Many people aspire for a smooth life, one that moves as smooth as a ball bearing, without any friction, without any stopping force! And then, there is a category of audacious people who change this paragon of smoothness into an act, that can be daring and exciting enough to pump liters of adrenaline into them and those who watch them do this! Absolute adventure has many faces, the most liked one being speed. And if the subject of the verbalization is a four wheeled piece of wood, then it means something to those who don't refer a dictionary when someone boasts of adventure! This tool of escapade has been named skateboard. The sense of danger & thrill associated with it and the human will to experience and fight the challenge posed by it, have found skateboarding the third most popular sport among teenagers in United States, coming only after football and basketball.
A skateboard is composed of four parts: deck, trucks, wheels and bearing. Deck is the wooden log, the actual board of the skateboard on which the user stands. Decks come in different sizes and are chosen according to the level of rigor and the extremity of the stunts to be performed. Most skateboard decks are around 7.5" to 8" wide and 30" to 33" long but they vary, depending upon the user and specificity of use. They are slightly curved at the ends rather than being totally flat, thus giving some grip to the leg. Decks are also distinguished with their thickness, which is measured in terms of the number of ply layers supercharged together with strong adhesive to form the deck. Skateboard trucks are the axle mounted on the rear side of the deck to which the wheels are attached. The T-shaped trucks come into various sizes and colours, only to be chosen according to the deck it is to be attached to. Skateboard wheels are looked at on the basis of their size (diameter) and their durometer (the hardness of the wheel). The general used wheel size is around 50-55 mm with hardness of about 95 to 100 units on durometer scale. Bearings are used between the Skateboard clamp (truck) and the wheel it attaches to it. They are used for free rotation of the wheels by reducing friction, thus boosting the speed of the skateboard. Bearings being so important have a standard measure for the precision of bearings, generally measured on ABEC scale.
Skateboarding finds its place among adventure, artform, sports and transport activities. Earlier, skateboards were used as an attention seeking tool with stunts like wheelie, pivot, hippie jumps etc. Later on, the quest of doing something new added the aerial tricks like ollie and kickflip to the must learn skateboard stunts list. Seldomly, skateboards are also used by people for transportation purposes, providing easy and fast movement even on busy streets.
When discussing boards, the discussion can never be truly satisfying and complete if snowboards are not talked about! The miraculous snowboard stunt from the action icon Vin Diesel's flick XXX is still one of the most talked about adventures among sports lovers. With the thrill and exhilaration being parallel to that with a skateboard, snowboards are very popular among adventure lovers who vow to overpower the nature by accepting the challenge of speed on the bed of snow.
Consisting of a blend of about 8 different materials, Snowboards are chiefly made of wood. Wood is chosen due to its flexibility i.e. Wood can be bent to a certain extent, and it regains its shape, a property very useful to meet the snowboarding requirements. Structurely, these too are composed of layers of different materials. The layer of elements like fiberglass and carbon fiber provides strength and durability to the snowboard. The bottom layer of the snowboard, which is in the contact with the ice surface, is called the base. The base is made from a special material called P-Tex, which holds wax making the board easier to control, hence increasing its gliding capability and increasing both speed of the snowboard and the ease of turning it.
Being extremely popular at places with lots of snowfall, the adventure in snowboarding has taken it far away with people preparing artificial terrains to perform the action at places that are not blessed with as much snowfall as required for the sports. There are many different styles of snowboarding, the most popular being freeride and freecarve. The free ride is about riding down the terrain with the gravity. It also involves some stunts like somersault and jibs. Freecarve on the other hand is a race, which focusses chiefly on sharp carving turns to overcome the disturbances, with little or no stunts. The snowboard used for freecarve have a hardshell boot attached to the snowboard. Certain people even use snowboards to perform stunts on a surface other than snow, say rails, jumps etc.
Unlike snowboards, skateboards can also be used on a plane surface by applying the push with one leg. But under the gravitational effect, both skateboards and snowboards are at their best! A structure called half pipe is used for such gravity extreme sports. The structure is usually made of wood with the surface made with snow for snowboarding purposes.
It is a common belief that skateboarding and snowboarding include risks and dangers. They do potential accidents (after all, no risk, no game) but when performed in regulated environment, following the safety rules, the only thing these activities can cause is the taste of the flavour of extreme action, excitement, adventure and true sports, and apart from being a source for physical wellness, these sports do feed the soul of a true sportsperson!