Thoughts on golden era/today, small boards/big boards

[GMB]

What up, just a feel thoughts envolving the subject
Do you (as me) see a difference between golden era (lets say late 90s to mid/late 00) and today skating in terms of style? Even thou the bigger setups (wider deck width, wb, nose and tail, bigger trucks and wheels) made tricks bigger longer and gnarlier, but whith smaller setups skaters were more "classy" and "natural" on their boards. For me reynolds, kirchart, saari and allie represent the best examples of what im saying. They were so natural and refined it look like they suit up before going to skate

Not dissing at all today skating, actualy always had a 8.5 setup and once I stepped to a 8.75 and 160mm trucks the old setup looks tiny and that is the board I been looking for forever, im just finally comfortable on a board

But altough all that I kinda miss that "classy", natural, one moviment like trick

Will be anyone capable of skate like Arto in a huge setup? Probably not hahaha

/end rambling

[formula420]

Funny how everyone considers the 'golden era' to be whenever they were around 14 years old.

[The real veganshawn]

Didn't Arto ride big boards ?

[GMB]

Funny how everyone considers the 'golden era' to be whenever they were around 14 years old.

hahahahaha true, but I thought it was a concenceus thing that golden era was around late 90s/early 00 or am I wrong?

[GMB]

Didn't Artois ride big boards ?

maybe in mindfield he was already riding 8.5

[Hyliannightmare]

Funny how everyone considers the 'golden era' to be whenever they were around 14 years old.

exactly. all eras shred

[cky enthusiast]

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Funny how everyone considers the 'golden era' to be whenever they were around 14 years old.

[close]

hahahahaha true, but I thought it was a concenceus thing that golden era was around late 90s/early 00 or am I wrong?

chad fernandez

[GardenSkater77]

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Funny how everyone considers the 'golden era' to be whenever they were around 14 years old.

[close]

hahahahaha true, but I thought it was a concenceus thing that golden era was around late 90s/early 00 or am I wrong?

I think the Golden Era would be 1987-1996.

I would say Animal Chin was the beginning of the Golden Era and Mouse would be the end. In that time the ground work for how people skate today was laid out. By 1998 when Fulfill The Dream and Mislead Youth was hitting they weren’t doing anything new but just refining and going bigger.

As for the difference in style, I would say that pure trick difficulty has taken the back seat to creativity and flow.

I think in the next phase we are going to see a return to switch skating on a hellride tech gnar level if you know what I mean? I don’t think we have seen someone really flow switch but you know it is coming.

[mj23]

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Funny how everyone considers the 'golden era' to be whenever they were around 14 years old.

[close]

hahahahaha true, but I thought it was a concenceus thing that golden era was around late 90s/early 00 or am I wrong?

[close]

I think the Golden Era would be 1987-1996.

I would say Animal Chin was the beginning of the Golden Era and Mouse would be the end. In that time the ground work for how people skate today was laid out. By 1998 when Fulfill The Dream and Mislead Youth was hitting they weren’t doing anything new but just refining and going bigger.

As for the difference in style, I would say that pure trick difficulty has taken the back seat to creativity and flow.

I think in the next phase we are going to see a return to switch skating on a hellride tech gnar level if you know what I mean? I don’t think we have seen someone really flow switch but you know it is coming.

I agree about late 80s to mid 90s being a golden age. Video Days would land right near the middle which I think many would agree laid down a certain approach to street skating that is very much alive today. The later 90s and early 00s were sort of an anomalous hammer-centric era where skating went on a kind of like side quest before returning to where we are today.

Now I’ll just wait for someone to come remind me of a few really key developments that I am overlooking and explain why I’m totally wrong 

Anyway idk about the board dimensions. If anything I seem to remember that when I was a youngster back in 03-04, lots of pros were skating bigger-than-production decks. So the local shop would be selling a 7.75 while the pro would have an 8.25 with the same graphic. Am I misremembering?

[Fuckfaceunstoppable]

It’s absolutely subjective what your definition of the “golden era” is.

Probably has a lot to do with what age you discover skateboarding.

Feel like if you’re younger it has a chance of leaving a bigger impression on you.

For me it’s 2000 to like 07 or 08.

Seeing Templeton in a 411 Emerica ad hit a window with his board and having it bounce back and hit him in the mouth blew my 13 year old mind.

[ChuckRamone]

Does that naturalness OP speak of have to do with board size though or just different eras and different styles? I think skaters back then had a different style in general. There wasn't as much upper body movement, deep bending of the knees (unless you were skating a big drop), and carving around. You'd do a trick, then push really smoothly and roll straight to the next obstacle and do your trick with as little flailing as possible. What I'm describing might sound like stiffness in style but it wasn't that way. It was more about being as smooth as possible and flowing with the board. Now people are all about squatting heavily and having arm steez and carving around between tricks. Generally speaking, I think skaters had tighter trucks back then too. There were some with super loose trucks but it wasn't the norm like it is now.

[lemonchicken91]

That newer flowy style you talk about could be because more people skate parks more than ever? More people skating little bits of tranny instead of straight street spots 24/7? Idk just spitballing here. That would explain the larger board growth, that's what happened to me.

I do really enjoy that after years of just going for the biggest spots, people have gotten better at finding cool little weird things/places to skate. But now people are combining the two and doing big shit off/on weird shit.

[ChuckRamone]

It might be partly due to more park skating. I think there's also been a change in aesthetics. It's cool now to look like something was so gnarly and you were going so fast that you barely hung on, so your arms are doing crazy stuff and your lower body is all crouched down like you're surfing, which wasn't really as big of a thing back then.

[SneakySecrets]

Does that naturalness OP speak of have to do with board size though or just different eras and different styles? I think skaters back then had a different style in general. There wasn't as much upper body movement, deep bending of the knees (unless you were skating a big drop), and carving around. You'd do a trick, then push really smoothly and roll straight to the next obstacle and do your trick with as little flailing as possible. What I'm describing might sound like stiffness in style but it wasn't that way. It was more about being as smooth as possible and flowing with the board. Now people are all about squatting heavily and having arm steez and carving around between tricks.

Hadn’t really specifically thought about that before, but you’re right.  It’s like there’s a lot of little garnishments and affectations tacked on to a lot of clips.  I think the zoom-in-on-skater’s-concentrated-rollup-face filming probably encourages some of that as well.

So kids just love flappin’ those arms and mimicking trying to not hit a landmine when they land tricks... good for them.  Hope they have a ball flapping all over town.  Who am I to joylessly tell them it looks regular? 

Anyways, I think that might be part of the appeal of guys like Nik Stain, Tiago, John Shanahan for me, since they pretty much don’t do shit in between tricks.

[snowballz]

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Funny how everyone considers the 'golden era' to be whenever they were around 14 years old.

[close]

hahahahaha true, but I thought it was a concenceus thing that golden era was around late 90s/early 00 or am I wrong?

[close]

I think the Golden Era would be 1987-1996.

I would say Animal Chin was the beginning of the Golden Era and Mouse would be the end. In that time the ground work for how people skate today was laid out. By 1998 when Fulfill The Dream and Mislead Youth was hitting they weren’t doing anything new but just refining and going bigger.

As for the difference in style, I would say that pure trick difficulty has taken the back seat to creativity and flow.

I think in the next phase we are going to see a return to switch skating on a hellride tech gnar level if you know what I mean? I don’t think we have seen someone really flow switch but you know it is coming.

AVE

[j....soy.....]

There's a guy who skates just like Reynolds but on a bigger board......I think his name is Andrew Reynolds..

[Brguy]

Expand Quote

Does that naturalness OP speak of have to do with board size though or just different eras and different styles? I think skaters back then had a different style in general. There wasn't as much upper body movement, deep bending of the knees (unless you were skating a big drop), and carving around. You'd do a trick, then push really smoothly and roll straight to the next obstacle and do your trick with as little flailing as possible. What I'm describing might sound like stiffness in style but it wasn't that way. It was more about being as smooth as possible and flowing with the board. Now people are all about squatting heavily and having arm steez and carving around between tricks.

[close]

Hadn’t really specifically thought about that before, but you’re right.  It’s like there’s a lot of little garnishments and affectations tacked on to a lot of clips.  I think the zoom-in-on-skater’s-concentrated-rollup-face filming probably encourages some of that as well.

So kids just love flappin’ those arms and mimicking trying to not hit a landmine when they land tricks... good for them.  Hope they have a ball flapping all over town.  Who am I to joylessly tell them it looks regular? 

Anyways, I think that might be part of the appeal of guys like Nik Stain, Tiago, John Shanahan for me, since they pretty much don’t do shit in between tricks.

The beauty about it is that we all look regular to regular people, doesn't matter how much our arms flail around.

[GMB]

Does that naturalness OP speak of have to do with board size though or just different eras and different styles? I think skaters back then had a different style in general. There wasn't as much upper body movement, deep bending of the knees (unless you were skating a big drop), and carving around. You'd do a trick, then push really smoothly and roll straight to the next obstacle and do your trick with as little flailing as possible. What I'm describing might sound like stiffness in style but it wasn't that way. It was more about being as smooth as possible and flowing with the board. Now people are all about squatting heavily and having arm steez and carving around between tricks. Generally speaking, I think skaters had tighter trucks back then too. There were some with super loose trucks but it wasn't the norm like it is now.

thats exactly what I was talking about, thats what I was trying to express. not a matter of being better or worse thou, just differences and changes in aesthetics

And I just thought as a brazilian that in Usa the period around mid90s/early00s would be called "golden era" despite personal preferences, like a established and concensus thing, guess I misunderstood that haha

[Christmas Complete]

Expand Quote

Does that naturalness OP speak of have to do with board size though or just different eras and different styles? I think skaters back then had a different style in general. There wasn't as much upper body movement, deep bending of the knees (unless you were skating a big drop), and carving around. You'd do a trick, then push really smoothly and roll straight to the next obstacle and do your trick with as little flailing as possible. What I'm describing might sound like stiffness in style but it wasn't that way. It was more about being as smooth as possible and flowing with the board. Now people are all about squatting heavily and having arm steez and carving around between tricks.

[close]

Hadn’t really specifically thought about that before, but you’re right.  It’s like there’s a lot of little garnishments and affectations tacked on to a lot of clips.  I think the zoom-in-on-skater’s-concentrated-rollup-face filming probably encourages some of that as well.

So kids just love flappin’ those arms and mimicking trying to not hit a landmine when they land tricks... good for them.  Hope they have a ball flapping all over town.  Who am I to joylessly tell them it looks regular? 

Anyways, I think that might be part of the appeal of guys like Nik Stain, Tiago, John Shanahan for me, since they pretty much don’t do shit in between tricks.

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together

[Abyss1]

I would skate skinnier boards but I found that bigger boards dont snap as easily/ harder to flip.

[SatanicPanic]

Plenty of stylish skaters now. Ishod is at least as stylish as any 90s skater and I may get shit for this but I don’t see any real difference between Shane O’Neill and Eric Koston. Every era has some good skaters, I don’t think board size matters. Hosoi has great style, Alva had great style- they rode way different setups.