History of Skateboarding Essay

Somehow skating has managed to always be in my life. My earliest memories are times on my dad’s hawaiian longboard with him, riding me home from my old school. There would be time’s I’d be brought to someone's house and notice skateboarding on the tv. I didn’t really understand the videos or what a “part” was but I still had recognition for it. Without knowing a single person in the video or any of the tricks, I still somehow felt motivated to go ride. I saw the world through the eyes of a skateboarder, taking notice of all the culture. Eventually I was gifted a used board that was covered in stickers. Nowadays I put very few stickers on a board, but back then I’d be adding more constantly. It wasn’t long before skating became a lifetime friend that I’d wind up relying on throughout my ups and downs.

The first real roller coaster was built in 1878 on Coney Island which was built by La Marcus Thompson. The roller coaster was made out of wood and went down hill. To get to this roller coaster you

Tony Hawk was a professional skateboarder that was helping Shaun White with skateboarding. When Shaun was finally 17 years old he turned into a pro. For snowboarding he was trained by a man named Burton. He made Shaun white a famous professional at snowboarding. He then started his career which was snowboarding after he turned pro in Burton's

The first roller coasters were patented by LaMarcus Adna Thompson in 1885 (Wikipedia), but roller coasters existed long before their paten. Back in late sixteenth century Russia there was a sport known as ice sliding where one would start at the top of a 70-foot wooden structure and pummel down a 600 feet long track on one’s 2-foot-long sleigh (Throgmorton 10). Ice sliding was only available during the winter months, so in the warmer months the Russians would affix wheels to their sleighs so they could enjoy sliding year round. Then in the late eighteenth century a French traveler built a conveyer-like coaster by placing rollers on a wooden track so that riders could coast down the track, thus came the name Roller Coaster (Throgmorton 10).

The wheels of the board grind across the asphalt pavement, carrying its rider across the parking lot. His loose clothes rustle in the breeze, and his hair flies around his face until he puts on his baseball cap to control it. In one fluid movement, he pushes on the back of his board, curls his front foot, and leaps into the air. But the board seems to have a mind of its own and tangles itself in his feet. SMACK!! The skater's arm rakes across the pavement as he hits the ground-"road rash." The boy gets back up, returns his cap to his head, and continues to skate with hardly any hesitation. Skating is not a safe and sheltered hobby like collecting stamps or baseball cards; it requires

The roller coaster has its beginnings in Russia where during the 1600's. People crafted sleds out of wood and built hills made of ice blocks. The hills had sand at the bottom to help slow down the sleds so they would not crash when they reached the bottom of the hill.1 Over time, the roller coaster has become more complex. They now are taller, faster

Snowboarding started as one single brand, Burton. Jake Burton, literally the inventor of snowboarding, was the first to set the bar

Snowboarding has an amazing background and explanation of how it came to be. It all started with the people who surfed and skateboarded. They wanted something similar to do in the winter. Sherman Poppen was the creator of the snurfer (an early snowboard) in 1965. Sherman was one of the skateboarders who wanted to surf but lived in Michigan. One day he nailed two skis together and attached a rope with a handle to the front thus creating the snurfer. Sherman then called his friends, who were engineers for the Brunswick Corporation and asked them to make some of the snurfers. The Brunswick Corporation made skis, bowling balls, bowling alleys, and bowling pins. The snurfer took the world by storm, but people wanted a safe way to ride. Eventually Jake Burton Carpenter started making a new model called the ski board and this was the first company for snowboards. Jake Burton was a Stockbroker who fell in love with snowboarding and decided to take the risk and start making them. He became the founder of the

One soon realizes how unstable their feet may feel as they ride back and forth between the walls of the half pipe. However, when an individual chooses to ride a 9” board, they may find their footing firmly stable. This same concept applies in choosing a board in which one would ride on the street with. Actually, one may find it challenging while attempting to flip and shove it choosing a 10” board. In that case, if an individual chose an 8.25” board the individual may find doing such tricks easier. Thus, a selection of boards can determine what style of skateboarding an individual participates in, coupled with, this individual choice of

The current generation of skateboards is dominated by street skateboarding. Most boards are about 7¼ to 8 inches wide and 30 to 32 inches long. The wheels are made of an extremely hard polyurethane, with hardness. The wheel sizes are relatively small so that the boards are lighter, and the wheel's inertia is overcome quicker, thus making tricks more manageable. Board styles have changed dramatically since the 1970s but have remained mostly alike since the mid 1990s. The contemporary shape of the skateboard is derived from the freestyle boards of the 1980s with a largely symmetrical shape and relatively narrow width. This form had become standard by the mid '90s. Go skateboarding day was created in 2004 by a group of skateboarding companies to promote skateboarding and help make it more noticeable to the world. It is celebrated every year on June 21st.

Skateboarding has been around since 1944. Initially, created as a crate with wheels and a bar used as a handle bar, the idea was slowly being more refined. Woman’s Army Corps Betty Magnuson, reported seeing French children riding on wooden boards with rollerblade wheels attached to them which would imply that the idea has been played around with but never capitalized upon. From crate boxes with handle bars, to popsicle shaped boards with specialty made wheels backed with a massive culture, skateboarding has become a popular industry.

Bored Americans who had way too much time on their hands created snowboarding. In the decade of the ‘60s, snowboarding was born, getting more interesting as skateboarders and surfers joined the early developers of the sport. As the sport gained popularity, it also gained it’s haters- mainly skiers.

depending on what you are learning. Learning to ollie on a skateboard was one of the hardest things i ever did. To know how to do a ollie you would place both of your feet on the board and slide the foot thats in front up towards the nose of the board with the right foot coming down on the tail at the end with your weight and some pressure at the same time.

This electric skateboard is an invention of the Italian innovator Lorenzo Cella, who tested the board for a period of one year, with the help of his father, Giuseppe. He came up with the final design of 60 cm long board, 25 cm wide and 4 kg weight. The battery and electronics are integrated with the wooden body of the board.

In 1959 the Disneyland theme park introduced a new design breakthrough with the Matterhorn Bobsleds. This was the first roller coaster to use a tubular steel track. Unlike conventional rails set on wooden railroad ties, tubular steel can be bent in any direction, which allows designers to incorporate loops, corkscrews, and many other maneuvers into their designs. Most modern roller coasters are made of steel, although wooden coasters are still being built. New designs and technologies are pushing the limits of what can be experienced on the newest coasters.