Bob Denike
"Hey Bob, why don't you do an article
about board breakage?"
Marsy
Z-RolleR
TRUCK
Steve Olson, styling some edgework.
"You know, tell skaters how to skate so
they don't break their boards in half."
Not a bad idea, I thought, after all I have
been seeing quite a few decks broken in
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half or badly damaged from skaters landing
harshly when doing some of these modern
moves. But would telling skaters how to
skate be the answer to this problem? The
more thought I gave it, the more ridiculous
the thought became; actually attempting to
explain how to skate "the right way." Only
then did I realize the real problem, that is,
that the method for construction of decks
hasn't changed to meet the demands of
modern day skaters. The problem isn't in
your hands, it is in the hands of the man-
ufacturer's
To illustrate this lack of change, let's look
at some excerpts from the warranties on i
boards available today. For example:
1...Boards will not be replaced if cracks
are caused or start from points of impact..."
The only way to avoid this is to not skate at
all or skate at such a low level that it's not
even funny.
2. "...No jumping of any type...no drop-
ping off high jumps..." This means, again,
that you must skate very calmly, no bone-
less ones, airs, sweepers, fastplants, you
name it and they're saying you can't do it.
3. Finally, and my most favorite, "...No
abusive treatment...no willful abuse to the
skateboard... Again this is a warranty de-
mand that is violated just by the nature of
the average skateboarder.
As you can see from these examples,
these warranties may have been valid at
one time, but now they are sorely outdated.
So what went wrong? Why all of a sudden
have these warranties become nothing
more than a manufacturer's way of boost-
ing their mailing list? Well it's not to hard to
figure out. Skaters now days put more
stress on a board than ever before and new
board shapes (fish designs and cut-aways)
have weaker, higher stress areas. These
two combine to cause a higher number of
boards breaking, boards that are not prop-
erly covered by these warranties.
So what can we do? Live with it and
realize that a board breaking is just a part of
skating? No way. The answer lies in the
fact that manufacturers must change in
order to meet modern skaters demands.
All the other products have changed with
the sport, for example, truck companies
beefed up their designs to reduce break-
age, wheel companies came out with
stronger and less defect-prone cores and
formulas for their wheels, safety equipment
has improved in some cases and hardware
changed to beefier types. The only aspect
of skateboarding that I know that hasn't
changed drastically to reduce product fail-
ures is deck construction.
Oh sure, I realize there are limitations in-
volved in constructing an unbreakable
deck (mainly cost) but I feel that there is
room for substantial improvement in both
strength and construction and, in turn, war-
ranty coverage.
In conclusion, if you're someone who
has broken a board and found that you had
no alternative other than buying a new one,
you know that I'm talking about. If you've
broken a board for no other reason than
just skating, write the manufacturer and tell
them things need to change. Until then,
take care and skate safe.
fly me
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