Go Skateboarding Day

What the day is

Go Skateboarding Day is observed on June 21, set up in 2004 by an industry association as an excuse to simply go and skate.

Origin and background

Everything modern in skateboarding rests on one trick. The ollie is the move that gets board and rider into the air together with nothing holding them to each other, and until it existed a skateboard could only leave the ground where a ramp or a pool wall threw it.

It looks like magic and it is mechanics. The rider snaps the tail down against the ground, which pivots the board and bounces the nose upward while the rider jumps. The front foot then drags forward along the grip tape, and friction between shoe and board pulls the board up and levels it out underneath the rider. Nothing lifts the board except that drag, which is why grip tape and the exact placement of the front foot matter so much, and why the trick feels impossible until it abruptly does not.

The invention is generally credited to a Florida skater in the late 1970s, working in empty pools where the lip of the wall did part of the work. The decisive step came a few years later, when another skater worked out how to do it on flat ground with nothing to help. That version turned every curb, bench and set of stairs into terrain, and street skating as it exists follows directly from it.

The trick also explains the board. The upturned tail and nose exist to be snapped against the ground, and a deck is shaped around a move that did not exist when skateboards were first built.

Skateparks are a civic footnote worth knowing: they are cheap compared with most sports facilities and they get used without anyone organizing a league.

How to take part

• Learn the ollie stationary on grass or carpet before trying it rolling.
• Wear a helmet. Adult beginners break more than teenagers do.
• Replace worn grip tape, since the trick depends entirely on friction.
• Use a skatepark if there is one, and make room for the children.