Polyurethane wheels revived skateboarding after a 1960s crash
Skateboarding began as California “sidewalk surfing” when surfers wanted dry-land thrills. A 2009 estimate put the market near 4.8 billion dollars a year with about 11 million riders. It debuted at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and returned in 2024.
Early boards were crates or planks bolted to roller-skate wheels. Los Angeles surf-shop owner Bill Richard ordered Chicago Roller Skate Company wheels for square decks; riders mimicked surfing barefoot. Southern California makers such as Makaha fielded teams in the 1960s; Larry Stevenson’s 1963 Hermosa Beach show and the short-lived Quarterly Skateboarder magazine (1964) spread the boom. Patti McGee’s Life cover and TV appearances amplified it, then safety scares collapsed sales by 1966 after Makaha had already booked millions in board revenue between 1963 and 1965.
Frank Nasworthy’s Cadillac polyurethane wheels, released in 1972, restored grip and sparked a second boom. Decks widened past ten inches; Tracker Trucks specialized axles by 1976. Empty California pools in the 1976 drought birthed vert skating; Alan Gelfand’s 1976 no-hands aerial—the ollie—unlocked ramp airs. The Zephyr “Z-Boys” stunned the 1975 Del Mar Nationals with progressive surf style immortalized in Dogtown photo essays. Carlsbad and Skateboard City parks opened a week apart in March 1976, first of roughly two hundred U.S. parks through 1982.
Liability costs later shuttered many parks, pushing homemade ramps and street skating as most riders lacked access to commercial vert. Signal Hill speed runs once topped fifty miles per hour before crashes chilled that branch. Today the same culture that scraped curbs also fills Olympic parks—proof that a sidewalk toy can become a global discipline without shedding its improvisational roots.
Source: Skateboarding
