Street skateboarding
Street skateboarding is a skateboarding discipline which focuses on flat-ground tricks, grinds, slides and aerials within urban environments, and public spaces. Street skateboarders meet, skate, and hang out in and around urban areas referred to as "spots," which are commonly streets, plazas or industrial areas. To add variety and complexity to street skateboarding, obstacles such as handrails, stairs, walls, flower beds, bins, park benches, picnic tables, and other street furniture may be traversed as single tricks or as part of a series of consecutive tricks called a "line."
History
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, street skateboarding evolved as a new approach to skateboarding, using elements taken from the other existing skateboarding disciplines. Instead of drained swimming pools and purpose-built skateparks, skateboarders began to use urban areas and public spaces. For example, in the 1980s, Philadelphia's LOVE Park transformed from a place where businesspeople would eat their lunch into a well-known skateboarding spot. A new style of skateboard deck became popular. Professional skateboarding became hyper-commercialized and skate shops specializing in the retail of professional grade skateboarding equipment appeared in many cities across the world. Skate shops, in turn, helped support a culture of street skateboarding by offering skateboarders a refuge where they could check out and buy copies of the latest skate videos, magazines, or other skateboard products.Many street skaters abandoned skate parks entirely in favor of public, urban areas. Street skaters began to observe architecture and look for skate-able obstacles.
According to Ben Kelly of Transworld Skateboarding Magazine, the ten best cities in the World to skateboard are: Barcelona, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Paris, Melbourne, London, Shenzhen, Berlin and Miami.
Tricks
Examples of tricks
In street skateboarding, tricks can be attempted in a variety of stances and while travelling either frontside or backside. Almost all of the tricks in street skateboarding require some amount of pop from either of the kicktails on the board to elevate the skateboard into the air. Skateboarding has unique terminology which is used by skaters to describe ride styles and trick names.With practice, tricks such as many grinds and slides can be optionally combined with other aerial type tricks such as the kickflip to create variations. This creates some interesting combinations and often increases the difficulty level. The ways in which a particular skater combines various tricks, in part, forms their unique style.
Tricks can be judged in various ways. Common signs of skill include how cleanly the trick was completed, the height of the obstacle involved, how fast the rider was travelling, the length of travel while grinding or sliding, and the technical complexities involved in landing the trick. In street skateboarding, style is an important signifier of skill and individuality. For instance, professional skateboarder Tom Penny is renowned not just for his skill and ability on a skateboard but also for his smooth and relaxed style.
The most basic tricks in street skateboarding are grounded in the ollie. Learning to ollie and then moving onto other fundamentals such as the 180, pop shuv-it, and the kickflip creates a foundation necessary for learning slides, grinds, and variations. Discussing techniques, studying video footage, and watching other skaters are important ways for skateboarders to learn tricks.
Many advanced skateboarding tricks are extremely hard to pull off consistently, and in some instances, the skater risks serious injury in the event of a mistake. Many tricks can take years of careful practice to master.
Equipment
Street skateboards are built using component parts sold by skateboard retailers. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, skaters increasingly began to design, manufacture, and sell their own boards and parts. This resulted in diminished market share for venture capitalists, who dominated the industry in the 1980s. The industry has since come full circle, with many grassroots companies founded in the 1990s now being sold to venture capitalist groups and enterprises. However, there are still a number of skateboarder-owned companies manufacturing skateboard products today.Skate shoes
Appropriate footwear is an important part of street skateboarding equipment. Modern professional-grade skate shoes evolved, in part, due to the need for increased durability to resist constant abrasion. Other innovations followed, such as designs meant to reduce the risk of heel bruises, increase "board feel," and further improve durability. These innovations have improved not only skate shoes but also modern footwear in general.Examples of skate shoes
Prominent professional skateboarders design and endorse professional skateboard shoes, often with their name or logo.Some of the most prolific pro skateboard shoe designers include Eric Koston, Daewon Song, Kareem Campbell, Chad Muska, Andrew Reynolds, Marc Johnson, Geoff Rowley, and Anthony Van Engelen. Each of them has several iconic "pro model" designs mass-produced and sold as part of endorsement contracts with various professional skate shoe manufacturers.
Wax
Street skateboarders often travel with a block of wax, which is rubbed onto masonry to prepare it before a trick is attempted. The wax helps reduce the friction between the surfaces of the two materials when tricks which involve grinding or sliding are attempted.Complete skateboards
has become standardized for decks, trucks, nuts, and bolts, but wheel diameter is measured in millimeters.Skateboard parts can be individually repaired or replaced should they require maintenance. Skateboards can be serviced using a standard Imperial socket set, an Allen key set, and a small Imperial spanner set. Some skate shops stock an all-in-one tool which has all of the required tools attached. Such tools are essential for travelling professional skateboarders and are useful to skaters who do not have easy access to all the required tools.
Specifications
The most common specifications of a modern professional-grade skateboard suitable for street practice and competition are as follows:- A single set of 4 wheels, 52mm wide and 99A in durometer
- A pair of low in height 7.6" wide trucks
- An 8" wide, professional-grade, 7-ply Canadian maple deck
- 8 bearings
- 8 nuts and bolts
- A sheet of grip tape
Components
The technical specifications of specific components vary from rider to rider and depend upon the following factors:- Rider height
- Rider weight
- Shoe size
- Skill level
- Comfort
- Budget
- Preferred terrain, obstacles, and style of skating
Grip
, cut to length from a roll at retail, is traditionally a black rubber sheet with an abrasive surface on one side and an adhesive on the other. Grip tape is installed by peeling the backing off the rubber strip and carefully placing the entire sheet onto the top of a skateboard deck. The operation requires skill and can be tricky to perform, as it can be difficult to prevent air bubbles. Once the sheet is in position, the edges of the sheet are filed away using a hand file until the rubber is exposed so that the sheet can be cut to fit using a sharp blade to remove the excess. Once applied, grip tape is extremely difficult to remove.Grip tape comes in various colors and can also be adorned with a decal. Often a place of customization by the rider, a skateboarder may choose to cut out sections or shapes to decorate the top of the skateboard or simply to enable them to distinguish the nose and tail ends of their skateboard while they ride.
Decks
Board shapes have changed considerably since the 1970s, but modern pro models have remained similar in shape since the invention of the deep concave double kicktail deck. The contemporary shape of the skateboard is derived from the freestyle boards of the 1980s; these boards have a largely symmetrical shape and are relatively narrow.Decks can be as narrow as 7.5" or as wide as 8.75". Length ranges from.
Mass-produced, professional-grade skateboard decks are traditionally glued, multi-laminated, resin-covered, seven-ply pressed maple sandwiches cut and sanded to shape. The maple material traditionally comes from Canada and is usually described as "Hard rock Canadian Maple."
Often, skateboards are covered in graphics and decals. Some such decks become highly sought-after collector's items, especially if the graphic is of cultural significance and/or was created by a prominent artist.
Stickers often come with brand new skateboard decks and can be optionally applied to the deck or elsewhere. Stickers are an important promotional tool in the skate industry and are often given out for free at competitions or events.
With the skateboard facing forward, a skateboarder who rides regular stance calls the kicktail of a skateboard closest to their back foot the "tail." The kicktail at the opposite end of the deck is called the "nose."
Trucks
are the axles of a skateboard. Each truck is bolted to the underside of the skateboard deck using a set of four nuts and bolts. Rubber wheels containing bearings are positioned at each end of a truck component's axle and are secured using large threaded nuts at each end of the threaded axle rod. The maneuverability of the axle can be adjusted by increasing or decreasing tension via a large central nut and bolt called the "kingpin." Adjusting the kingpin has the effect of either increasing or decreasing the turning circle of the skateboard. On the kingpin are positioned two rubber bushings used for compact movement and shock absorption, by sandwiching one above the axle and the other above the base plate. The two bushings are clamped to the kingpin with two flat, round washers to hold them in position.Professional-grade trucks are commonly constructed using forged aluminum or magnesium around an iron or steel axle rod. Trucks come in various widths and heights to match deck width and riding style. Rider preference for truck height selection is commonly low for street, mid for mixed park/street, and high for vert. Truck widths do not commonly exceed deck width, so as to avoid injury from protruding axle rods while the skateboard is spinning during tricks.