![]() |
![]() Mountain in 2014 | |
Personal information | |
---|---|
Birth name | Robert Lance Mountain |
Born | Pasadena, California, U.S. | June 13, 1964
Occupation(s) | Skateboarder, artist |
Spouse | Yvette Loveless |
Website | lancemountain |
Robert Lance Mountain (born June 13, 1964) is an American professional skateboarder and artist who was one of the prominent skateboarders throughout the 1980s, primarily due to his involvement with the Bones Brigade. As of August 2017, Mountain continues to skate professionally and his sponsors include Flip, Nike SB, Independent Trucks, Spitfire Wheels, and Bones Bearings.
Lance Mountain took first or second place in almost every amateur contest in which he participated. Mountain's first skateboard deck sponsor was Variflex, a company that he joined in 1981; Mountain then moved to the Powell-Peralta team in the following year (1982). It was during his time with Powell-Peralta that he formed a strong friendship with Stacy Peralta, the team manager and director of the Bones Brigade video series—Mountain appears in eight Bones Brigade videos, including the well-known video The Search for Animal Chin (the final video was the 1991 production Eight). [1] [2]
Mountain gained further eminence when he won the Upland Turkey Shoot contest at Upland Skatepark in 1983, an event in which fellow team riders Steve Caballero, Mike McGill, and Tony Hawk also competed. This was followed by Mountain's 1984 appearance in skateboarding's first, full-length company video The Bones Brigade Video Show , in which Mountain filmed the segue segments for all of the "vert" (a style of skateboarding that involves skateboarding on a vertical "u"-shaped ramp) and "freestyle" (a style of skateboarding that involves technical skateboarding on flat ground) parts; the segments depict Mountain as he skateboards throughout the streets of Los Angeles, US. [3]
In the early 1990s, the skateboard industry underwent a major transformation; the popularity of street-style skateboarding superseded that of vert skateboarding, thereby diminishing the status of the Bones Brigade while the prominence of the next wave of skaters increased. In 1991, Mountain left Powell-Peralta to cofound his own skateboard company "The Firm" and, together with former Powell-Peralta teammate Ray Barbee, recruited a team of notable skateboarders that included Bob Burnquist and Rodrigo "Tx" Teixeira. [4]
Following the company's further development, The Firm signed a distribution deal with Blitz Distribution. Following four videos [5] and over a decade of existence, Mountain announced the end of The Firm on March 13, 2006. [4]
Following the demise of The Firm, several former team members were recruited by the Flip company—Mountain, Burnquist, and Teixeira (all three skateboarders appeared in the Flip full-length video Extremely Sorry (2009) [6] [7] [8] ). As of March 2013, Mountain and Burnquist continue to be sponsored by Flip. [9] As a team rider for Flip, Mountain is one of the professional skateboarders featured in Tony Hawk's Proving Ground , an appearance that marked Mountain's first appearance in the Tony Hawk series of video games. [10]
As of October 2012, Mountain is sponsored by Flip, Independent Trucks, Spitfire, Nike SB (announced on May 7, 2007), and Stüssy clothing. [11]
In Transworld SKATEboarding's "30 Most Influential Skaters Of All Time" list, Mountain was selected in the eighteenth position and Skin Phillips, the editor-in-chief of the magazine, commended Mountain for his ability to "put a smile" on the faces of skateboarders over four decades of professional skateboarding. [12] At the time that the list was released in December 2011, Mountain stated in response: "I feel like I've influenced in the sense that if you want to do it, do it. If you don't want to do it, don't do it. But don't rely on what people are saying you can do or saying what you can't do." [13]
Mountain is a prolific artist and, as of March 2013, a catalog of his work is featured on the official Lance Mountain website, lancemountain.com. The catalog is divided into three sections: "Art Shows" (a collection of all of the art shows that Mountain has produced, with titles such as "Locals Only" and "Love & Guts"), "Art Owners" (displays photographic portraits of people who own pieces of Mountain's art), and "Random Stuff" (includes Mountain's work with items such as coffee tables, stencils, and oil paint). [14]
In 2011, Mountain and his son contributed pieces to an art exhibition that celebrated the life of Joe Strummer, the former band member of The Clash who died in 2002. [15] [16] Mountain also provided graphics for a Peralta-directed television movie named When Disaster Strikes. [17]
In July 2023, Mountain participated as a special guest artist in the Los Angeles art and music collective Surf Skate Roots Rock, reuniting with fellow skateboarding pioneers such as Tony Alva, Steve Olson, Lonnie Toft, etc. [18]
In June 2024, Mountain organized an art and memorabilia exhibition to coincide with his 60th birthday. The exhibition was titled "Everything Must Go" and was held in Los Angeles, California. Skateboard equipment, photographs, paintings and other works produced or accumulated over the course of Mountain's career were featured. [19]
Mountain is often cited as one of the inventors of the fingerboard, as he fashioned the prototype out of cardboard, pencil erasers, and a disassembled Hot Wheels toy in the late 1970s. Mountain's invention was featured in a Transworld Skateboarding magazine article, as well as the Powell Peralta video, Future Primitive . The fingerboard was initially created as a fun do-it-yourself project, for which kitchen sinks were used to emulate pool riding, and has since evolved into a major toy category that has sold multiple millions of units (most prominently under the Tech Deck brand).
Together with Caballero, Mountain was the co-designer of the Independent "Stage V" skateboard truck; [20] Mountain is also the co-inventor, with Neil Blender, of the transitional skateboard maneuver the "Gay Twist". [21]
Mountain's self-identified faith is Christianity, [22] and he has been married to Yvette Loveless since November 31, 1984. [23] The couple are parents to a son, Lance, Jr. [22] [23]
All contest results are covered in Thrasher Magazine and can be checked at the Thrasher Magazine Archives. [25]
Mountain appears in a brief, uncredited cameo role in Lords of Dogtown, in which he appears as a "bobby" police officer in England, United Kingdom (UK), during a scene that portrays Tony Alva filming a commercial.[ citation needed ]
Robert Dean Silva Burnquist is a Brazilian-American professional skateboarder who competed for Brazil throughout his career. In 2010, he became the first skateboarder to land a "fakie 900", making Burnquist the fifth person in history to successfully complete the 900 trick.
Anthony Frank Hawk, nicknamed Birdman, is an American professional skateboarder, entrepreneur and the owner of the skateboard company Birdhouse. A pioneer of modern vertical skateboarding, Hawk completed the first documented "900" skateboarding trick in 1999. He also licensed a skateboarding video game series named after him, published by Activision that same year. Hawk retired from competing professionally in 2003 and is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential skateboarders of all time.
Steve Caballero is an American professional skateboarder. He is known for the difficult tricks and air variations he invented for vertical skating and for setting the long-standing record for the highest air achieved on a halfpipe. In 1999, Thrasher Magazine named Caballero the "Skater of the Century".
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."
Mike Vallely, also known as Mike V, is an American professional skateboarder and musician. Since November 2013, he has been the lead vocalist of the hardcore punk band Black Flag. Vallely is the second-longest-serving member of the band, although he has not appeared on any albums.
Powell Peralta is an American skateboard company founded by George Powell and Stacy Peralta in 1978. The company rose to prominence in the 1980s as skateboarding began maturing as a sport. The company featured the Bones Brigade, a team featuring the era's top competitors. Peralta left the company in 1991 and Powell continued to produce skateboard equipment as Powell, Bones Bearings and RollerBones. The two company founders reunited to produce the company's now classic inventory under the name Powell Classic.
Flip Skateboards is a United States-based international skateboard company, co-owned by Jeremy Fox and Ian Deacon. The company produces skateboard hard goods, soft goods, DVDs, and accessories. The brand was distributed globally by US company NHS Inc. but has since parted with the distribution. Starting in July 2017, the brand is distributed in Europe by HLC and has now taken over global distribution.
Stacy Douglas Peralta is an American film director and entrepreneur. He was previously a professional skateboarder and surfer with the Zephyr Competition Team, also known as the Z-Boys, from Venice, California.
Danny Way is an American professional skateboarder and business person. He has been awarded Thrasher magazine's "Skater of the Year" award twice. He is known for extreme stunts, such as jumping into a skateboard ramp from a helicopter; that was featured on the cover of Transworld Skateboarding magazine. One of his more notable stunts was jumping the Great Wall of China on a skateboard via megaramp.
Charles Michael "Bucky" Lasek is an American professional skateboarder and rallycross driver.
Mike McGill is an American skateboarder who is best known for inventing the trick entitled the "McTwist", an inverted 540 degree mute grab aerial.
Vert skateboarding, short for vertical skateboarding, is the act of riding a skateboard on a skate ramp or other incline and involves the skateboarder transitioning from the horizontal plane to the vertical plane in order to perform skateboarding tricks.
Eric Koston is an American professional skateboarder and company owner. He has been featured in the Tony Hawk's video game series and the Electronic Arts (EA) video games Skate 2 and Skate 3.
A skateboard style refers to the way a skateboarder prefers to ride a skateboard. Skateboard styles can be broadly divided into two different categories: skateboarding to perform tricks and skateboarding as a means of transportation. Styles of skateboarding have evolved and are influenced by a number of factors including sociocultural evolution, mass media, music, technology, corporate influence and individual skill level.
Salman Agah is an American professional skateboarder and entrepreneur.
Skateboarding arrived in China in April 1986 when an American skateboarder arrived in China to study Chinese at the Beijing Language Institute. He says, "When I arrived in China, there wasn't even a word in Chinese for skateboard. People were really interested in learning to ride, and in a few years Chinese skaters started appearing in almost every city I travelled to". Domestic skate companies and retailers began to appear at around the turn of the century, bringing the average price for a skateboard of ordinary quality down from an expensive 1000 yuan to around 280 yuan as of 2009. Skateboarding has been slow to develop in China because of the lack of a strong preexisting street culture and of skating infrastructure; nevertheless, it's estimated that as of 2009 there are 40,000 to 50,000 skateboarders in China.
Street skateboarding is a skateboarding discipline which focuses on flat-ground tricks, grinds, slides and aerials within urban environments, and public spaces. Street skateboarders meet, skate, and hang out in and around urban areas referred to as "spots," which are commonly streets, plazas or industrial areas. To add variety and complexity to street skateboarding, obstacles such as handrails, stairs, walls, flower beds, bins, park benches, picnic tables, and other street furniture may be traversed as single tricks or as part of a series of consecutive tricks called a "line."
Theotis Beasley is a goofy-footed American skateboarder from Inglewood, California.
Steve Steadham is a regular-footed American skateboarding pioneer, former Bones Brigade member, and musician.
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.
Q: When did you get married? // Mountain: (from my memory) November 31, 1984.