skateboarding Skateboarding is an extreme sport, action sport that involves riding and Skateboarding trick, performing tricks using a skateboard, as well as a recreational activity, an art form, an entertainment industry Profession, job, and a method of tr ...

, grinds are tricks that involve the skateboarder sliding along a surface, making contact with the

trucks A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport freight, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame construction ...

of the

skateboard A skateboard is a type of sports equipment used for skateboarding. It is usually made of a specially designed 7–8-ply maple plywood deck and has polyurethane wheels attached to the underside by a pair of skateboarding trucks. The skateboard ...

. Grinds can be performed on any object narrow enough to fit between wheels and are performed on curbs, rails, the

coping Coping refers to conscious or unconscious strategies used to reduce and manage unpleasant emotions. Coping strategies can be cognitions or behaviors and can be individual or social. To cope is to deal with struggles and difficulties in life. It ...

of a skate ramp, funboxes, ledges, and a variety of other surfaces. Grinds are typically categorized as either "frontside", where the rider approaches the feature with their front facing it, or "backside", where they approach with their back facing it.

History

The move likely originated in backyard pools in the mid 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 unintentionally skated up to the edge of the pool, causing the trucks or board of the skateboard to slide (or grind) along the surface . The trucks of the time, often being merely 'borrowed' trucks from roller skates, 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 . 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 anything that is possible to grind on.

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 A blade's grind is its cross-sectional shape in a plane normal to the edge. Grind differs from Blade#Knife blade profiles .28Patterns.29, blade profile, which is the blade's cross-sectional shape in the plane containing the blade's edge and ...

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. Grinding in public places may be seen as a form of

vandalism Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property. The term includes property damage, such as graffiti and defacement directed towards any property without permission of the owner. The t ...

and may cause skateboarding to be banned by business owners and

city ordinance A local ordinance is a law issued by a local government such as a municipality, county, parish, prefecture, or the like. Hong Kong In Hong Kong, all laws enacted by the territory's Legislative Council remain to be known as ''Ordinances'' () ...

Kenny_Gonzales_-_crooked_grind_-_Far_Rockaway_Skatepark

References

{{Skateboarding Skateboarding tricks