one exception to this general master plan that can be seen in a YouTube emphasis on skateboarding videos. Read on to see the viral videos covered in that section.

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The growth of movements since the 1960s counterculture has spun off a variety of groups that are disinterested in the status quo. One simple example of this is the culture surrounding skateboards. Generally, the skaters have the opinion that the larger big man government has no right to tell them that they should not be skateboarding. The counterculture of this movement has ties to the punk rock movements of the 1980’s and the rise of angst amount skaters of that time period against authority. The image of the average person who uses skateboards is contested at the moment. Different publications appeal to different crowds touting different images of the idealized skateboarder. The publication Thrasher still portrays skateboarders as thoroughly linked to the punk culture, whereas a publication like Transworld Skateboarding attempts to show a more mellow sport with a diverse set of enthusiasts. Regardless of your impression, some cultures and neighborhoods still shy away from building a skate park because of the image that they will receive a higher number of crime and drug related activities. The substantiation to this pessimism has yet to be academically checked.

Skateboards are a relatively modern invention that is less than 100 years old. The innovation came from California where skateboarding was seen as the concrete extension of surfing. The exact source is contested, but several companies started producing skateboards around the same time period, resulting in a debate of who started what, when. The overall movement came to bear in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s, but it wasn’t immensely popular until some continued innovation in the 1970’s. In 1972, Frank Nasworthy developed and released the modern polyurethane wheels. These wheels were harder and allowed a better roll while enlarging the potential activities of the board to tricks. The rise in popularity from these wheels cause a new injection of innovation, and much of the board received an overhaul. The trucks were redesigned and reinvented specifically for the skateboard, and the decks got wider to support a wider stance and more control. By the middle of the 1970’s rib skateboards came into existence which has structural ribs on the underside of the board to provide another level of support. The movement was a fad however, and did not last long.

The ability of the polyurethane to withstand and transmit effort created a new culture of skateboard tricks. The most prevalent trick was the invention of the Ollie, named after its created Alan “Ollie” Gelfand. Gelfand created the no hands aerial where the skateboarder jumped into the air with their board. However, the rise in the difficulty of tricks meant that more individuals where skating. This lead to the increase in use of public and private property as locations for skating, and what followed was myriad of law suits that left the sport struggling to entice new boarders.

The modern edition of street skateboards can be attributed to the sports relatively small appeal to the masses. The international Association of Skateboarding Companies has knighted June 21 as the national go skateboarding day and it has received a wash of popularity since that time. Several larger cities have ordinances against skateboarding including Hot Springs, Arkansas. A now famous YouTube video depicts an officer arresting a group of friends while skateboarding in the city. The officer received a plethora of bad publicity because of a picture of him choking the boarding and then grappling two other boarders to the ground by their throats. After an internal affairs review, the officer was cleared of any misconduct, but advised to seek counseling for leaving a suspect in cuffs on the side of the road while attempting to apprehend another suspect.

With the cultural references to skateboarding taken care of, including the rising distain for police, the remainder of this website will be devoted to the structural implications of the skateboards, which outlines the physical components that are used to comprise the finished skateboard. There is one exception to this general master plan that can be seen in a YouTube emphasis on skateboarding videos. Read on to see the viral videos covered in that section.

Skate Shoes

Skateboards