Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and sentence highlighting to engage reluctant readers! Did you know that street skateboarders perform incredible tricks by creating obstacles out of structures you might find along a city sidewalk? Street skateboarders jump their boards onto curbs and stairs. They grind down railings. They flip their boards around with their toes.

Inside the complex and misunderstood world of professional street skateboarding On a sunny Sunday in Los Angeles, a crew of skaters and videographers watch as one of them attempts to land a “heel flip” over a fire hydrant on a sidewalk in front of the Biltmore Hotel. A staff member of the hotel demands they leave and picks up his phone to call the police.Not only does the skater land the trick, but he does so quickly, and spares everyone the unwanted stress of having to deal with the cops. This is not an uncommon occurrence in skateboarding, which is illegal in most American cities and this interaction is just part of the process of being a professional street skater. This is just one of Gregory Snyder’s experiences from eight years inside the world of professional street skateboarding: a highly refined, athletic and aesthetic pursuit, from which a large number of people profit. Skateboarding LA details the history of skateboarding, describes basic and complex tricks, tours some of LA's most famous spots, and provides an enthusiastic appreciation of this dangerous and creative practice. Particularly concerned with public spaces, Snyder shows that skateboarding offers cities much more than petty vandalism and exaggerated claims of destruction. Rather, skateboarding draws highly talented young people from around the globe to skateboarding cities, building a diverse and wide-reaching community of skateboarders, filmmakers, photographers, writers, and entrepreneurs. Snyder also argues that as stewards of public plazas and parks, skateboarders deter homeless encampments and drug dealers. In one stunning case, skateboarders transformed the West LA Courthouse, with Nike’s assistance, into a skateable public space. Through interviews with current and former professional skateboarders, Snyder vividly expresses their passion, dedication and creativity. Especially in relation to the city's architectural features—ledges, banks, gaps, stairs and handrails—they are constantly re-imagining and repurposing these urban spaces in order to perform their ever-increasingly difficult tricks. For anyone interested in this dynamic and daunting activity, Skateboarding LA is an amazing ride.

Street skateboarders use railings, benches, and curbs to do tricks. Eager readers will explore the development of street style skateboarding from the 1950s to today. They will also learn about the equipment needed to safely skateboard and the competitions in which pros compete.

A step-by-step instructional guide for street skateboarders on how to execute a variety of curb tricks.

This book explores the cultural, social, spatial, and political dynamics of skateboarding, drawing on contributions from leading international experts across a range of disciplines, such as sociology and philosophy of sport, architecture, anthropology, ecology, cultural studies, sociology, geography, and other fields. Part I critiques the ethos of skateboarding, its cultures and scenes, global trajectory, and the meanings it holds. Part II critically examines skateboarding in terms of space and sites, and Part III explores shifts that have occurred in skateboarding’s history around mainstreaming, commercialization, professionalization, neoliberalization and creative cities.

Skaters who have mastered beginning and intermediate skills, along with veteran skaters, can benefit from the simple yet effective instruction offered in this book. The book covers detailed instructions for tricks and techniques to ride quarter-pipes, half-pipes, bowls, and to excel in both street skating and skate park skating, progressing through skill levels from low advanced to high advanced. It will help readers interested in upping their game become experts in no time, executing flawless manuals, stalls, and slides and impressing their friends with grabs, ollies, flips, and other tricks.

Enthusiasts who want something less conventional than traditional skateboarding might look into two other related sports: street luge and dirtboarding. This book explores these two offshoots of skating that have much in common with the winter sports luge and snowboarding, while also highlighting these sports’ unique attractions. Street luge gives riders the speed they may not get from regular skating, while dirtboarding enthusiasts like being able to skate on uneven terrain year-round, with or without snow. From safety and equipment to beginner lessons and beyond, this book is a valuable resource for skaters looking to go off the beaten path.

Describes the origins and evolution, equipment and techniques of the sport known as "sidewalk surfing."

From skateboarding's distant origins in the 1940s to the heyday of the Z-Boys to Tony Hawk's lifelong and lucrative career as a professional skateboarding icon, this book showcases what skateboarding was in the past and what it's now evolved into. In the last half century, skateboarding has evolved from a simple, idyllic child's pastime that originated in southern California to becoming a worldwide youth culture phenomenon. This now-mainstream action sport has spawned a multi-billion-dollar commercial market for skateboarding equipment, skateboard-related media and entertainment, as well as skate-inspired softgoods like clothing, shoes, and accessories; and it is likely to soon become an Olympic sport. Skateboarding: The Ultimate Guide is brimming with fascinating history and engaging stories from skateboarding's 60-odd year existence and evolution. Covering the action sport's origins, myriad breakthrough developments, pioneering heroes, both "street style" and "vert" or ramp skating, unique popular culture, and likely future, this book will delight anyone with an interest in this individualistic and compelling athletic pursuit.

Skateboarding is both a sport and a way of life. Creative, physical, graphic, urban and controversial, it is full of contradictions – a billion-dollar global industry which still retains its vibrant, counter-cultural heart. Skateboarding and the City presents the only complete history of the sport, exploring the story of skate culture from the surf-beaches of '60s California to the latest developments in street-skating today. Written by a life-long skater who also happens to be an architectural historian, and packed through with full-colour images – of skaters, boards, moves, graphics, and film-stills – this passionate, readable and rigorously-researched book explores the history of skateboarding and reveals a vivid understanding of how skateboarders, through their actions, experience the city and its architecture in a unique way.