Scootering
Encyclopedia
Freestyle scootering (also scootering, scooting, or scooter riding) is an action sport which involves using kick scooter
Kick scooter
A kick scooter or push scooter, originally scooter, is a human-powered vehicle with a handlebar, deck and wheels that is propelled by a rider pushing off the ground. The most common scooters today have two hard small wheels, are made primarily of aluminium and fold for convenience...

s to perform freestyle tricks, in a manner similar to skateboarding
Skateboarding
Skateboarding is an action sport which involves riding and performing tricks using a skateboard.Skateboarding can be a recreational activity, an art form, a job, or a method of transportation. Skateboarding has been shaped and influenced by many skateboarders throughout the years. A 2002 report...

 and BMX freestyle.

Terrain

Park

Park riding is the most common. Kick scooters, due to their construction, can use most skatepark
Skatepark
A skatepark is a purpose-built recreational environment made for skateboarding, BMX, aggressive inline skating and scooters. A skatepark may contain half-pipes, quarter pipes, spine transfers, handrails, funboxes, vert ramps, pyramids, banked ramps, full pipes, pools, bowls, snake runs stairsets,...

 structures, including ramps, rails and boxes. Some riders enjoy doing 'flyout' tricks and pushing their trick level, others enjoy more of a flowing style, based on a combination of BMX and their own style.

Street

Among inner city riders, using structures such as stairs, ledges, hubbas, handrails, speedbumps, and gaps. Street riders tend to get techinal with tricks. Most scooter riders enjoy street to some extent, but only a small group declare themselves as focusing strictly on street riding, for example Matt McKeen, Jordon Hamler, Chema Cardenas, Tyler Maeder, Issac Miller, Zig Short. Street riding is also a great platform to ride as it gives the riders interesting challenges such as gaps, grind, combinations and lines that they would not normally find in a vert styled skatepark.

Flatland

The flatland genre of freestyle scooter riding takes place on flat surfaces such as parking lots, driveways, or tennis/basketball courts. Flatland riders prefer to link smaller tricks up in "combos", or combinations, such as barspins, manuals, tailwhips, fakies, nose manuals, frame grind, scooter fakies, peg riding, and many more.

Freestyle scooter parts

Decks

Decks have probably caused the most heart ache amongst riders than any other part due to their incessant cracking. After Razor discontinued the old A model and the B model, both of which were at high risk for cracking, they introduced the Pro model. It was much like the B model, but had a reinforcement plate bolted inside the bottom center of the deck and the drop outs were widened.These scooter decks do a fine job for transportation, and even beginning pro scooterers, however, with more pro scooter selections, you should probably stick to one piece decks.

(*Most razors come with a folding mechanism that needs to be removed, and then bolted in order to remove play from the headtube.)

One piece decks

The Razor Ultra Pro was created in response to the freestyle community. It is Razor's only model that is one piece. It has a rurmum neck that is welded through the deck. Many complaints have arisen; although the deck has the same amount of foot space, many criticize the head tube angle as being gradual and creating less available standing room. Some questioned the neck strength, as many began to break at the downtube, so Razor later introduced the updated version: The Razor Ultra Pro v2. The newly improved deck featured a reinforced headtube.

Several aftermarket one piece decks have also been released. TSI(Trick Scooter International) was the first company to create an aftermarket deck with no folding mechanism. Their design consists of an aluminum headtube and square downtube welded to two horizontal square tubes. A plate is then bolted to the top. The deck from Lucky is an entirely machined aluminum deck with a square half neck separated head tube that is placed over the half neck and bolted using the headtube of an Razor Pro Model. They later released the Lucky EVO deck & headtube combo, eliminating the need to use a Razor headtube. The Phoenix deck is a one piece deck with a square neck, welded into and extruded deck. The Australian company Madd Gear has made several complete pro models, However, the most popular Madd Gear scooter today, is the MGP Nitro. All of Madd Gear's decks have a patented gooseneck.

Deck reinforcement

Deck reinforcements were created to prevent cracking of Razor models.

Pirate Alex created Pirate reinforcements, which are aluminum square tubing cut to deck measurements and then bolted. These reinforcements also gave decks a wider flat space. Mutts Scooter Shack, a workshop based in Sydney, Australia, is a company which produces a similar reinforcement, but instead of being solid all the way through, the outer areas near the bolts are exposed, allowing bolts to be attached more easily.

The Scooter Zone also developed a very light weight deck reinforcement kit that became the standard for pro models before razor introduced the stronger ultra pro, and the introduction of stronger one piece decks.

Dominator Scooters Accessories (DSA) created deck savers, essentially an entire bottom plate that is bolted to the deck. Although immensely strong, they add much weight to the deck.
......

Bars

Handlebar
Handlebar
A handlebar is part of the steering mechanism, in lieu of a steering wheel, for vehicles that are ridden on, instead of in, such as bicycles, motorcycles, tricycles, ATVs, snowmobiles and personal watercraft. It may also be simply the handles on a device such as a zip line trolley or a floor buffer...

s commonly are made out of 4130 chromoly or 6061 aluminum
6061 aluminum
6061 is a precipitation hardening aluminum alloy, containing magnesium and silicon as its major alloying elements. It has good mechanical properties and exhibits good weldability...

. The first one piece bars (technically 2 or more tubes welded together, but are simply called one piece bars because they do not adjust or fold, as seen in razor scooters) were, created by RAD (Ride And Destroy), in the form of a T but now the favoroite bar is the bat wing bar or the y bar. The next type of bar, in the mid 2000s were Buff bars: 3 piece aluminum bars. After the evolution of one piece bars, they soon have become guesseted to add extra strength:

David
Clamps are made to hold the bars onto the fork colums, and tightened to prevent slippage. They come in sizes of either 1 1/4" or 1 3/8" ID. Clamp style includes double, tripple, and quadruple bolted, but single bolted is not sold for freestyle. Mutts Scooters launched the first Quad 4 bolt clamp in 2009. Using the HIC method of compression requires an oversized (1 3/8")

Grips

Razor's stock grips are made of foam rubber
Foam rubber
Foam rubber refers to rubber that has been manufactured with a foaming agent to create an air-filled matrix structure. Commercial foam rubbers are generally either polyurethane foam or natural foam rubber latex. Latex foam rubber, used in mattresses, is well-known for its endurance.-See also:*...

. Most riders use standard rubber grips from BMX brands. Such as ODI grips which is the most popular grip in the sport. French ID made a thinner foam grip and Madd Gear has made the first rubber grips from a scooter company. Companies such as District have also made handle grips. One popular brand of grips with scooter riders is BMX grip brand Duo, which their Duo Van Homan grips are widely seen on scooter riders after the ODI grips. Bar ends have also been popular with both BMX riders and Scooter riders, with the most popular brand of bar ends being ODI, another bar end incorporated into scootering is the QCS (quebec scooters) brand barends.

Bar ends

Bar ends are also bought from BMX brands. Most who have the tube diameter to run bar ends use the stock nylon bar ends that come with their grips. Some BMX brands (Ex. Shadow Conspiracy) have aluminum bar ends with a smaller diameter and use a wedge type system to stay in place. Bar ends were created to prevent decapitating fingers. For scooters this is not at all a high risk but bar ends do have a benefit of making bar rotation more fluid. They also prevent damage to the tips of the crossbar, which can otherwise over time become sharp and easily cut fingertips when executing certain tricks. The most popular bar ends are made by ODI.

Forks

Most companies make forks, such as Proto, Inward, "Pro Comp (The Scooter Zone)", District, Blunt, Lucky, Phoenix, " APEX", "Zero Grafity" and TSI. SR forks (The Scooter Resource), created by Andrew Broussard (president and owner of Proto), were the first aftermarket forks developed. They consisted of a fork tube, a flat somewhat triangular shaped bed for two pipe legs and the fork tube to be welded into. Most companies have followed this design usually changing the types of legs and adding gussets. Inward is noted as perfecting the appearance of this general design and the first company to allow an option for zero offset, as opposed to the standard 10mm offset.

Proto has released the Striker fork which has some resemblance to the Razors fork design, but with thicker legs, gussets, threadless, and thicker fork tube.

Inward was the first company to create a zero-offset fork.

"Pro Comp (The Scooter Zone) raised the standard for forks when they released the first fully CNC'D one piece "Scorcher" fork. The scooter Zone has also released their newest forks called the EPIC forks these forks are available in 10mm offset and 0mm offset.

Lucky has created a fork design similar to BMX forks, and was named the SMX (Most likely Scooter motor cross) because of that. The LS fork was next and was the first to be fully CNC'd out of a full block of alumninum. The SMX is the most popular fork in the industry and has now been copied by a former manufacturer of Lucky forks.

Phoenix has released a fully CNC'd aluminum fork, with an integrated starnut. This is not the first of its kind, Quebec scooters has created a fork using this method.

TILT recently released a one piece, CNC machined 6061 aluminum fork, called the Tilt legacy fork. These forks have a unique compression cap that screws into the top of the fork and makes installing your HIC or SCS compression very easy. This fork is the first scooter fork in the world using a compression cap for a more durable and user friendly compression system.

Wheels

Eagle-Sport, FrenchID, Proto, "Pro Comp (The Scooter Zone)", phoenix inward-scooters and Micro-Xtreme, "Bob" and "Yak" are some of the brands producing metal core wheel
Wheel
A wheel is a device that allows heavy objects to be moved easily through rotating on an axle through its center, facilitating movement or transportation while supporting a load, or performing labor in machines. Common examples found in transport applications. A wheel, together with an axle,...

s for scooters. Many riders before the existence of scooter specific wheel brands turned to inline skates
Inline skates
In-line skates are a type of roller skate used for inline skating. Unlike quad skates, which have two front and two rear wheels, inline skates have two, three, four, or five wheels arranged in a single line...

 companies for wheels. Some of the first old school metal cores to be marketed for scooters were vapors, drives, and a hard to get five spoked metal core made by Razor restricted to the luxury B Model.

For plastic, "Yak" Wheels were the most popular around the mid 2000s. It was a polyurethane
Polyurethane
A polyurethane is any polymer composed of a chain of organic units joined by carbamate links. Polyurethane polymers are formed through step-growth polymerization, by reacting a monomer with another monomer in the presence of a catalyst.Polyurethanes are...

 wheel with a plastic core. The company was later sold to a Chinese buyer that did not receive the urethane composition and quality failed to meet use for freestyle scooters. This also opened the door for companies like Proto and Pro Comp to introduce U.S. made wheels that can withstand the aggressive riding of professional scooter riders.

After Yaks failure another metal core marketed to the community as a freestyle scooter wheel was by Micro-Xtreme. This had immediately become the "god" of all wheels as they were the only wheels readily available that were not plastic core. The scooter Zone, the first full fledge retail scooter shop was the first to import large quantities of Micros to the U.S. scooter scene.

Eagle-Sport, a roller ski company was introduced to the scooter community via Hep Greg trying to buy wheels. Marcel Oosterveen President of Eagle-Sport created better urethane for his wheels after he saw photos of people breaking them. He also created a stronger core and bearing slot to prevent any type of ovalizing.

With Proto wheels the core was designed to never ovalize (Buff core Technology), and come with a year warranty against full de-hubbing.

"Pro Comp twizzler metal cores, now known as Epic are also recognized as one of the top wheels in the sport. Hershey asked The Scooter Zone to stop using the Twizzler name.

Bearings

Any ball bearing
Ball bearing
A ball bearing is a type of rolling-element bearing that uses balls to maintain the separation between the bearing races.The purpose of a ball bearing is to reduce rotational friction and support radial and axial loads. It achieves this by using at least two races to contain the balls and transmit...

s of "608" size, with an inner diameter of 8 mm, an outer diameter of 22 mm, and a width of 7 mm. May be used. Typically this is the standard size for skateboards.

They are usually made of steel, though silicon nitride, a high-tech ceramic, is sometimes used. Many [scooter/skateboard] bearings are graded according to the ABEC scale
ABEC scale
The ABEC scale is an industry accepted standard for the tolerances of a ball bearing. It was developed by the Annular Bearing Engineering Committee of the American Bearing Manufacturers Association . There are five classes from largest to smallest tolerances: 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9...

. The scale starts with ABEC1 as the lowest, 3, 5, 7 and 9. It is a misconception that higher numbers are better for skateboarding, as the ABEC rating only measures tolerances, which do not necessarily apply to scooters/skateboards. The ABEC rating does not reflect how fast or how durable a bearing will be when used for [scooters/skateboarding]. Scooter/skateboard riders can choose from titanium, chromium, steel, and ceramic bearings.

Headset

Headsets
Headset (bicycle part)
The headset is the set of components on a bicycle that provides a rotatable interface between the bicycle fork and the head tube of the bicycle frame itself. The short tube through which the steerer of the fork passes is called the head tube. A typical headset consists of two cups that are pressed...

in scooters have no difference to those on BMX bikes. All scooters take a 1 1/8" sized headset.
A threaded headset is used for a threaded fork only. Their main use is for those usually running the stock razor fork and Inward forks, and DSA forks, as those are the only threaded forks readily available.
Threadless headsets are used with a compression system on threadless forks such as SCS (standard compression system) , HIC (Hidden compression system, which requires over sized bars) or ICS (Inverted compression system) . The compression used on threaded forks is a locknut, that can be taken off a stock fork. Threadless headsets are used to accommodate threadless forks, which were created because threads compromise the stregnth of the fork tube.

Compression

Standard Compression System: - scs clamp, compression bolt, starnut, headset cap, shim
The SCS resembles an over sized clamp but internally works much like a bicycle stem. There are two slots to fit the bars and fork, the smaller of which is located on the bottom and is for the fork. A starnut is installed into the forks and the SCS is placed over the fork tube. The compression bolt is screwed into the headset cap and then into the starnut. The cap is caught on the lip that is located internally in the SCS. The bars are placed into the top slot and bolts externally located on the SCS are tightened to act as a clamp.

Inverted Compression: - compression bolt, starnut, headset cap
A Starnut is installed into the bars. A compression bolt is screwed into a headset cap and is placed into the fork tube from below. It is then screwed into the starnut located in the bars. The headset cap is larger than the inner diameter of the fork tube and so catches and compresses.

Hidden Internal Compression: - compression bolt, headset cap, starnut, compression shim
A starnut is installed into the fork tube. a compression shim is placed over/around the fork tube and the compression bolt is screwed into the top of the fork tube through the headset cap and into the starnut. The shim is the compressor, as the headset cap is pushing down on the shim, the shim intern pushes down on the headset. Using HIC requires over-sized bars and a bigger clamp. Stock razor pro clamps can be used, and normal clamps can be stretched by threading the bolt in the wrong way, then placing a coin over the hole on the other side.

Thread Lock Compression
A new compression system/fork made by Phoenix Pro Scooters.

Brake

There are three popular types of brakes and two types of brake systems. The Razor stock brake is probably one of the most popular brakes because it has the ability to be modified. Razor brake installation involves a thin bolt that runs perpendicularly through the back of the deck and uses a spring system. This system is used with most other brakes, including "The Fakey Brake", Madd and Blade. These brakes are all thicker aluminum brakes. They are also slightly wider so there is less space for movement and so have the ability to be quieter and stronger.

The second type of brake was created by TSI. At first it was integrated into the deck plate as a one piece brake. The brake resembles a curved and lifted tab that hovers over the wheel also known as the "Flex Fender". Through testing and cracking they changed the design to be a separate part. Instead it is bolted to the deck vertically with two bolts so it may be replaced upon damage and has become a popular choice.

However, there is also a new design of brake that has inspired new and uprising companies to create their own models. This brake is called, the flex fender or blade brake. Phoenix was the first company to make a model of these after TSI,and it has been wildly successful. It was designed so that you could drill a hole in your deck, slide the brake in, and bolt the brake to the deck. This allowed it to be compatible with all decks, instead of just TSI.

Pegs

The first large company to produce freestyle scooter pegs was QCS Scooters in Canada. However, TILT Scooters pegs are now the most commonly used among riders. TILT provides steel Chromo pegs and aluminum Park pegs meeting the needs of both street and park riders. Some riders have taken the liberty of creating their own pegs, by using things like sockets (5/16ths typically), or a series old bearings on long bolts to replace axles. Mutts Scooters created the one piece steel axle pegs in 2009 - a unique design of an axle and peg milled out of a single piece of steel for extra strength although some other razor pegs are better wearing.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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