one chapter A HISTORY OF UPS AND DOWNS the the very first skateboards hit the streets in the early twen tieth century They were homemade usually just boards with roller-skate wheels attached to the bottom and a crate attached to the top for handles It looked somewhat like a crude scooter However skateboards as they’re known today came about in California during the 1950s Many surfers began surfing the streets on homemade boards around roughly the same time In fact it’s not known who first came up with the idea Again wooden boards with roller-skate wheels were common The first skateboard was sold commercially in 1959 By 1963 the sport was so popular that skate boarders started competing in the first skateboarding competitions Since the 1960s skateboards have been available for anyone to buy 6
A HISTORY OF UPS AND DOWNS 7 Nothing like the trick-heavy competitions of today these early com petitions included downhill races and a freestyle event However just two years later the sport’s popularity came to a screeching halt Some of this had to do with the incredible number of injuries among ama teur skateboarders Safety concerns were raised about the clay wheels then manufactured for commercial skateboards The wheels would break if they hit the ground too hard and were generally hard to control The growing skateboarding companies closed and the whole phenomenon was written off as simply a fad None of the extreme tricks daring skateboarders attempt today would have become possible without the invention of urethane skate board wheels In 1972 Cadillac Wheels came out with the first of these reigniting interest in skateboarding The new wheels were the start of the upswing in the popularity of skateboarding in the 1970s The first skate park was built in 1976 in Florida followed by a slew of others all around the world As more were built skateboard ers suddenly had a dedicated space to practice their craft but these early skate parks played a very small role in the growth of the action sport skate boarding has become In fact the high insur ance costs of these parks led mainstream skateboarding into another slump With the first skate parks came the first places specially reserved for skaters to perfect their craft
8 THE Z-BOYS In 1975 a skateboarding contest was held in Del Mar California A team of twelve surfers called the Zephyr team after a local surf shop competed and won in a sport they did mostly as a hobby They rode their boards with their knees bent deeply and dragged their hands over the pavement below as if they were riding a surfboard The new style of the Z-Boys who came from a poor part of California called Dogtown created a new buzz in skateboarding While the Z-Boys competed in the downhill event where their low-riding techniques seemed really benefi cial for going fast it was their freestyle performances that really made an impact During the 1970s freestyle skateboarding was a bit like ice-skating but on a skateboard The Z-Boys unlike other skateboarders hadn’t seriously trained for the competition A huge drought in that part of California left a lot of swimming pools empty They would sneak into public pools and backyards and skate there The unique shape of the pools brought about the new way of riding that the Z-Boys showed off in Del Mar and later Their style was a clear precursor to today’s trick-full vert contests The Zephyr team stayed together to compete for only a few months after the Del Mar event in 1975 Several continued professional skateboarding and shaped the modern sport including Stacy Peralta Jay Adams and Tony Alva SKATEBOARDING
A HISTORY OF UPS AND DOWNS 9 Another construct one specifically not made for skateboarding inspired creativity in a way skate parks of the 1970s didn’t the empty swimming pool IT STARTED WITH THE OLLIE Following the Z-Boys legend ary performances born out of swimming pool skate sessions pro skateboarding became a much more serious endeavor Excitement about what the sport would become grew It was time to explore the ver tical or vert possibilities of skateboarding Swimming pools gave way to the first ramps and the first modern skateboarding trick the ollie was invented in 1978 Without the ollie the most exciting tricks of today would not have happened And without mastering the ollie skateboarders cannot hope to move on to other such moves Nonetheless one small trick couldn’t maintain the sport’s mainstream popularity Concerns about safety again seemed to take skateboarding off the map though it actually just became To daring skateboarders of the 1970s the vert possibilities seemed endless
