Skateboard shed its transport equipment image of the late 40s and 50s to become what it is today, the recreational tool. The early skateboard championships were soap box derbies held in cities during that era of crude skateboards, which sometimes used to double up as surf boards too.
Skateboards as Sports Gear
With mass production becoming a reality in the 1960s skateboards underwent a lot of transformation for better; from solid wood or metals to plywood for decks, flat no shape to concavity, clay composite steel wheels to polyurethane made ones and finally single action trucks (axles) to aluminum constructed two part trucks. There is so much more in the safety, comfort and durability departments that you need to look into when buying skateboards.
Well, how do these things help? At first, the question may strike an irrelevant chord, but not so when you see the difference. Just taste this for samples: Without that innovative concavity would it have been possible for those champion skateboarders to takeoff from flat ground? Forget that for a minute, speeding along the streets wouldnt have been a reality but for the grip tapes now you find on the decks, which...