Go Skate used to be one of the heavies in skateboarding mailorder. They had the coolest stickers and T-shirts that said Go Skate or Go Home!. I think this shop was out of San Francisco, and they used to carry a lot of rollerskating equipment primarily. (UPDATE: WRONG! I got my brain synapses crossed with Skates on Haight.) I looked it up onlne a year or so ago and they seemed to be focusing on inline skates. Jon Sheldon found an old Go Skate shop deck that I do not remember seeing before. Actually, I probably just ignored it at the time. Anyway, it’s a piece of skate history that isn’t as glamourous as some of the more well known boards, but still interesting enough to me at least. Check out a few pics after the jump.
The grip tape job on this board seems entirely appropriate.
49 comments
Gavric
Wow, I found two unused Go Skate or Go Home stickers in my belongings then looked to see if there was any mention of that logo, when I fell upon this thread. I too hung out at Go Skate in Sac and Santa Cruz. I remember skate events in Roseville (I think in the BelAir parking lot) and out at Sacramento Raceway. Other places too, but can’t recall exactly where. Crazy to read these names and have those memories come back. Named above, Ffej, was that “Fish”?
Also, there was a gal Chris Dang who made videos back in the day. I think she lived by Bella Vista HS. If I recall correctly she got some distributed professionally. Anyhow, Hi everyone!
Bridgette
Million Bradley,
You asked if Go Skate produced any skate videos. “Quimby Productions” ran the skate contest and made videos of the contest. Quimby( Matthew Oldham) had Dale Smith and many others sponsor the contest. Quimby Productions was allowed to use the “GO Skate” name at the time, as per written agreement, for the contest and videos. We also had other private investors besides Go Skate, in which Dale was aware of this and agreed to it. Dale was not willing to finance 100%. Unfortunately Quimby Productions did not expand when approached by other actions sports. Quimby Productions sold the rights to all the “footage” of the contests & demos to another production company. In a nut shell, Matt gave Dale the opportunity to buy the footage before the contracts were signed, with the other production company. At that point, all written agreements as established before with Go Skate were nullified. Go Skate was a lot of fun and a great opportunity for many peoples.
Kelli Sincock
Just to clarify, Dale Smith was the owner of Go Skate and it was not a corporation. Dale was married to a very close family friend and we hung out with him a bit. Nice guy. Funny! They did focus more on roller skates at first because there was a huge fad of roller skating back in the late 70’s, early 80’s. They also branched into skateboards. They had a wonderful selection of stickers! The did franchise to other locations. Another family member, Michael Magne, owned and ran one in Santa Barbara. Sadly, he has passed on. There is a new skateboarding company going by the name GoSkate and I’m wondering how that happened. Anyhow, happy memories at Go Skate.
Go Skate or Go Home!!
Milton Bradley
Does anyone know if Go Skate did indeed produce at least one skate video? It’s advertised in an ad of theirs in Thrasher May 1987.
Mike
This board is made at the Vision factory in Costa Mesa by Paul Schmitt. Could very well be one of the first decks made for a skate shop by a major manufacturer. Totally Sick skate relic! I believe Bostick started the GSGH! trend. I remember this deck on the wall among many other greats at the Citrus Hights store. For sure an early 80’s model. This was the place until Skates Plus opened up in old town Roseville back in 86. And BlockHead Skates was coming on strong. I lived between both shops. Was a great time in skateboarding history.
tyler casablanca
I remember those Go Skate decks. They were the worst. Never understood how somebody ended up buying one.
Go Skate was the spot and Dale was a super nice guy. They had one in San Mateo where I grew up and that is where I bought all of my boards. I didn’t think you could even buy one at a different shop because the other people wouldn’t know what they were doing. You absolutely had to buy it at Go Skate.
Ffej worked at the San Mateo shop for a while. He was the first person I ever saw do a “nollie”.
In the 80s the crew was Alcantar, Raposo, and somebody we just called “Nick the dick”. Tyrone from South City and Crazy Chad worked there for a while, and then there was Fat Larry, who always seemed unhappy and didn’t actually skate. I was always suspicious of him. Kessler went there from time to time as well, although when he got sponsored by Vision he kind of moved on.
The parties in the back were fun, and there was the parking lot with the quarter pipe. To be invited in the back to drink a beer and smoke a bowl felt like the world’s greatest initiation rite of passage for a kid in middle school.
I watched mid nineties a while back and Go Skate was a very similar experience for me. The older guys could be dicks, but by and large they weren’t bad guys and they would take you to all the good spots, spillway, fort miley, ray myers’ ramp in the city.
jesus i miss those days.
Scary Larry
Go Skate was a corporate shop with locations all over California starting in the early to mid 80’s. The go Skate or Go Home deck was a generic deck made in the mid 80’s.
I would never shop at Go Skate due to it being a corp store. I stuck with High Rollers in Sacramento to the end.
Mike
That was a high quality USA built by skateboarders for skateboarders shred stick! in the early 80’s. GO SKATE shops were the premier no B.S. place for skate merch. Complete opposite of corporate! You wish there was shops like this now I guarantee it!
Jeff Will
Larry, you stuck with high rollers?
Name one high roller skater in Sac?
Can
Dave Davison
Tony smith if you ever see this hit me up. Been looking for you for years. It’s your friend from Turlock. I am now in Modesto davedavison1@aol.com
Ricky stiles
Troy the graceful one pro free street style, tech style slider. That house on laurel st. Was sick. Dave cox was weird yeh with his modeling. But he ripped. Ever see him. How are you doing. I know your in your 40s and still rip. I’ve been back in Hawaii for last 11 years on my farm. Skating and working i built some houses for folks. Build a nice four bed house for my family. I have 7 kids.5 girls2boys. Built skatepark fruit orchards greenhouse, we grow lots of food and flowers. I’m finishing up a shop to press and screen boards. Shops right next to skatepark for breaks. I sell honey and vintage Pyrex dishes at farmers market. We live in puna near pahoa skatepark. It’s sick out here Troy. Try and come out. I have vehicles, food and room. bring a friend. I’ll make you pizza in our ohia wood fired oven. I’m adding 5foot spine to the bowl now. I get work out here to of you want to stay longer or stay. Shoots troy. Email (Removed – I passed it on to Troy – K.ed) aloha
Troy
Is this really Ricky? What up with you? and where’s Bio now? When I moved to SC in ’85 Bio Bob was the local skate mascot seathing with stoke. No doubt the coolest dude to anyone around him. I remember thinking, “I hope I’m skating as much as you when I’m in my 40’s”. We became close friends and Schleppers. If you see him say thanks for the coffee, bongloads, and Dukes of Hazzard every morning at 5am. Best to you too!
Ricky stiles
That board is a pure go skate, skateshop board. This shop was that sick they had there own boards and roders. They had everything. Better than all the other shops. 80-82 Dale got out of jail and opened a little hole in the wall roller skate rental bussiness. Go skate. Bob roller skated surfed, skimmed, played music and skateboarded at this time. Bob got a job renting skates. He got dale to order a Santa Cruz jammer to sell for $49.99. That was the beginning. Dale and bob grew that shop up. Then dales daughter and her guy mark who was super cool helped to grow it real big. Santa Cruz had two go skates for a long time. Bob was the heart and soul of go slate though for the beginning many years. He could talk to Kids and parents about skating because he ripped. Bob busted out hundred boards a day during Christmas. It was nutts in 87″. Bob pretty lived and slept behind the counters for years. I slept there many times in the early 80’s when I wasn’t camping at pigeon point lighthouse. Dale was really nice to us and took care of his staff with Xmas bonuses, pay advances. I ran the skate and surf rental booth one summer and it was fun. Dale was cool bob was punk rock. Go skate or go home.
Spiker
Oh, and don’t forget spillway ;O) The 80s KICKED FUCKING ASS 🙂
Spiker
I used to go to the San Mateo Go Skate all the time. Used to ride my BMX bike from San Carlos to get there….
Did a stereo in the owners van and he gave me a KICK Super Bumps 175, my first snowboard :O)
That deck looks like a seaflex board… Had one with Felix the cat running with a bomb with gull wings and sims 2 tone wheels I got from the store too :O)
Meomories 🙂
Rick
I remember the Go Skate Shop in San Mateo, CA. A couple of my buddies used to work and hang out there a lot, like Ffej (Jeff Hedges). Parties pretty hard a few times in the back of the shop. The place was way cool!
Len Maggiore
Correction – make that a Joey Lopes baord – my bad (I told you I was not a hard-core skater – LOL)…..
Len Maggiore
I went to high school with Tony Smith, the son of Dale Smith. Tony built me a bad-ass Tony Lopes board at the San Mateo Go Skate store. Even though I never became a hard-core skater – I loved that board and still have it (as it is a piece of my youth – and no its not for sale). I miss Go Skate, it was part of my everyday High School life and watching Tony skate and build boards was totally cool…. miss those days…. I have no idea where Dale or Tony is now. I was sad to see that the store in Santa Cruz was sold…..
Puta Nesquik
there was the citrus heights store in sacto area too. that and skates plus in Roseville which blockhead used to be in the back.
houseofneil
Just to add some closure to this article, it appears that Select Distribution is going to be reissuing the Go Skate deck, along with a lot of other Vision, SIms and Schmitt favorites. Check the huge catalog here:
http://www.selectsk8.com/CATALOG/Select2010_2011-web.pdf
talentlessquitter
My lord,this IS an industry.
Could someone please tell Vision to clearly mark their boards as ‘Re-issue’?
The ones with the old school truck holes at least!
Bridgette
Dale Smith is the owner or was of Go Skate. Known him since 82. Met him through Kyle Wade 82. I have not seen Dale since 99. Kyle is still surfing and in to corporate America as of May 2010. Last time we spoke.
Met Matty in 83 with the Styles family. Matty, Styles and I all became very close. We became family later on…
After our divorce Matty got frustrated in life and sold the Sk8brd collection. I do know Don Hurley got some boards… The collection started when our friends started giving us and mainly “me” free boards, rails, trucks, wheels, shoes,clothes and more clothes…
Matt also test marketed http://www.kryptonics.com/
wheels. He enjoyed luging and Kryptonics sent wheels all the time. We also had friends at NHS that sent wheels,boards and stuff.
Now the picture is getting clear, right. We had a huge collection. We at one point had a room filled with so much stuff. It was referred to as the SK8 room. Now in all fairness to Kryptonics, they made the luging wheels
back in the day! I do know Bio Bob was making his own…
What people need to understand, this is a way of life for many people who were/ are in the industry. There is a 3rd generations now doing action sports and following the family business. Look at Don & Daniel… Awesome stuff!
Quimby Productions was sold to clear the record.Dale Smith helped to sponsor the business with many other clothing designers and board manufactures. It was very kind of Matt to put “Go Skate” on the video and not charge them.
Matty is doing great. I just spoke with him in July 2010, his birthday.
As far as the board in the picture above… It does look authentic, the board! The grip tape wasn’t done like that in the early 80’s. The risers look Chinese and I never saw those risers there in the stores… The wheels don’t look right for that board… I do believe NHS was making those boards.
Patrick pawlik
Bridgette,
My name is patrick and use to get powell. Oarda off matt quimby back in 1988. I was 15 yrs old and lived in pennsylvania . If there is any way i can get matts info i would love to find him. I been trying to find him since 1989
Patrick
720 273 8750
I think he dated a girl named bridgette
Matt Minton
Matt passed away a few years ago.
SalBug
worked with Matt at the campbell warehouse, every time he placed an order for decks he would weasle an extra one for his self, every day he left work with a dufflebag ful of skate stuff
heard Dale(“the Dad”) is building homes in and around Santa Cruz, and Bill at Bill’s Wheels bought most of his old stock when he went out of business
Steve C
Oh man! Memories… Q-vvvuimmby! Last I talked to him he was manager at a chocolate factory. Lenny…crazy ass MF, but he was also a black belt in Karate.
Dale Smith owner – Cool and crazy and frustrating all rolled into one. What stories I can’t tell!
San Mateo – Santa Cruz – Milpitas – Carmichael – Sacto – Stockton – San Jose – and me (Campbell warehouse).
Valley Joe – soo cool
Joel from Sessions –
I don’t think many people know how much Go Skate influenced the market for some companies and how much help some other shop owners got in those ‘slow’ days when the 80’s became the 90’s.
Steve (from) GO SKATE !!!
That deck is a bootleg, unless Quimby can tell us it was a short run. I never saw them.
Yes, Quimby definitely would have mint of 80’s stuff. We used to stash away one of everything, especially the rare colors and last prints of stickers. Sadly, I sold all my stuff at the Santa Cruz flea market in the late 90’s.
SalBug
hahaha, yeah that board was before we worked there, I seen em back in the day at the SC store
Matt Hummel
Quimby!! That is crazy, I grew up at that Sacto Go Skate. I remember when the first Tommy Guerrero Came out and then they Quickly changed the graghics some. Quimby grabbed two old Graphics off the wall and said, ” I better take two of these for my collection”. That is what started me thinking how cool it would be to have a skateboard collection. I couldn’t believe he was collecting then, I have Pictures of the Inside of the Original Sacto Go Skate Store. I could go on but I’ll stop here.
Larry
is that the santa cruz shop? speaking of old school, check out rob roskopp today (kooked out) at about :33!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr6c1SZYQhk
Pacific Hessian
a short trip down memory lame:
http://www.radarcade.com/goskate2.jpg
http://www.radarcade.com/goskate3.jpg
Pacific Hessian
I was a Gremic grom too even though Mike George reminded me too much of Huey Lewis. Tony Chiala and Joe Arabia used to work there and those dudes killed it. And then later we used to lurk at Winchester skates when Simon’s folks hooked up the store with a 720 game inside and some sweet jump-ramp parking lot situations.
Larry
Hessian, yeah i forgot cal surf! and tom would always show us the mags and go “look at that stylish carve”. we would go when we were just starting out, and this place was pretty cool to us. we used to always grab the oval cal surf stickers off the box that said “free one each”, that place was fucking cool.
Pacific Hessian
GoSkate was pretty rad, but I patronized California Surfer because they let us lurk and hooked us up with sweet deals. Also this kooky guy Tom who used to slalom for Sims and his hot sister were always super baked. Long live Valley Joe!
Jon Sheldon
So it’s not a Vision board then? Or did they make the boards for the shop, Vision is printed above the ‘go skate…’ logo.
Somehow it ended up over here in London, UK. It was left in my mates old flat by the original tenants.
Doesn’t sound like i’m going to be able to retire on this one!
Interesting though, thanks.
It’s cold an crisp but the sun is shining.
RyGar
I remember going to Go Skate at Westgate Mall in Saratoga, and the one in Santa Cruz. A couple of friends had shop sponsorship for them, but we hated on ’em, because they started to sell rollerblades, and Razor scooters. I think the guy who saw Wee Man actually saw Pancho Moler, who I used to see all the time in San Jose.
Larry
oh davoud we loved sessions in sunnyvale…we’d take the bus there and skate that little bank set in front where the gas stations were, then off to sunnyvale town center to the wave, libby’s banks and memorex, then over to fish banks. oh what fun those days were! at sessions we met danny webster, all of the bones brigade (i think except lance), jeff kendall, and a bunch of other dudes. so rad! when will those days come back, where a trip to the skate shop was like walking into the national archives. the session had a duane peters deck on the wall, it was a shrine. i remember my mom wouldnt let me get the DK Holiday in Cambodia shirt, lol.
PRBL
some Go Skate dude from Sacto let me and some friends who travelled up from SoCal en route to the ’84 Tahoe contest swim in his apartment pool and hooked us up with some local chicks…stoked
Mike
yeah there was one in San Mateo as well,
davoud
memries indeed. i remember all the sj go skates, the one in santa cruz seemed pretty lame cuz it was across the street from the boardwalk and they were selling boards to tourists. i do remember when that lenny dude got promoted to the manager of the milpitas go skate (we were east side san jose) and we’d go hang out there and have similar stories. classic… almost on par with aaron arno and the sunnyvale sessions shop.
colin walsh rules
i do sole grinds w/ lee pipes
Larry
yep, there were several go skates. there were (i think) two in san jose, one on almaden and one on saratoga ave. we used to hang out at the saratoga one. Dale something was the owner but there was a guy that worked there name of Lenny.
Lenny was a weirdo. He basically was a guy with a mental age of about 13 so we got along great. He would get really mad at times but usually he was cool. He put us on “team Lenny” and would give us a certain color of shop stickers. He’d say, oh yeah for that trick you get a team green, or for that you get a team red, and so on.
My old friend Mark (the singer from Insolence) somehow got a job there. I was so jealous. He also got a job as bouncer at One Step. How the fuck does this guy get such great jobs?
i loved go skate. sadly it went away just a few years back. the almaden one went last, and it was the best. i think Wee Man worked there cause I saw him once.
Mem-ries!
Slitburn
QUIMBY!! Thanks for pulling more nuggets out of the old memory cubes.
Livmo
Santa Cruz, San Jose, and Sacto. Dale something was the owner.
Troy, remember the “Chosen Few” team?… TG, Katen, Ffej, Meekster, Roskopp, Lopes, and Hosoi. Heavy list for a shop team.
Matt “Quimby” Oldham, the manager of the Sacto shop, was an early collector of vintage skateboards back in the 80’s. He had lots of 70’s-80’s stuff. Wonder what ever happened to him and his collection.
Matt Minton
Matt passed away a few years ago. R.I.P. Quimby.
Shawn S Selvidge
Go skate, was owned by the “dad Dale Smith. I was best friends with his son Tony Smith. Awesome shops . Great people. Fun times.
Kilwag
Santa Cruz.. Right. I was confusing them with Skates on Haight. that I visited once while on a family vacation.
Ian
My next deck will have that grip tape pattern. I swear.
Slitburn
Go Skate was in Santa Cruz across from the Boardwalk. I forget the owners name but Bio Bob Styles was the man. If you’ve ever met Bio Bob you will remember him.
SOS
Was Bio Bob the guy with the glasses? That was like 30 years ago…