Kryptonics relaunch

Friend of the site Jerome over at Sa ka roulé set up a contest to submit reader designed adverts for the return of Kryptonics Wheels. He’s giving away prizes but it’s all in French and I think I missed the deadline. The ads, curiously, are all in English, but the contest rules and description are in French. If I did miss the deadline to vote (I didn’t), it’s only by a day and not 2 and half decades. The image above is actually one of those submissions. I never really saw any of the Kryptonics in their heyday, the first skateboard magazine I ever saw in my entire life was the September 1984 issue of Thrasher. I did however, meet a skate buddy who gave me his very dog-eared copies of Skateboarder and Action Now magazines. I devoured those magazines like they were scriptures. I haas been skating since the mid 70’s on plastic boards and after finally meeting/seeing real skateboards in the 80’s, I felt it was almost as if I was trying to reconnect to the era in which I started skating, napkin up for the equipment I mostly never had or saw as a kid. The Kryptonics ads always stood out too. They had a polished, high powered approach that presented skateboarding as a legitimate endeavor and not a child’s toy. Of course the reality is that it was not driven by pure reverence for the sport, but smart business sense from a corporation applied to marketing a hugely popular activity. (UPDATE: Turns out the ads were developed in house by the independent group that ran the department. They just happened to be… really good at it! ) If you have any doubt of this you only need note that they did indeed disappear from the market, and when the brand “returned” it was first (and still) in the form of toy store skateboards. (See update) Still, they seem to really be pushing this, although you’ve got to wonder why they didn’t do it 5 years ago. Maybe it was a matter of waiting for licensing agreements on the brand name to become available. It’s unclear what continuity there is between the current Kryptonics and the original incarnation. They do have a very interesting series of videos online dealing with the early days of the wheels. I forgot they were a roller skating wheel company first and foremost. I had me some Krypto red though, they really would roll over anything. Check out the reader designed ads on Sa ka roulé and the videos from Kryptonics. I was skeptical of the relaunch at first, but these videos really help recapture some of the original stoke. If you are at all interested in skateboard history they are a must-see.

UPDATE: I followed a few links from the Kryptonics site, It’s Steve Douglas and Dwindle behind the the relaunch, and he does in fact bring up the matter of the crappy toy store boards marketed by Bravo Sports, the same company making the Tony Hawk “old school board“. Apparently he has no control or affiliation with that product, so it must be a licensing deal. Read more on Transworld Business and Boardsport Source.