This time on Rad Rat Video, we're talking
about where skateboard trucks came from.
Let's get started. Welcome back to Rad Rat
Video, the channel where you can learn
something new about skateboarding three
times a week. We talk about learning
tricks on the Shred school, we talk about
trick histories, we talk about
skateboarding video games, all kinds of
skateboarding culture and topics. Today
we're talking about trucks, where they
came from, who invented them and why are
they called 'trucks'? Now I'll do that last
part first. Actually kind of interesting.
The wheel assembly on a train, on a rail
car, was called a 'truck.' At least in the
US. And in other countries it's called a 'bogie,'
I guess, but in the US they called those
'trucks.' So when you adapt that onto a
skate, or a skateboard,
then it makes a lot of sense why they
call it that. But who invented it? Well
I've got that right here. It was invented in
1960... 1863 by James Plimpton. Yeah. So the
truck, of course, was originally invented
for rollerskates, and the first
side-by-side wheel roller skate was in
1863. Inline had been around for about a
hundred years at that point, but that's
where the truck came from in general. But
obviously using roller skate trucks was
not great for skateboards. First thing,
they were only about two inches wide, so
you know, it made sense. It had to fit the
width of your foot, but putting it on a
skateboard, that was nowhere near wide
enough. So to make up for that, you had to
have really wide wheels that would kind
of cover some of that width, but there
was also crazy products at the time like
this truck axle width extender product.
You'd screw this on instead of a nut on
the end of your truck, and then you would
put the wheels on those, and that would
help add a little bit of extra width to your
board. And these were actually 90 bucks
on eBay. I don't know what they cost back
in the day. A couple other issues with
the skate trucks were that there was no
standardized mounting system. You know, a
roller skate would come as one unit all
together. You don't need to be able to
take the trucks off of this brand, and
put them over on this brand. So having
that standardized system was a big deal.
Also, the strength just wasn't there.
They had a really basic T shape.
In fact, my Indy 109s are still kind of
similar, that you can see. You know, if I
was doing a high-impact, jumping down
gaps and everything with this, this would
probably break no problem. So those
are some of the problems that we were
having with rollerblade trucks back in
the day ,and we definitely needed our own.
As we got out of the 60s and into the
70s,
skateboarding got to be more and more
popular. The first urethane wheel came
out, which was a huge deal, and the first
trucks started to come out at that time
as well. But who was the first to make it?
We've got three different options. The first
one is Bennett. Bennett trucks definitely
claim to be the first, although on their
website, they also claim that their 70s
releases are still cutting-edge. But
they've been claiming that they've been
the first since the start. You see it in
old ads and everything like that. One
problem with their design was that
they're still a roller skate sized. So
they didn't solve all the problems that
skateboarders were having, but they were
designed for skateboarders, and they solved
the mounting issues and things like that.
So they do have a good claim at being
one of the first skateboard trucks. One
of the other options is Bahne. And they
don't claim to be first themselves, but
they are historic brand. Tony Hawk's
first board was a Bahne, and they do
deserve be mentioned in the same breath
as some of these other companies, but
they never make the claim. The last one
that does, though, is Tracker. Tracker
trucks were named that because of the
way that a train car: one truck would
follow the other. It would 'track' the
other truck. That's where the name came
from. And they say that they're the first
skateboard truck made by skateboarders.
"Back in 1975, the tracker full track was
the first truck in history made
specifically for skateboarding by
skateboarders." Which is a much weaker
claim. The more that you have to add on
different qualifiers to it, it makes it a
lot weaker. The first one in this city, in
this whatever. You get more and more
specific, it starts to get more of a
weaker claim. So who was really first?
It's tough to say. So everyone wants to
be first. They're all gonna use the
earliest date they possibly can. Bennett
actually says that they started in 1974,
tracker says in 1974, but both of them
seem to have come to market around the
same time in 1975. So who is actually
first?
Sources that say Bennett was, as if
everybody knows. It's not cited, it's
not proven. People just say Bennett was
first. But I found a few quotes that say
that it was at the same time. So there's
this one from Transworld, where they
talked about how they all came out at
the same time. This other one is from
the Transworld business site, where they
mentioned them coming out at the same
time as well. There's also this interview
with Larry Balma, one of the founders
of Tracker, says that it was at the same
time as well. But one thing to keep in
mind, you might want to take that with a
little grain of salt, because Larry Balma
also founded Transworld. So those first
two articles may be a little suspect, and
a quote from him directly is just his
story. So if I had to guess, I would say
Bennett was actually a little bit first,
but I think a more interesting question
is: 'Who made the first usable truck? Who
actually solved all the problems that
made the first modern skateboard truck?'
And that's when Tracker starts to pull
ahead. "We introduced the four and a
quarter inch wide Tracker Full Track
truck constructed out of heat treated
aircraft alloy materials, which was
strong, lightweight, and the first truck
built for skateboarders by skateboarders.
The skateboard market was growing and
they needed stronger equipment. They
needed Trackers. Bahne and Bennett
skateboard trucks came out at the same
time, but they were still narrow, about
two and three eighths inch wide. The
Bennett broke and the Bahne was not as
sexy. By the time they made wider trucks,
Tracker had production, the team, the name,
and the quality. We remained the number
one selling truck brand for the next 15
years." They didn't get to be industry
leaders overnight though. They had a lot
of problems selling shops on their idea
of having a wider truck. A lot of shops
would tell them that you can't have a
truck be that wide, because the wheels
would stick out, and then your feet would
hit him when you try to turn. They tried to
convince them that boards would get wider
and wider to suit, but it didn't really
work. So they had some interesting
marketing ideas. "And so I got everybody
from their areas to rip the Yellow
Pages out of all the phone books they
had. And the idea was that we would call
up the shops: "Do you have tracker trucks?"
The people at the shops would say, "What
are tracker trucks?" We'd all say, "Oh
tracker trucks? You don't have tracker
trucks?" They'd say, "No, we have Excalibur,
we have sure-grip, we have..." We'd say, "Oh,
you don't have tracker trucks? OK" Later.
Click.
This helped give them some momentum and
get them started, and their triangular
trussed design became more and more
popular over the years, as this famous ad
of theirs likes to illustrate. But
Bennett was still really important too.
Way back in 1978, they actually pioneered
magnesium and aluminum trucks, and that
fact blew me away. A fan of the show
named Handywithshovels sent that
little factoid to me, and that was the
reason why I started to look into this
topic at all. Because you think about
Tensor. They have their Maglite trucks,
and they brag about their magnesium
technology, and all this stuff. And you
might think that that's actually new, but
it's a really really old idea. And Grind
King would say that they were the first
truck that really tried to be light, but
Bennett was doing it way back then. And
Tracker was also experimenting. They were
doing all kinds of different stuff. They
experimented with a polymer truck, and
they never released that. But I did find
this ad from an old Skateboarder
magazine, of a different brand doing
something like that. A one-piece truck
that would just bend a little bit
instead of having to turn in the normal
way. So it's very interesting. They
definitely had a huge effect on
skateboarding. But Bennett, Tracker and
even Bahne are all still around these
days. None of them are huge mainstream
companies anymore, but they do still
exist. So that's what I was able to dig
up on skateboard trucks. If you know
anything I don't, let me know about that
below, and hit my logo on screen right
here to subscribe so you can keep
learning more things about skateboarding
three times a week. Until next time, here
a couple more videos to check out in the
meantime. And thank you for watching.
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