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Skateboarding
doesn’t have a certain origin. Nobody truly knows which is it.
Some people believe that Skate began on the surfing beaches of
California, U.S.A. around the 50’s. People say that some surfers put
wheels on a piece of wood. This began because of the lack of good waves to surf, and
surfers just looked for another sport when this happened. It mainly
started like “sidewalk surfers”.
The
design of skateboards was inspired in surfboards, at the beginning they
where quite similar, but with the time the design changed because of
commodities. The first manufactured skateboards where born in 1965. They
were an inch thick, had rubber wheels, and cast – iron trucks.
Competitions
soon started down the sidewalks between skateboarders, some of this
were: Free Style, Slalom, Down Hill, High Jump and finally Long Jump.
Some time passed by, and skateboarders started using drainage channels,
routes, and some places around buildings.
Vert
skating began using swimming pools. The transitions were too vertical
and fast, and jumps turned better.
The
first Skateparks were built in the U.S. This were the main hang-out
places for skaters, soon, pool and Vert skating became the most popular
form of skating. Vert skating demanded harder boards, so manufacturers
built them wider for more stability and changed the old rubber wheels
for polyurethane wheels, which were faster!
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Barefoot
skating was now forgotten except by a few of the old die-hard
"sidewalk surfers". The new skaters figured out that gym shoes
had more stability and didn't hurt as bad when you wipe-out.
Early
eighties arrived with a dive in skateboarding popularity. Skateparks
closed the doors, manufacturers stopped manufacturing and worst of all,
skateboard magazines switched over to BMXing and roller-skating. But a
few hardcore skaters kept going. Those dedicated skaters advanced
skateboarding cy creating their own techniques, writing their own
magazines, and building some of there own boards and layouts.
This
is when half-pipes arrived. Simpler and cheaper than pools, they could
be built by the skater himself. Tricks were used in street skating that,
before, had only been used by Vert skaters, Street ollies,
slide'n'rolls, and curb grinds( most of which have different names now)
are classic as street skaters moves, all of which were made by Vert
skaters. Street skating is still probably one of the most popular forms
or boarding. Every skater is a street Slater because that's where his
roots are from. It's just that some skaters forget a few things along
the way.
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