Skateboard

It is the skateboarding fad that has got everyone doing ollies, shuvits and handstands but not everyone is happy with the pops, jumps, flips, slams, slides or goofies going on in the public and private spaces of the city of Plymouth. One entrepreneur is looking to open an indoor skatepark with leisure facilities and surfboard-maker J T Flex has turned its hand to crafting skakeboards. Reporter Lawrie Quayle tries to catch up with the pace of the new skateboarding phenomenon.

Skateboarders use the wide open public spaces and Central Park Skatepark designed by Freestyle and private indoor facilities. An ollie is a freestyle skateboarding trick named after Allen Ollie Gelfand where the rider leaps into the air with the skateboard attached to their feet without the use of hands. Rodney Mullen adapted it for the flat and Darryl Grogan added variations like the Ollie Impossible. Since the seventies and streetstyle many tricks take the name of their inventor with variations such as railstand by Bobby Casper Boyden, San Francisco Flip by Guenter Mokulys, Jawbreaker by Primo Desiderio or Kickflip aka Classic Flip by Curt Lindgren. Original tricks are often dubbed Old School.