History
Inland skimboarding emerged in the mid 1970s and acquired its roots in Sacramento, California. With homemade skimboards made of plywood, fiberglass and resin, skimmers were sliding on sandbars along the American and Sacramento rivers. Most skimmers back then were just doing headstands, multi-360 spins and 180 shuvits for tricks.
The freestyle aspects of inland skimboarding were pioneered in the early 80's by two Sacramento locals - Launie Porteous and Mark Robinson. Influenced by the emerging skateboard scene, Launie and Mark started adapting their new found skateboarding skills to skimboarding and the concept of freestyle skimboarding was born. This freestyle adaptation has led to what is now considered the true definition of this sport.
With the evolution of the Ollie on a skimboard, it allowed skimmers to transcend into olling over obstacles and opened up the doors for more technical tricks. Riding up the side of a wet river bank and coming back down to simulate a 1/4 pipe was also a new trick. Skimmers also propped up skimboards or wood planks on logs creating a ramp to jump off and do more tricks.
In the late 80's, skimmers advanced to building better rails and jumps and adapting more technical skateboard tricks, but they still used stuff found around their environment like shopping carts, road cones, trash cans, etc. to use for obstacles.
The 90's is where Inland skimboarding started to really take hold as a cult sport. Utah was next to have an inland skimboard scene that was actually influenced by Sacramento skimmers that transplanted there. Come the late 90's, inland skimboarding had steadily grown and had emerged in other US cities and in Canada and Australia.
As of today, Canada has the largest population of Flatland skimmers; they can't be referred to as Inland skimmers because they skim on the coast, but their style of skimboarding is the same as Inland skimboarding. Australia also has a large coastal Flatland skimboard scene. Flatland and Inland skimboarding has also taken hold in various European countries.
Read more about this topic: Inland Skimboarding
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