What Skateboarding is Really About

A week or so ago, I was up in Bellingham, Washington for dinner with some friends. My wife was shopping before dinner and, not being particularly drawn to that activity, I saw some guys skating and went to watch them.

Bellingham, for lack of a better word, is in the process of being gentrified. Old buildings have been restored, and these three kids were skating at the corner of one such building. What they were skating was a remnant of the architect's sensibilities. Embedded in the sidewalk, flowing out from the corner of the remodeled building, was what looked like a section of the old building's wall. Picture a rectangle maybe six by fifteen. But it's tilted. And not level. And not exactly a rectangle. And there was what I guess was an old chunk of concrete stuck in it.

The edge of the "rectangle" the skaters were trying to slide on went up at maybe a 15 degree angle. The area they had to land on after sliding it wasn't flat. As I watched them, I finally thought to myself, "Holy shit! The laws of physics don't allow this."

But what was cool was that they didn't care. They kept trying wondering, I think, why I could possibly care. They probably couldn't succeed, but they were having fun and learning something. They left after about 20 minutes but you know what? They'll be back. And they still won't succeed. But they will still have fun and become better skaters for trying.

There's a lesson in there somewhere that goes a bit beyond skateboarding.

Heelys- Opps

Months and months ago I wrote a Public Market Watch in Transworld describing Heelys business model and financial results. I noted that they seemed to be succeeding with a business model that was contrary to what we in action sports thought was contrary to how you build a brand. Specifically, they started in the big box stores and were working their way down to specialty retailers.

Happily, I included in that article a comment about how they were expecting much lower sales the next quarter. Guess what? It seems they were right. On February 28th Big 5 Sporting Goods issued a press release announcing that sales were down for the quarter with same store sales declining 4.7%. They blame the economy but then go on to say, "sales results were impacted by a significant deterioration in the performance of the roller shoe product category over the prior year, which accounted for approximately 45% of the same store sales decline."

Though I'm sure it's happened, I don't remember ever seeing a retailer focus so directly on a single product caused sales decline. I guess I better go check out Heelys' filing. Maybe they are another Razor Scooter after all. Sometimes, I guess, conventional wisdom is right.