History

1975 was a year the skateboard cat was let out of the bag again following in the footsteps of the crazy 60′s explosion. With the Del Mar Nationals, the San Diego World contest and many LA gigs too, the gnar of skateboarding took shape.  Everything from downhill speed runs,  grinds 3-4 ft vert with shitty transitions and high speed slalom runs.  Freestyle was peaking with the advent of the ollie.  The quantum soup for skateboarding’s  next significant popularity spike took place. The foundation was being laid for the next few decades as the street skaters stormed the scene and added big air ollie leaps with rail slides, curb grinding  and edge dancing on any object rising above the ground while the vert guys were flying through the air a la Danny Way on mega ramps.

Wheel formulas and truck construction continued to get better as the new maneuvers demanded bullet proof performance from simple designed devices.

And on a more subtle note, it was the perfect setting for distance skateboarding to begin as I believed more and more in the need for alternate leg pushing. After writing several articles for Skateboarder magazine, I believed it was time to write about this feeling and belief of being able to push with both legs.  So I published  the article, “Cut the Jive and Jog”.

Here’s a copy of the 1975 original, Skateboarder Magazine, Vol.2 Issue #5. Skating from Loring St. down Mission Blvd. to Pacific Beach Drive was one of my routes back in the mid-70′s. I worked in the skateboard shop area for PB Surf Shop. Skating back up Mission I naturally started pushing with the other leg eventually. It was then I figured it might make a good article for the magazine.