Did you know? Bell’s Fast Facts Fridays
Like riding a bicycle, snowboarding, or golfing, skateboarding is a one-(wo)man sport. Sure you can go on a bike ride with friends or hit up the skate park with fellow skaters, but when the wheels hit the ground, you and only you are in complete control. Progressing in a singular sport such as skateboarding may not historically be as monetarily rewarding as golf, but for many there is something fulfilling about learning and mastering a new trick on a skateboard. Today’s Fast Facts Friday will take a look at some of the most daring feats, displays of athleticism, downright crazy stunts, and interesting personalities surrounding the sport of skateboarding.
1) Thrasher Magazine Skater Of The Year for 1991 and 2004 Danny Way made skateboarding history on July 9, 2005, when he jumped over the Great Wall of China on his skateboard. The skateboarding daredevil became the first person to clear the massive wall without motorized aid. (KidzWorld.com)
2) Rodney Mullen, born in 1966, is one of the oldest professional skateboarders and is considered by many to be the most influential skater in the history of the sport. He is credited with inventing at least 39 distinct skateboarding tricks including the Ollie, the Kickflip, the Heelflip, and the 360 Flip. (Wikipedia.org)
3) The youngest person to ever compete in a professional skateboarding event is Davis, California native Nyjah Huston. Now 15 years old, Huston was only 11 when he took second place in the (skate) park competition at the 2006 Dew Tour. (NYTimes.com)
4) Shanghai is the most populous city in China. Fittingly, Shanghai is home to the world’s largest skatepark. SMP Skatepark has an incredible 13,700 m2 of skateable space, much of it incorporating local stone and granite. The park has two street skating areas, multiple bowls, a full pipe (video), a 52 m long wooden vert ramp, and a 2000 m2 competition area. (GoogleSightSeeing.com)
5) Like baseball rookie cards, vintage skateboards (maintained in mint condition of course) are a hot commodity. Tony Hawk’s first skateboard model on Powell-Peralta from 1982 sold for $6,000 on eBay in 2002. Since that time a few other unskated “rookie” boards for Natas Kaupas (1985), Steve Caballero (1981) and Ray “Bones” Rodriquez (1979) have sold for $7,250, $8000, and $10,000 respectively. (Blogs.WSJ.com)
Skateboarding has become a popular sport and a lucrative business. According to a Wikipedia entry on Skateboarding video games there are at least 33 games about skateboarding! The latest and most interactive skateboarding video game is Tony Hawk: RIDE, which came out in November 2009. In the game, the player uses a skateboard peripheral to simulate the riding of an actual skateboard in the game. And, there are actually a few scenes in the game where the Bell logo pops up!
And in case you didn’t know, Bell offers a helmet specifically designed for skateboarding: the Faction.
