winter – Skate and Annoy

Snowbound in 79

Here’s two winter board sports products from the April/May 1979 issue of Skate magazine. Surprisingly, there were no ads for these products in this issue, just the product announcements. First up is a Snowboard from Elite. It’s 1979 and this is a far cry from what was right around the corner in the snowboarding industry, […]

Iceman is Kicking Ice and Taking Names

Blades for skateboarding on ice were invented back in 1966, and you used to see some advertised in the 70’s and 80’s as we have covered extensively before. In 1996 Iceman Products, Inc out of Sonora, California filled a trademark for Iceman Blades. I’m guessing these were probably advertised in the skate mags too. How […]

Air Borne Freeskate on Ice

The Air Borne Freeskate was born in 1984 as a cheaper alternative to sailing in ice boats. The reason this is on Skate and Annoy is because it appears that early models of the Freeskate may have been outfit with Indy 216’s. The sport is still going these days, but they don’t use skateboard trucks in […]

The Skateshop at Costco

Costco has skateboards, and not just some schleppy pile on the shelves, they’ve got a nice display of Jaseboards, a brand from Hawaii that only appears to be available the website or at Costco for the time being. And because it’s winter time, they’re also carrying those snow runner wheel replacements. (See Railz) For the […]

5 Days of Ohio: Public Square Group

Day 4 of 5 Days of Ohio (for no particular reason.) Public Square Group is part skateboard/skatepark advocacy, part community outreach, and part skateboarding support group. They are named after the Cleveland’s public plaza, a not-built-for-skateboarding spot that has a history in the scene dating back to the 80’s. They also run the Skate Kitchen, […]

A tale of two reader mails

Two bits of reader mail, both from people with the intellect of a 12 year old, only one is actually from a kid and one is an adult. First up, this cartoon from Patrick, whom I think might be Grover’s nephew. The second allegedly comes from the holder of U.S. patent #5161810. For some reason […]

Santa’s skate sled

It’s the Ice Surfer, the invention of Willard Gebien from Libertyvlle, Illinois. Debra Fischler sent in a picture of the device from 1966. An auction for a mint condition Ice Surfer showed up about a month ago, I sent it to Neil but I guess he forgot or wasn’t interested. I believe it went for […]

Ice Skateboards from Woman’s Day to 1967

Yeah, that’s right. I read Woman’s Day all the time. I like to brush up on my jello recipes, kick-knacks and diets. You know, keeping it real. Imagine my joy and delight when I perused 8 Incredible Ice Sculptures, which included this photograph from Eugenio Franchi. There are skateboards made out of ice, and then […]

History and modern ice boards

On Tuesday we got a nice covering of fat, white snow here in Portland. It came down pretty good for a couple hours in the middle of the day. It even stayed solid on the streets, which usually doesn’t happen here. But, by the end of the daylight it had pretty much been replaced by […]