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California Free Former was the world's largest skateboard manufacturer during the 1970s. From 1970 to 1981, it was owned by Rick Smith of ALS Industries with a business partner. They also held several licenses from Walt Disney, manufacturing roller skates and other Disney brand consumer products.
The prominent Free Former skaters included:
California Free Former also used to sponsor skateboarding competitions, including the California Free Former World Skateboard Championships held at the Long Beach Sports Arena. (Original and reenacted footage from the Free Former World Skateboard Championships was prominently featured in the feature film Lords of Dogtown .)
The California Free Former World Professional Skateboard Championships were held at the Long Beach Arena in California. The first competition in the summer of 1976 was the largest skateboard competition ever held up until that time. Its significant cash prizes changed skateboarding history and created a professional tier in the sport.
The poster for the 1977 event was done by artist / designer Jim Evans.
Skateboarding is an action sport that involves riding and performing tricks using a skateboard, as well as a recreational activity, an art form, an entertainment industry job, and a method of transportation. Originating in the United States, skateboarding has been shaped and influenced by many skateboarders throughout the years. A 2009 report found that the skateboarding market is worth an estimated $4.8 billion in annual revenue, with 11.08 million active skateboarders in the world. In 2016, it was announced that skateboarding would be represented at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, for both male and female teams. Skateboarding made its Olympic debut in 2020 and is included in the 2024 games.
John Rodney Mullen is an American professional skateboarder who practices freestyle skateboarding and street skateboarding. He is considered one of the most influential skateboarders of all time. Mullen is credited for inventing numerous tricks, including the flatground ollie, kickflip, heelflip, impossible, and 360-flip. As a result, he has been called the "Godfather of modern freestyle skating."
Longboarding is a variation of skateboarding typified by the use of longer boards ("decks") with longer wheelbases and softer wheels. While longboards vary widely in shape and size, compared to street skateboards longboards are designed to be more stable at speed and to have more traction due to larger wheel sizes and softer wheel durometers. While standard street skateboards may typically be between 28 and 34 inches long, longboards can range anywhere from 32 to 50 inches in length. Ride characteristics of longboards generally differ from that of street skateboards due to the use of specialized longboard trucks that have different properties than those typically used with skateboards; while street skateboards use "traditional kingpin" (TKP) trucks that are optimized for tight turning radii, ollie and flip tricks, slides, grinds, and transition skating, longboards are typically paired with "reverse kingpin" (RKP) trucks that are designed for increased stability at higher speeds, more "surfy" carving characteristics, and/or greater ride comfort for commuting over longer distances.
Alan "Ollie" Gelfand is an influential American skateboarder credited with inventing the ollie, one of the most foundational skateboarding tricks.
Mark Anthony "Gator" Rogowski is an American former professional skateboarder who was convicted of murder. He was mainly prominent in the 1980s and early 1990s. Rogowski's career ended when he pled guilty for assaulting, raping, and murdering Jessica Bergsten in 1991. His life was chronicled in a critically acclaimed 2003 documentary titled Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator by American filmmaker Helen Stickler.
Vans is an American apparel, accessories, and skateboarding shoes brand, established in Anaheim, California, and owned by VF Corporation. The company also sponsors surf, snowboarding, BMX, and motocross teams. From 1996 to 2019, the brand was the primary sponsor of the annual Warped Tour music festival.
Sole Technology, Inc., informally known as Sole Tech, is an American footwear and apparel company, specializing in skate shoe design, production and distribution. The company is owned and operated by Pierre-André Senizergues, a former professional freestyle skateboarder. The company's headquarters are in Lake Forest, California, United States.
Jay J. Adams was an American skateboarder. As a teen, he was the youngest member of the Zephyr Competition Skateboarding Team (Z-Boys). His spontaneous freestyle skateboarding style, inspired by ocean surfing, helped innovate and popularize modern skateboarding. His aggressive vertical tricks make him one of skateboarding's most influential stylists. He has been called the "the original seed" of skateboarding.
The Zephyr Competition Team were a group of American skateboarders in the mid-1970s from Santa Monica and Venice, California. Originally consisting of 12 members, the Z-boys were originally sponsored by the Jeff Ho Surfboards and Zephyr Productions surf and skate shop. Their innovative surfing-based style and aerial moves formed the foundations of contemporary vert and transition skateboarding. The story of the Z-Boys and the Zephyr shop have been popularized in feature films such as Lords of Dogtown and Dogtown and Z-Boys.
Terry Kennedy, sometimes referred to by his nicknames "TK" or "Compton-Ass Terry", is an African American former professional skateboarder. He was sponsored by Baker Skateboards and Pharrell's Billionaire Boys Club. He is the co-founder of Fly Society, a clothing and music brand.
A slide is a skateboarding trick where the skateboarder slides sideways either on the deck or the trucks.
Dwindle Distribution is an American skateboarding distributor based in El Segundo, California. It is a component of Transom Capital Group Limited. The company was founded by Steve Rocco and Rodney Mullen. Its formation is recognized as a key event in the creation of a skateboard company owned by people actively involved in the skateboarding lifestyle.
Russell Wayne Howell is a professional skateboarder. While working towards his degree in physical education, Howell competed and won many freestyle skateboarding competitions throughout his skating career.
Ty Scott Page was a professional skateboarder and a leader in the skateboarding scene during "the golden era" of skateboarding in the early 1970s.
Slalom skateboarding is a form of downhill skateboard racing that first appeared in the 1960s and 1970s and has made a resurgence in popularity in the 2000s. Slalom racers skate down a course usually marked by plastic cones. The racer tries to get through the course with the fastest time, while knocking down the fewest cones. Each cone typically carries a penalty of a fraction of a second which is added to the skater's time.
Dave “Hackman” Hackett is a professional skateboarder from Malibu, California.
Cindy Whitehead is an American professional skateboarder and activist. A pioneer of vertical skateboarding, she was inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame in 2016. She is married to photographer Ian R. Logan.
Judi Oyama is an American professional skateboarder who excelled in slalom and downhill skateboarding. She was the Women's Slalom World Skateboard Champion in 2003 and was inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame in 2018.
Reginald "Reggie" Barnes Jr. is a retired American professional freestyle skateboarder and the founder/CEO of Eastern Skateboard Supply, the largest skateboard wholesale company in North America. Known as a "virtuoso" teen amateur, Barnes skated professionally from 1980 to 1991, with the Pepsi-Cola Pro Skateboard Team, Walker Skateboards, and Dogtown Skateboards. By 1986, Barnes was one of the top five American freestyle skaters in the United States and was a featured demonstrator at Expo 86, the world's fair held in Vancouver, Canada. He placed third in freestyle at the World Cup in 1987.
Skateboarding Hall of Fame, founded in 1997, is a museum and hall of fame located in Simi Valley, California, United States. The museum documents the history of skateboarding and the skateboarders, photographers, and other notable figures, publications, and companies who have influenced its development.