Freestyle scootering: Difference between revisions
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===Street=== |
===Street=== |
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Street riding is another popular scootering style favored among inner city riders. Street utilises surrounding objects to create a challenging riding environment; stairs, ledges, hubbas, handrails and gaps of all kinds. A large part of being a good street rider is being able to interpret your surroundings and think creatively about pushing yourself to the limit. Most scooter riders enjoy it to some extent, but only a handful declare themselves as focusing strictly on riding street (some of them lacking skatepark access, who have no other possibility to ride scooters). This is because most scooter riders aren't used to this different environment.street pros such as tye brad have reached 40kmh with only stock parts |
Street riding is another popular scootering style favored among inner city riders. Street utilises surrounding objects to create a challenging riding environment; stairs, ledges, hubbas, handrails and gaps of all kinds. A large part of being a good street rider is being able to interpret your surroundings and think creatively about pushing yourself to the limit. Most scooter riders enjoy it to some extent, but only a handful declare themselves as focusing strictly on riding street (some of them lacking skatepark access, who have no other possibility to ride scooters). This is because most scooter riders aren't used to this different environment.street pros such as tye brad have reached 40kmh with only stock parts. Riders such as Matt Mckeen and Timur Mamatov are notorious for their gnarly street riding. |
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===Flatland=== |
===Flatland=== |
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Revision as of 04:16, 11 September 2009
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Scootering (also scooting or scooter riding) is a relatively new action sport which involves using kick scooters to perform freestyle tricks, in a manner similar to skateboarding and BMX freestyle.
History
Scootering world's appearance on the Guinness World Records Primetime show on TV.
Over the next several years as kick scooters became less popular with children, the sport of scootering progressed. 2005 was the beginning of serious competitive riding, as the first big competitions were organized. Some skateparks, such as The Incline Club in Lakewood, NJ, Skatebarn West in Renton, WA or ASSIR Empire Skate Building in Montreux, Switzerland are known of having organized a series of big scooter events. In 2007, a miniramp scooter competition was held at the Australian Planet X Games. Even though the actual competition didn't happen due to some technical issues with the ramp, thousands of people attended the exhibition session.
In the last few years (2008-2009) scootering has been taken more and more seriously by other action sports enthusiasts. There are many new riders every year as the sport continues to grow. Many new and old companies have started making newer and better aftermarket parts. There have also been more and more huge competitions that have been held such as SD3, Xtreme Wheels, San Francisco Street Jam, and Scooyork’s Brooklyn Street Jam, just to name the more recent ones.
It has also grew big in other countries, such as Australia, England, Austria and France. These countries have produced one of the most exciting riders of the scooter industry, such as Coedie donovan, Phil Lagettie, Terry Price, Johan Grunwald,Pat Condon, and Thomas Obadia, James flores,and other amazing riders.
Riding styles
Park
Park riding is the most common form of scooter riding. Kick scooters, due to their construction, can utilize practically all of the possible skatepark structures, from little funboxes, to rails, to huge boxjumps. While a considerable amount of especially young riders enjoy doing 'flyout' tricks and pushing their trick level constantly, others enjoy more of a 'flowy' style, based on how BMX riders use the park. Park riding is especially popular with scooter riders from California and the East Coast area, due to the big variety and amount of skateparks available there. Street riders often look upon parks as a place to learn tricks to then take it to the street.
Street
Street riding is another popular scootering style favored among inner city riders. Street utilises surrounding objects to create a challenging riding environment; stairs, ledges, hubbas, handrails and gaps of all kinds. A large part of being a good street rider is being able to interpret your surroundings and think creatively about pushing yourself to the limit. Most scooter riders enjoy it to some extent, but only a handful declare themselves as focusing strictly on riding street (some of them lacking skatepark access, who have no other possibility to ride scooters). This is because most scooter riders aren't used to this different environment.street pros such as tye brad have reached 40kmh with only stock parts. Riders such as Matt Mckeen and Timur Mamatov are notorious for their gnarly street riding.
Flatland
Flat land riding is not as popular as street and park but still has the same concepts. Flatland is mainly based on scooter fakies (riding with your deck backwards) and fakie scooter fakies (riding backwards with one foot on the deck while the scooter is going the direction your back is facing.) Flatland can be stationary or while you are moving.
Equipment and scooter modification
There are also scooters that are made for scootering such as the Micro Xt and the popular Razor Pro
Most scooters used in this sport are typical lightweight aluminum scooters, reinforced to withstand the harsh riding conditions:
Scooter Resource modification thread
http://scooterresource.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?709525 There you can find almost every mod and aftermarket part around. There are also many different stores all around the world where you can buy scooter mods and parts such as, Dogg Scooters, Skater hq, Scooterbiz, Wee scooters, Inwards scooter and titetoys.com
Locked folding mechanism
The folding mechanism of the scooter is disassembled, then the headtube is bolted to the deck using 3 bolts. Usually, two 3" long 8mm bolts and 1 3" 10mm bolt are used.
Bolted bars
The foldable handlebar design is highly inconvenient for freestyle scooter riders. Those who cannot afford aftermarket bars will drill through and bolt the stock bars to stop them from moving and to get rid of the clamp, that can cause some pain when a knee strikes it upon landing, and replace it with a front axle. A long pipe or trolley bars may replace the original handlebars to provide a more comfortable width for the ones preferring a bigger size.
Deck reinforcements
Stock decks are very prone to breaking after hard landings. To avoid this, they are typically reinforced with steel or aluminum flat bars or square pipes.
Brakes
Nickles In the Brake. Some riders have recently started putting nickles (or other coins) in between the brake spring and the bottom of the deck, in order to tighten it and prevent it from wobbling. Some people put a bearing in there and hot glue it also, because coins fall out. brakes are to prevent you crashing, and they slow you down! =]
Aftermarket parts
Many new companies have been making aftermarket parts. Since scootering has such close relation to other sports then they can use the same parts. There are now bars, forks, wheels, decks, brakes, and bolts specifically made for scootering, while also using skateboard grip tape,skateboard bearings, and headsets and grips from bicycles. One piece bars are a very common aftermarket part for freestyle scooter riders. Riders like one piece bars because they are strong and light. (And the quick release of a standard adjustable scooter bar tends to REEEAAAAAM your knees.) Extreme Scooter Shops: http://www.doggscooters.com http://inward-scooters.com http://www.c4scooters.com/
Famous Scooter Rider
USA:
James Gee
Jessee Idekah
Nathan Wagnor
Matt McKeen
Josh Kish
Zig Short
UK:
Terry Price
Graham Kimbell
Australia:
Coedie Donovan
Rory Coe
Phil Lagettie
Brendon Smith
cory geisler