Word: skateboards
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...market for a compact neighborhood runabout but find Segways too silly and scooters too expensive, then the E-Glide, (www.e-glide.com), may be just your speed. Starting at $419 for a basic model, this powered skateboard - or powerboard - is made by a Santa Monica-based company and comes with a high-torque, 400-watt electric motor that takes you from zero to 32 km/h in just four seconds. Six styles are available - from stiff cruisers built for sidewalk use to those with more flexible boards designed for bumpier terrain - and models can travel distances...
...market for a compact neighborhood runabout but find Segways too silly and scooters too expensive, then the E-Glide, www.e-glide.com, may be just your speed. Starting at $419 for a basic model,[an error occurred while processing this directive] this powered skateboard - or powerboard - is made by a Santa Monica-based company and comes with a high-torque, 400-watt electric motor that takes you from zero to 32 km/h in just four seconds. Six styles are available - from stiff cruisers built for sidewalk use to those with more flexible boards designed for bumpier terrain - and models can travel distances...
...skate-park building boom going on right now, and new lines--the kind that skaters course along and the kind that designers draw--are what it's all about. "Five years ago, there were 200 skate parks," says John Bernards, executive director of the International Association of Skateboard Companies. "Today there are over 2,400, with many more under construction." During those same years, skate-park design reached a plateau of sophistication that you might not have expected from guys who wear really baggy shorts. As skaters have moved into the role of designers, establishing firms like SITE Design Group...
...same way that skateboard style has influenced clothing and graphics, the new parks have begun to grab the attention of designers in other fields. Architect David Rockwell, designer of the Nobu restaurants in Manhattan and the set of the musical Hairspray, says skate parks, with their use of "the continuous ramp that leads you through a series of adventures," were an inspiration for a new playground he's working on. Joe Ragsdale, who teaches landscape architecture at California Polytechnic in San Luis Obispo, says that every year his students come up with different ways to provide ideal flight paths...
...reasons that no one has ever fully explained, skateboarding made a comeback in the '90s, and with it came a return to the construction of skate parks--safer places that usually required helmets and elbow pads. Park "design" tended to be contracted out to sidewalk-concrete pourers, playground-equipment manufacturers and lowball bidders. Most had never set foot on a skateboard, much less done a 360 on one. The results were uninspiring. To an intrepid teenager, a mass-produced ramp is about as exciting as a documentary on the Federal Reserve System. Thrasher, a skating magazine, spotlights the worst parks...