SMX???

How do you refer to the act of riding a scooter?  Scootering?  Skating?  Just riding?  Recently, the term SMX has began to catch on.  I’ve heard it a couple times over the years, but now the Funk brothers are championing it as the proper name, believing that the word “scootering” sounds bad and that a term similar to BMX will bring more legitimacy to the sport, helping it reach coveted platforms such as the X-Games.  I can definitely see what they mean- the word “scootering” has such a negative stigma attached to it due to years of children riding scooters in skateparks and basically giving everybody every reason to hate scooters and scooter riders.  And can you imagine the dudes announcing at the X-Games calling it “Scoot Big Air?” “Scootering Big Air?” Nah, “SMX Big Air” sounds way better for sure...At the same time, though, I could see BMX thinking us calling our sport “SMX” as copying them, which yeah, would be dumb.  Obviously BMX came from MX, originally from racing.

I’ve said it before, but I couldn’t care less about scootering being the the X-Games.  That’s a discussion that’s been done again and again so I won’t get into the reasons why.  But for the dudes that do want it in, who would benefit from it...I’m all for it.  If calling scootering SMX helps get scootering into the X-Games, in turn benefitting dudes like Capron and Corey, then cool.  There’s nothing that would be cooler than more scooter riders being able to make a living, or getting more out of what they love.

Agree?  Disagree?  Sound off in the comments.

What's Harder? Scooter Riding vs Skateboarding

I recently watched a video in which a Youtube skateboarding "star" went and learned whips and 360s on a scooter within 6 minutes. He did this to "prove" that riding scooters is much easier than skating. Why he even cares I am not sure (probably insecure about his lack of actual skateboarding relevance), but the issue of which sport is harder is one you often hear about at the park or online, and I figured I'd give my opinion.

First of all, this guy thought that since he learned those tricks, and because the majority of scooter riders have yet to learn the basics, that he is better than all of them. This might be true if he wasn't comparing himself to a bunch of 8 year olds. Obviously a grown 20 something year old man will have better coordination and skill than a prepubescent child.  It's really quite embarrassing to him that he would make such a comparison.

My next point might not be the scooter riders' favorite, but it's true. It IS easier to pick up scootering than it is skateboarding. The basics of scootering are easier to learn than skating. Anyone can get on a scooter and push around, bunnyhop, and manage a sketch tailwhip (as he so kindly demonstrated).  Getting balance down and pushing on a board is harder.  Dropping in, hitting transitions, hips, etc., are all things even kids can do on scooters.

But we do need to look at it a little differently. In my eyes, a tailwhip is no more difficult than an ollie. Anyone can manage a shitty ollie their first time on a board with a little bit of practice.  Same with a 360, it's more like a 180 on a skateboard in terms of difficulty.  I'd go on to say a double whip is equivalent to a kickflip, and so on, all the way up to tricks that pros in either respect are doing.  It gets a little harder with the comparisons as you go on, but obviously there are tricks that take a huge amount of effort, skill, and practice to achieve in both sports.

Scootering is easier to pick up than skateboarding, but both are probably equally as hard to truly master.  Bottom line though, is who cares? We all do it for fun anyway. It's not about what's harder. We all know little kids on scooters are annoying, but so are little kids on skateboards...and that's really the underlying issue behind the conflicts between scooter riders and everyone else.

What do you think?  Agree, disagree?  Drop a line and let me know.

Lessons from Rollerbladers.

A rollerblading website recently posted a conversation between a few bladers discussing the relationship between blading and scootering, and their respective pasts.  They raised a lot of good points, and it was cool to see them respecting us for choosing a different vehicle to ride and have fun on, despite how easily they could hate on us after years of receiving hate themselves.  Rollerblading’s history was brought up, and it made me think a little.  Blader Sam Cooper said:

 “Unlike blading the sport grew slowly at first, managing to build a small but solid industry of brands just before the boom hit. It’s the brand owners who have handled the boom in a much better way compared to kids who owned the majority of blading’s biggest brands in the early nineties. It’s these freestyle scooter brand owners who have made the difference and continue to grow the sport and industry with their business acumen and passion for the sport.”

Over the past few years, there has been a growing emphasis on supporting “rider-owned” companies and rejecting those “corporate, businessman-owned” brands.  I’m not gonna pretend to be an expert on rollerblading, but from what I can tell in this article, that’s how it was in the 90’s for them…except it was the rider-owned brands who made up the majority of their industry.  So not knowing how to handle their success, not being able to sustain the incredible growth they had, the bubble eventually burst, and the industry basically died out.  They hit the top of the actions sports world- -X-Games- and were kicked out in 2005. 

So how do we prevent this from happening to us?  These rollerbladers say we’ve already avoided their mistakes by having a core group of solid brands before our own boom hit.  The first big companies include brands like Phoenix, Proto, District, Lucky, Tilt, Envy, and Madd, the majority of which are not owned by riders, but are still all around today.  It seems like these bladers would embrace the “big business” brands…Looking at the other side of the coin, consider skateboarding.  The biggest action sports industry has perhaps the biggest anti-corporate movement, and not without good reason.  Skateboarding has had multiple booms and crashes throughout its history, and they will all tell you that corporations are part of the reason for it.  So where does that leave scootering?  It seems to me that we fall somewhere in the middle.  We don’t actually have much for corporate money wanting in on our sport yet- look at Red Bull.  They posted the Devin Supertramp video of Dakota Shuetz and the other Lucky guys on their Facebook, and took it down almost immediately.  Whatever interest they had in supporting scootering was quickly extinguished by a legion of couch commenters.  And these guys are spending upwards of a billion dollars per year in marketing (900 million in 2010).  Hooking a guy like Kota up would be a drop in the ocean for them.  If they don’t think that’s worth it at all, I think we still have a long way to go before we really have to worry about the implications of corporate takeover. 

Is the bubble going to burst like it did with rollerblading?  Are our roots strong enough to last through a drought?  These bladers seem to think so.  What can we do to make sure we don’t experience the same crash they did?  John Adams says it perfectly:

“We shouldn’t be trying to have the largest industry possible. We should make sure the industry we have is healthy and sustainable. Absolutely we should be reaching out to the youth and getting them excited about rollerblading scootering, but we ought to be able to do that without tearing others down.”

The bottom line is that all companies, regardless of their participation in the sport, are vital.  It’s been said before that they’re all pieces of the puzzle.  If we want to have a sustainable future we need to have brands who have a true passion for scootering- they need to care for the riders and the industry…but they also need to have proper business know-how to handle their growth responsibly.