Freestyle scootering
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Freestyle scootering (also scootering, scooting, or scooter riding) is an action sport which involves using scooters (also known as kick scooters) to perform freestyle tricks, in a manner similar to skateboarding and BMX freestyle.
Terrain
Park
Riding in Skatepark is the most common. Kick scooters, due to their construction, can use most structures, including rails, boxes and even vertical ramps. Some riders enjoy doing 'flyout' tricks and pushing their trick level. Others enjoy more of a relaxed style, based on a combination of BMX and their own style.
Street
Among inner city riders, using structures such as stairs, ledges, hubbas, handrails, speedbumps, and gaps. Street riders tend to get technical with tricks. Most scooter riders enjoy street to some extent, but only a small group declare themselves as focusing strictly on street riding. Street riding is also a great platform to ride as it gives the riders interesting challenges such as gaps, grind, combinations and lines that they would not normally find in a vert styled skatepark.
Flatland
The flatland genre of freestyle scooter riding takes place on flat surfaces such as parking lots, driveways, or tennis/basketball courts. Flatland riders prefer to link smaller tricks up in "combos", or combinations, such as barspins, tailwhips, manuals, hang fives, fakies, scooter fakies, sliders, and many more.
Freestyle scooter parts
Decks
Decks of freestyle scooters have come a long way since the invention of the original Razor A Model Scooter in 1999. Nowadays, Freestyle scooter decks are usually one piece or are two piece decks that have the deck and head tube bolted together from the bottom. Nevertheless, both are equally as strong. Most scooter companies today make decks including Phoenix, Lucky, and Madd Gear to name a few. Phoenix has a signature square headtube and are known for their strength and lightweight construction. Lucky has their "Evo 2" Deck that features the aforementioned Two Piece deck design where the headtube is bolted on to the deck. Madd Gear, the biggest scooter company behind Razor, is one of the most profitable scooter companies pulling in millions of dollars each year from their "Ninja" and "Nitro" scooter decks along with their complete versions. They recently introduced the "Nitro Extreme" which is similar to the normal Nitro but includes lighter construction along with cutouts in the deck. Many other scooter companies make decks, however, these are the most common that are seen at your local skatepark.
Bars
Handlebars commonly are made out of 4130 chromoly or 6061 aluminum. The original folding Razor Bars have been out of use for years now and are replaced with welded and often gusseted bars for extra strength. There are many designs for bars including standard "T" Bars and many other variations with different styles and angles. Bars can be custom cut to the preference of the rider and are generally between 18" and 24" Tall and 14" to 22" Wide.
Grips and Bar Ends
Originally, Freestyle scooter grips were simply foam rubber grips as seen on classic razor scooters. However, with today's demand for stronger and more durable parts, BMX style grips are now used on scooters, from companies such as ODI (longnecks) and Animal (edwins). Most grips come with bar ends which are designed to prevent the bars from becoming jagged around the edges and cut the rider when he falls.
Forks
Scooter Forks have come along way since the original razor forks which often bent from impact. Andrew Broussard, the owner of Proto Scooters and Freestyle Depot, created the Proto Senior Fork in the mid 2000's and started the craze for new and improved scooter parts. Nowadays, many companies make forks, each with their own advantages and innovations. Most forks are threadless, meaning that a compression system is used to hold the scooter bars to the fork (discussed below), however, threaded forks are still available. The downside to these are that they cause the rider's scooter to become wobbly and not as strong as if he used a threadless system.
Wheels
Early Scooter Wheels were composed of a plastic center and a urethane outside. However, these often snapped, causing the development of metal-core wheels that are the norm for today's riders. Newer metal-core wheels are composed of a machined aluminum core and a durable urethane outside. Almost every scooter company makes wheels, with ones from Phoenix being the most popular in general.
Brake
There are tons of brake types available for the freestyle scooter rider with ones from Madd Gear and Phoenix being the most popular. Many brakes are ones that are composed of the brake itself, a bolt the runs horizontally through the bottom of it, and a spring to keep it from rattling. Nevertheless, these often rattle, which caused the invention of the flex-fender type brake system which is essentially just a flat or curved piece of metal that when depressed rubs down on the wheel to slow the rider down.
Pegs
Pegs are a relatively new innovation to the scooter industry and are made by companies such as Quebec Scooters, Tilt Scooters and Lucky Scooters. They allow the rider to do stalls and grinds however they can occasionally interfere with riding if they hit the side of a ramp or a riders foot.
Headset
Headsets in freestyle scooters have no difference to those on BMX bikes. Those scooters take a 1 1/8" sized headset. A threaded headset is used for a threaded fork only. Their main use is for those usually running the stock forks. Threadless headsets are used with a compression system on threadless forks such as SCS (Standard compression system), HIC (Hidden internal compression system, which requires over sized bars) or ICS (Inverted compression system). The compression used on threaded forks is a locknut, that can be taken off a stock fork. Threadless headsets are used to accommodate threadless forks, which were created because threads compromise the stregnth of the fork tube.
Compression
- Standard Compression System (SCS)
- - scs clamp, compression bolt, starnut, headset cap, shim (use with thin bar)
The SCS resembles an over sized clamp but internally works much like a bicycle stem. There are two slots to fit the bars and fork, the smaller of which is located on the bottom and is for the fork. A starnut is installed into the forks and the SCS is placed over the fork tube. The compression bolt is screwed into the headset cap and then into the starnut. The cap is caught on the lip that is located internally in the SCS. The bars are placed into the top slot and bolts externally located on the SCS are tightened to act as a clamp.
- Inverted Compression System (ICS)
- - compression bolt, starnut, headset cap
A Starnut is installed into the bars. A compression bolt is screwed into a headset cap and is placed into the fork tube from below. It is then screwed into the starnut located in the bars. The headset cap is larger than the inner diameter of the fork tube and so catches and compresses.
- Hidden Internal Compression system (HIC)
- - compression bolt, headset cap, starnut, compression shim
A starnut is installed into the fork tube. a compression shim is placed over/around the fork tube and the compression bolt is screwed into the top of the fork tube through the headset cap and into the starnut. The shim is the compressor, as the headset cap is pushing down on the shim, the shim intern pushes down on the headset. Using HIC requires over-sized bars and a bigger clamp.
- Thread lock compression
A HIC-like compression system/fork made by Phoenix Pro Scooters, which involves the fork and compression shim to screw on together.
International Scooter Association
The ISA concept and name came from a meeting held at Montreux Contest, Switzerland. Attended by riders and those within the industry, who all agreed the sport needed structure and support in order to best promote, develop and create a sustainable future for scooter riding.
Established in 2011 the ISA is made up by an evolving committee of members, creating a network of support:
- Riders - provide input and feedback on how best to develop their sport.
- Industry members - Brands, Distributors and Retailers invest funds and support
- Media - dedicated to promoting the sport and riders
- Skateparks - providing access for riders and hosting events
- Sponsors - supporting riders progression and taking the sport to a main stream audience
(the committee can be viewed via ISA website)
The ISA generates funds that go back into the sport and for the riders to benefit from. Projects such as the International Scooter Championships, Awards and establishing a network of governing bodies that help develop the true values of the sport are key objectives.
References
External links
- Frequent Questions by Inward Scooters
- The Scooter Resource » About The Scooter Resource - History of scootering
- Tutorials on How to Assemble Scooters - by War Scooters
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