Longer Boards Revive Sidewalk Surfing Style
Naysayers probably won’t believe it, but in the last couple of years a gentler, less-destructive method of skateboarding has been revived. The “sidewalk surfing” style of the 1950s has been reborn throughout Southern California, making longer, wider skateboards the choice for thousands of riders, young and old.
E.G. Fratantaro, co-founder of La Jolla-based Sector 9, one of the more well-known manufacturers of longboard skateboards, said this new wave is particularly appealing to surfers.
“Anyone who jumps on one of our boards can feel the relation between surfing and skating,” said Fratantaro, a Laguna Beach resident. “As opposed, if you jump on a small, new-school board, it’s not going to simulate the surfing feeling.”
Fratantaro said his product is mainly advertised in surfing magazines and sold in surf shops.
“I sell like one a day,” said Chris Andrews, owner of Killer Dana Surf Shop in Dana Point. “Kids like them because they’re good, fast transportation.”
The popularity of the downhill longboard has also caught the attention of racing enthusiasts. Next month in San Diego, ESPN’s X-Games will feature stand-up downhill racing for the first time when the annual made-for-TV competition is held.
Huntington Beach resident George Orton, who set the world record in stand-up downhill by traveling 61.87 mph in 1996, will compete in the X-Games June 18-28. Orton said it was difficult getting stand-up downhill into the games because of a fatal accident that happened on the day Orton set the downhill speed record.
A fellow competitor, Dave Perry, was killed on the same course in Tuscany Hills near Lake Elsinore, when one of his feet touched a wheel while making a slight turn. He was catapulted forward at 50 mph and his European-style helmet with a high rim in back snagged on the ground, came off and left his head exposed.
*
“ESPN had a hard time with the stand-up,” Orton said. “Everybody’s worried about what happened that one day, but it doesn’t seem to affect anything else, you have people getting killed in race cars all the time.”
It’s true that a downhill skateboard used carelessly can be as dangerous as a race car. They’re also more readily available.
Last October, a 19-year-old from Mission Viejo was killed skateboarding down a steep hill in the city. It was 1:25 a.m. when Phillip Panetta hit a raised lane marker going 25 mph on Jeronimo Road and flew headfirst into the ground.
“People don’t realize, when you step off that board, the motion you are carrying,” Orton said. “You’re going to get hurt at 25 mph. If you step the wrong way you can get hurt at 8 mph.”
Fratantaro said riders should check a hill closely before it’s too late.
“A lot of people get really into downhilling and they start down the hill and don’t know how steep it is, or how tight their trucks are, so they’re not ready for it,” Fratantaro said. “To run off your skateboard at 25 mph is a feat.”
But when used with caution and adequate safety equipment, downhilling can be comparable to dropping in on a mile-high wave. Decks are shaped like surfboards, with the front end pointed and the back either sharply rounded or inverted. The longer deck also enables riders to carve their way down a hill or slide the tail cutting back.
“You ride up the hill, one guy has to drive down, and everybody else gets to skate,” said Rob Molt, an employee at Sector 9. “You get to the bottom of the hill, get in the truck and go back up. It becomes an all-day hobby.”
This new avocation is also easier on the eyes and ears of many.
The sight of rambunctious adolescents mistreating every inch of concrete they come across has typically sent adults scurrying for cover. City officials also cringe at the abuse public property is subjected to, and parents can’t believe they’re making more visits to the orthopedic surgeon than the family dentist.
Youngsters congregate in city parks, schools and parking lots where they coat the curbs and benches with wax to give them more glide. They scrape the paint from their boards on anything they can grind against and slowly chip away at concrete steps, blocks or stones.
To combat this punishment, cities have fought to keep skateboarders off public and private properties. The most recent city to join the fight was Placentia, which passed an ordinance May 5 that bans skateboarders and roller skaters from public property. It also allows private property owners to post signs along with the ordinance number so it can be enforced. Violators would face a $100 fine.
The sport’s evolution dates back to the 1950s. That’s when idle surfers discovered they could re-create the sensation of riding a wave if they broke the push bar off a scooter and zigzagged down steep hills.
After the sport declined in the 1960s, the arrival of the urethane wheel in 1973 led to a resurgence that included the construction of numerous skate parks, the publication of new magazines, and more radical maneuvers, including aerials, inverts and ollies.
*
After the skate parks began to close toward the end of the 1970s largely because of spiraling insurance costs, street-style skating began to grow in popularity among youngsters, who turned previously unridable terrain, such as hand rails and concrete steps, into their free skate park, much to the dismay of taxpayers.
But the revival of sidewalk surfing has helped tame some of the ills brought on by seemingly reckless skateboarders. Now the risk is mainly in the hands of the rider, and with two feet on the deck and four wheels snug against the ground, those in the vicinity should breathe a little easier.