Grind (skateboarding)

In skateboarding, grinds are tricks that involve the skateboarder sliding along a surface, making contact with the trucks of the skateboard. Grinds can be performed on any object narrow enough to fit between wheels and are performed on curbs, rails, the coping of a skate ramp, funboxes, ledges, and a variety of other surfaces.^[1]

Crooked grind - the skateboarder grinds across the edge of the box on his front truck

History

The move likely originated in backyard pools in the early 1970s, as the early skaters gained in skill and confidence with their high speed carves around the top of the pool walls and one day went that little bit ^[vague] too high . The trucks of the time, often being merely 'borrowed' rollerskate trucks, didn't allow much contact due to their narrowness, but as skateboarding gained its own truck manufacturers who widened the hanger design, the possibilities for exploration became apparent, and all sorts of moves started popping up . There was a big leap in street skating starting in the 1990s ^[quantify]. It has evolved ever since. Today, grinds are commonly performed on handrails, lips of benches, tables, hubbas (ledge on a slope), on a hard normal ledge, a flatbar, or just simply anything that is possible enough to grind on it.

Property damage

Grinding is damaging to materials which are not hardened for the specific purpose of the sport, as may be found in a skate park. The trucks are composed of a hard metal without lubricant or bearings on the grinding surface, so they literally do grind on the objects they slide across. Grinding can strip paint off of steel and wear down the edges of concrete, stone, aluminum, and wood building materials. Affected business owners and government buildings have put up anti-skate devices as a deterrent to grinding.^[2] Grinding in public places may be seen as a form of vandalism and may cause skateboarding to be banned by business owners and city ordinances.^[3]

Back-side or front-side

Whether a grind is back-side (BS) or front-side (FS) depends on how rider approaches the rail or edge. If the skater approaches the rail with his back to it, the grind is a back-side grind. If the skater approaches the rail with the front of his body to the rail, the grind is a front-side grind.

 

Kenny Gonzales - crooked grind - Far Rockaway Skatepark

References

1. Badillo, Steve. (2003). Skateboarding : book of tricks. Werner, Doug, 1950-. Chula Vista, CA: Tracks Pub. ISBN 1884654193. OCLC 53293560.
2. (1) Abbate, Vince (June 28, 2007). . Chico News & Review. Chici Community publishing, INC. Archived from the original on December 17, 2012. Retrieved December 30, 2013..
   (2) Heywood, Will (2011). (PDF). Urban Action. Department of Urban Studies and Planning at San Francisco State University: 19–33. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 27, 2014.
   (3) Rosenberger, Robert (June 19, 2014). . The Atlantic. The Atlantic Monthly Group. Archived from the original on July 1, 2014. Retrieved April 23, 2017. An example of an everyday technology that's used to forbid certain activities is "skateboard deterrents," that is, those little studs added to handrails and ledges. These devices, sometimes also called "skatestoppers" or "pig ears," prevent skateboarders from performing sliding—or "grinding"—tricks across horizontal edges. A small skateboard deterrence industry has developed, with vendors with names like "stopagrind.com" and "grindtoahault.com."
   (4) Kelly, John (May 23, 2020). "It's a grind: The birth of those metal ledge guards designed to deter skateboarders". Local. The Washington Post. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
3. Woolley, Helen; Hazelwood, Teresa; Simkins, Ian (2011). "Don't Skate Here: Exclusion of Skateboarders from Urban Civic Spaces in Three Northern Cities in England" (PDF). Journal of Urban Design. 16 (4): 471–487. doi:10.1080/13574809.2011.585867. S2CID 55515507.