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Skateboarding

Skateboarding is the act of riding and performing tricks on a skateboard. It began in the 1940s-1950s as surfers in California looked for something to do when waves were small. Early skateboarders made boards by attaching roller skate wheels to wooden boxes or planks. By the 1960s, companies were producing skateboard decks and the first championships were held on television. However, interest declined until being revived in the early 1970s with new tricks like the ollie being developed.

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36 views

Skateboarding

Skateboarding is the act of riding and performing tricks on a skateboard. It began in the 1940s-1950s as surfers in California looked for something to do when waves were small. Early skateboarders made boards by attaching roller skate wheels to wooden boxes or planks. By the 1960s, companies were producing skateboard decks and the first championships were held on television. However, interest declined until being revived in the early 1970s with new tricks like the ollie being developed.

Uploaded by

darrshank
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Skateboarding 

is the act of riding and performing tricks using a skateboard. A person who skateboards is
most often referred to as a skateboarder, or colloquially within the skateboarding community, a skater.

Skateboarding can be a recreational activity, an art form, a job, or a method of transportation.


[1]
Skateboarding has been shaped and influenced by many skateboarders throughout the years. A 2002
report by American Sports Data found that there were 18.5 million skateboarders in the world. 85 percent
of skateboarders polled who had used a board in the last year were under the age of 18, and 74 percent
were male.[2]

Skateboarding is relatively modern. A key skateboarding maneuver, the ollie, was developed in the late
1970s by Alan "Ollie" Gelfand as a half-pipe maneuver. Freestyle skateboarder Rodney Mullenwas the
first to take it to flat ground and later invented the kickflip and its variations.

History The 1940s–1960s


Skateboarding was probably born sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s when surfers
inCalifornia wanted something to surf when the waves were flat. No one knows who made the first board;
it seems that several people came up with similar ideas at around the same time. These first
skateboarders started with wooden boxes or boards with roller skate wheels attached to the bottom. The
boxes turned into planks, and eventually companies were producing decks of pressed layers of wood –
similar to the skateboard decks of today. During this time, skateboarding was seen as something to do for
fun besides surfing, and was therefore often referred to as "Sidewalk Surfing".

The first manufactured skateboards were ordered by a Los Angeles, California surf shop, meant to be
used by surfers in their downtime. The shop owner, Bill Richard, made a deal with the Chicago Roller
Skate Company to produce sets of skate wheels, which they attached to square wooden boards.
Accordingly, skateboarding was originally denoted "sidewalk surfing" and early skaters
emulated surfing style and maneuvers. Crate scooters preceded skateboards, and were borne of a similar
concept, with the exception of having a wooden crate attached to the nose (front of the board), which
formed rudimentary handlebars.[4]

A number of surfing manufacturers such as Makaha started building skateboards that resembled small
surfboards, and assembling teams to promote their products. The popularity of skateboarding at this time
spawned a national magazine, Skateboarder Magazine, and the 1965 international championships were
broadcast on national television. The growth of the sport during this period can also be seen in sales
figures for Makaha, which quoted $10 million worth of board sales between 1963 and 1965 (Weyland,
2002:28). Yet by 1966 the sales had dropped significantly (ibid) and Skateboarder Magazine had stopped
publication. The popularity of skateboarding dropped and remained low until the early 1970s.[4][5]

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