80s Sk8ing
May 26th 2008 09:18
Rad, Slam, Jam, Thrashin’, Grind, Skill, Gnarly, Sketchy, Sick, Stoked;
This stuff was huge in the 80s.
Sk8ing had graduated from the Z Boys and moved into the bigtime after the early 80s slump.
Tony Hawk was already dominating and with Rodney Mullin and future Hollywood star Jason Lee bought the boards into the future.
We weren’t talking handstands anymore, we were launching into the ollie, the kickflip, and the heelflip.
Everyone had boards when I was a kid. Man I had a crappy one, but I did have one.
Before the times of the multi-million dollar council skatepark, people used to make their own.
The good ones became famous too.
So were the actual boards. We’re talking grind rails, tail gaurds, nose gaurds, and decks as wide as the MCG and as heavy as Roseanne Barr circa ’88. Plus, who could forget the big-ass fluoro wheels and those terrible, terrible trucks.
Everyone was wearing the clothes and speaking the language, which started to veer away from its generic surfing roots. Who didn’t have some Visions Street Wear threads?
Some cool movies were being made too. Gleaming the Cube came out with Christian Slater, and Thrashin’ with Josh Brolin were sweet. And everyone wanted to ‘skitch’ after seeing Marty McFly ride the roads in Back To The Future.
There were even a couple of video games, Skate or Die and California Games anyone?
I was more into skating during the next generation style, but 80s Sk8 was such a cultural influence; it was hard not to like it.
'You mean to tell me that Mr. Studly is going to pass up a virgin ramp?'
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