26 THE MAGAZINE
who
as a private eye
ngels. I was hired to find the killer
of vertical ramp riding. The sus-
pects are many and the names
familiar. I will stop at nothing to get
to the bottom of this case. It takes
of legwork and phone
killed
STREET VS. VERT
VS. HISTORY
In the mid-seventies, pool skating
the big buzz in the skate com-
munity. Kids all across the country
would get on their bikes and prowl
vert?
e countryside looking for the Cali-
fomnia dream pool. By the time the
venties became the eighties,
however, the sport was in serious
trouble. The parks were all closing
and Action Now was the only skate
"With videos and g
demos
becoming
more street orient-
ed, it isn't hard to
see how it died."
Ron
Kniggelli
mag around. Vert was kept alive in
backyards across the country in the
form of wooden ramps. Streetstyle
was born in 1983 in Golden Gate
Park in SF and the rest is history.
In the eyes of spectators, vert skat-
ing became boring. One handplant.
or an air, it all looks the same after
you watch it for ten minutes. But
with streetstyle, any Joe Blow
could grasp that someone
jumping off a ladder was crazy.
27