The Rebound.
Skateboarding started to show signs of life in 1994. It seemed like more people were interested and more companies were being started. We moved beyond the pressure flips and big pants era, too. California Cheap Skates made a minor name change with a switch to CCS. The catalogs started to feature a lot more boards and the magazines were getting thicker, which are both indicators of positive growth. Girl/Chocolate, Element/New Deal/Mad Circle, and Foundation/Toy Machine were helping to fill the pages. New School was still kicking and Gonz had switched over to 60/40. New companies like Creature, Maple, and Sonic had begun along with smaller efforts like Entity, Invisible, Goodtimes, and Natural. Everything was coming up Milhouse.
Were our boards really this small back then? They seem tiny. I remember them being thinner, but I don't recall decks being so short. There are so many boards that measure 31.5, which I guess would be longer than the standard 10" x 30" from the late 1980s. Although I don't think I got picky about what I was riding until the later half of the 90s when I settled on the 8" x 32" size.
Late period G & S on Monday.
The Pepe Martinez photo is by Chris Ortiz.
This is the Fall 1994 catalog.
4 comments:
The size of the boards is wild. There are a lot of 7.5s, some 7.38s, I even saw a 7.25. People today would like at that and say, What is this? A kid's board?
not just the size, which I couldn't believe and went and measured an old toy machine deck currently hanging in my kids bedroom, sure enough 7.5x 30.5. but also pretty flat, had a Bo Turner AWS that was super mellow in the nose and tail.
Weirdness.
I remember that boards were smaller as for the width. I'm pretty sure I stayed away from those. I was riding only Consolidated so I must've been ordering the right size decks. Now that I think about it, some of those board did seem a little short, especially in comparison to what I'm riding today.
Wild.. the Duane Pitre/Alien Workshop pictured on page 5 was my first "real" board.
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