Over the past few years, the number of corporations getting involved with skateboarding has escalated to unprecedented levels. We thought the time was ripe to hear from the folks on both sides of the fence. Kevin Imamura works at Nike in their skateboard division. “Birdo” heads up Consolidated Skateboards and is also involved with the newly reactivated “Don’t Do It” campaign. We asked these two the same set of questions. Their answers may or may not surprise you.

But it goes beyond just increasing the number of female skaters. We’d like to see to see increased prize purses and coverage. Currently, the gap between male and female prize purses is absolutely enormous. Take the X Games for example. Cara-Beth Burnside took first place in vert and was awarded $2,000. Pierre Luc Gagnon also took first but wound up with $50,000. In fact, if you look at the overall prize purse for the X Games, male skaters had a total prize purse that was twenty times that of females. ($343,350 for the men vs. $17,000 for the women.). Thankfully, things are changing. Thanks to Burnside’s dedication, she has been able to get prize purses increased (most recently at the Slam City Jam).

At 15” in width, the El Cochino deck takes most people by surprise the first time they see it. After all, it is monstrously wide. But as you can see in this photo, it’s quite possible to do frontside airs with the El Cochino. Many years ago, boards were 5” to 7” in width. Wes Humpston and Jim Muir started tinkering with deck sizes and skateboarding wound up with 10” and 12” decks. For vert skaters in the 70’s, the wider boards were just more functional to ride. As many of you know, decks haven’t just changed in width, they have also changed in length. The resurgence of longboarding has meant not only an influx of new riders but a return by many folks who left skateboarding. Wheels have gotten quite a bit larger than the 39mm from the early 90’s. The demand for wider trucks has also increased.

O N E R O A D , M A N Y S T O R I E S , 100% SKATEBOARDING There’s a lot of talk these days about “divisions” within skateboarding. There are some who believe that if you’re not sliding down a rail or grinding coping, then you’re not really a part of skateboarding. In my opinion, exclusion and intolerance are absolutely everything that skateboarding should NOT be. At Concrete Wave, we’ve chosen a path to tell a variety of different skate stories. While I am quite aware that not every vert skater wants to see photos of freestyle or slalom, and not every speedboarder is interested in street skating, the fact is ALL these types of skateboarding exist and are thriving

In June of 1961, East German leader Walter Ulbricht set things in motion for the
creation of the Berlin Wall. On August 9th of that same year the Wall was erected
and it became the most famous symbol of the Cold War. For someone of my generation
(born in 1964) it was inconceivable that the Berlin Wall could ever be torn
down. But in November of 1989, the wall actually did come down. The history of the
Berlin Wall is both fascinating and tragic. I am publishing this photo because I want
to clearly illustrate what happens when walls do in fact come tumbling down.