Skateboards
- 1 January 2019
- book chapter
- Published by Bloomsbury Academic
Abstract
ExtractA skateboard is a basic device, with just three main elements – one deck, two trucks and four wheels – and has had little of the complex technological advances seen in other board sports like windsurfing and snowboarding. The deck (riding surface) is usually made from wood, covered with high-friction grip tape similar to sandpaper. Bolted to the deck are two aluminium alloy trucks providing suspension and turning, usually by a ‘double-action’ mechanism where a metal hanger and split-axle pivot around two urethane bushings on a central kingpin. Turning and stability are tuned by tightening the bushing compression. Wheels, once metal or clay-composite, are now made from polyurethane, each typically measuring between 50 and 75 mm in diameter and containing two 608-format bearings. This standard specification was not immediately arrived at, however, but, as we shall see, took over twenty years to fully emerge, before moving into a series of...Keywords
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