8 Reasons Skateboarders Should Stop The Scooter Hate

Eventually, the hope is that kids and teens will drop their training handles and evolve into full fledge skateboarders. Until that happens, here are a few reasons skateboarders should appreciate scootering!

1. Scootering starts them out on wheels very young. You have to crawl before you can walk, and you can start out on a scooter before you can skate. Toddlers can start pushing and riding way before they can skate!
2. As toddlers gain confidence, they can advance from 3 wheel scooter to 2 – drop a training wheel. The trend of losing the handles as they gain balance and confidence for the next level. You gotta start somewhere!
3. Teaches you how to push. Learning some basics that will benefit future skateboarders, and mastering one foot on the deck and one pushing is essential.
4. Practice riding ramps, pumping, going up and down transition. Gaining speed, flowing through bowls, and boosting off quarters will translate nicely to skateboarding once mastered on a scooter.
5. Getting into scootering means exposure to skatepark culture and awareness of the skate culture as a whole. That unique culture isn’t in mainstream tv, sports, and common places kids have exposure to.
6. Creates nice family-friendly, diverse skateparks of all ages. Branding a park as a place for everyone, not just high schoolers, but a place for kids to ride. The kind of places cities shows respect and funding.
7. More riders, more interest in skateparks, more city support for building new facilities. The world needs more skateparks!
8. The family-friendly cultural profile is very different than the rebellious skate culture. Parents trusting the skatepark is a welcoming place to enjoy learning a new sport makes skateparks a more inclusive place.
9. The golden rule: treat every scooter kid as if they are a future skateboarder. We skaters need to welcome them with open arms and win them over slowly. Even if scootering is a hobby they don’t grow out of,  always respect everyone!

The Battle at the Berrics Rules to the Game of Skate

1. FLAT GROUND ONLY

BUT that does not mean everything on flat ground counts

The game of skate is traditionally only played with tricks done on flat ground. That means only flip tricks count, no ramps or rails will count. 

2. No feet on the ground

That means you are not allowed to do no-complys, hand plants, or bonelesses. If you 

3. No grabs

A grab on a skateboard is when your hand reaches down and holds the board while in the air. No 

4. No Manuals

Flat ground tricks need to be landed on all four wheels to count as a land.

5. No tricks that slide on the ground

Especially if your opponent popped their trick!

The ground at the Berrics is notoriously slippery, but that doesn’t mean you can do a 360 sliding all the way around. 

7. The last letter gets two tries on E

The defense gets only one try to land the trick to avoid the letter until the final round. When the skater is on their last attempt to land, two tries helps them stay in the game.

8. Offensive toe drag gets one do-over

When setting a trick, there is a higher level of how clean it should be. If a foot touches the ground from heel drag or toe touch, the skater has a second chance to clean it up.

9. Defensive toe drag has a bigger margin of error

But it will ultimately be decided by the referee if it was a particularly sloppy trick or if the tail skid on the ground there might not be a second chance.

Watch the final battle from BATB 11 with Luan Oliveira & Chris Joslin

Who Has Won Previous Battle at the Berrics?

2008 Battle at the Berrics – Mike Mo Capaldi

2009 Battle at the Berrics 2 – Chris Cole

2010 Battle at the Berrics 3 – Paul Rodriguez

2011 Battle at the Berrics IV U.S. vs. Them – Morgan Smith

2012 Battle at the Berrics V Team Berra vs. Team Koston – PJ Ladd

2013 Battle at the Berrics VI Goofy vs. Regular – PJ Ladd

2014 Battle at the Berrics 7 Pros vs. Joes – Cody Cepeda

2015 Battle at the Berrics 8 – Sewa Kroetkov

2016 Battle at the Berrics 9 New Blood – Diego Najera

2017 Battle at the Berrics X Best of the Best – Chris Joslin

2018  Battle at the Berrics 11 Team Captains Mike Mo & Chris Roberts – Luan Oliveira

2019 Women’s Battle at the Berrics – Monica Torres

Should You Wear A Helmet Skateboarding?

 It’s A No-Brainer!

Yes, you absolutely should wear one! It might be an unpopular opinion in skating, especially if you’re a teenager trying to convince your parents you don’t need one.

Trust me, you do.

Your brain is too important, regardless of how talented you are on a board. Even the most basic tricks can end in disaster when it coming to skateboarding.

When Should You Always Wear A Helmet Skating

• When you are just starting out; a huge percentage of injuries occur in the first few weeks
• Learning transition and riding ramps
• Half-pipes and vert ramps with major height
• Cement bowls and pools
• Large drops and big stair sets

How to encourage your kids to wear a helmet

1. Safety Education

Learning how important the brain is can help us understand why we need to skate safely. From the dangers of mild concussions to more serious brain injuries, parents need to teach how to protect our most valuable asset.

2. Fear Tactics

There have been several horror stories of brain injuries from skateboarding that can humble the best skaters. Learn from the lessons of these young athletes whose lives are forever changed for not wearing a helmet. One search on Google for skateboarding brain injury will show plenty of stories to learn from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrJfyHDxgbw

3. Make It Fun

Growing up I used my helmet as a canvas for the stickers I collected of my favorite brands and shops. Encourage sticker collecting to add a personal touch to make the helmet a reflection of you.

Another awesome option is a dry erase helmet from Wipeout. Get creative and make art that protects your head. Wipe it off when you get inspired and start again!

3. Normalize Helmets

Talk to other parents in the skateboarding community, get on the page about encouraging safety equipment. Peer pressure plays a huge role in thinking protective skate gear is lame or cool. If the group you skate with wear a helmet, wearing yours is a no brainer!

4. Exposure and Role Models

Expose them to positive role models in the industry that make wearing safety equipment look normal. Some pull it off so well they even make it look cool. Andy Anderson is a great example of a gnarly skater with a cool style. Watch his new 2020 part and be amazed!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg1ZMwAAcEg&t=2s

5.  Protection Helps You Progress Faster

Confidence is the key to stepping up to new tricks on your board. Knowing your head is protected provides an ease of mind that you won’t end up in the ER with a head injury. That can definitely help alleviate some fear when it comes to trick progression.

After 20 Years of Skating, I Finally WANT to Wear A Helmet

Going into middle school as a new skater, I felt like I was the only one who’s parents made him wear a helmet. Now looking back on it, what were those other parents thinking?

I had no issues wearing one snowboarding, but it was always an area of tension when it comes to skating. 

Pick One: look cool or wear a helmet

Often I found a terrible mix to meet in the middle and wear it unbuckled. As soon as I wiped out and hit the ground, off goes the helmet.

By the time I rolled into high school, I slid under the radar of slowly not wearing my helmet. My parents seem to give up on the issue and I never looked back. 

Why I started wearing a helmet after skateboarding for 20 years

Good steward in the sport

As a skilled skateboarder that peers and young skaters look up to, I want to put my best foot forward. I have an impact on the reputation that skateboarding has, even if it just impacts the immediate circle around me. I respect the risks the sport brings and want to help educate others to make safer choices. 

Role Model

As an uncle to impressionable kids and a future skate dad, I want them to always wear a helmet. The best way is to lead by example. If I want them to wear a helmet while riding a bike, scooter, or skateboard, then I should too.

Injuries Happen to the Best of Us

Injuries and mistakes can happen on even the most basic tricks. From warming up on tricks I can do 9/10 times, to just riding around on flat ground, anytime can happen.

I learned that lesson the hard way in 2016 when I dislocated my knee doing a simple front nose slide 10 minutes into a warm-up session. Luckily after surgery and a few years of recovery, I’m back at 100%.

If that were my head, I might not have been so lucky.

Horror Stories I’ve Heard

There have been several notable stories in the news from skilled skaters who took the wrong fall and got serious brain injuries. The kind where you can speak or think at the same level ever again.

That is terrifying!

I want to skate for as long as I can. I want to have a sharp mind for way longer than that. Skating with protective gear will help me do both.

Help parents out battling their kids to wear theirs

As a kid, I had nobody to look up to at the local parks who cared about safety. Maybe I would’ve thought differently about hating on helmets if there was. 

I want to be that role model.

The more examples that new skaters have to look up to that wear a helmet, the easier it will be for parents to point to. A line parents have heard for decades is, “No one wears a helmet!” Now that’s finally changing.

Make helmets mainstream in skateboarding culture

If all the other kids wanted to jump off a bridge stair set, at least protect your head if you’re going to do it too.

This is a systemic issue that needs big names in the sport to help push the message. It also has to start small with people like me at the local park wearing one.

Snowboarding normalized helmets!

It’s not an impossible feat. If you go to a terrain park, you’ll see the ski and snowboard culture has embraced helmets. It’s now unusually not to wear one. 

I want to have an impact in the skateboarding world to share the love it has given me. Helmets feel like a great place to start. 

I Challenge You To Join The #HelmetGang Too!

Do you skate, scoot, bmx, longboard, or roller skate? I challenge you to wear your helmet every time you ride. It’s really easy to do and could literally save your life.