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Classifieds

Palo Alto Online

Skateboarding lingo

Air - Ride a skateboard into the air, land it, and continue on

Ankle biters - Skateboarding socks; also called "no-shows" or "low-cuts"

Bail - An intentional fall to avoid possible slam

Backside - The direction of a turn on an incline, meaning the backside of the body is facing the wall

Carve - To turn in a skateboard bowl with all four wheels on the surface

Concave - An inward turn

Coping - The material on the lip of a ramp used to grind, slide or bump

Deck - The laminated surface of a skateboard

Fakie -Going backwards

Fat - Big trick

Gap - The area between two riding surfaces over which skaters ollie

Grind - A trick done on any sharp lip where the truck comes in contact with the edge of the ramp

Grip Tape - The sandpaper-like tape with an adhesive back placed on the skateboard to provide a non-slip surface

Hang - Catch the back wheels or truck on coping as the board reenters the ramp

Half-pipe - A wooden ramp on which a skateboard is ridden

Launch Ramp - A kind of ramp that propels a skater into the air

Lip - The edge of any obstacle that a skateboarder rides

Manual - Balancing while riding a skateboard on two wheels

Nose - The forward part of the skateboard

Ollie - The basis for most skateboard tricks. The back foot smacks the tail of the board against the ground while the front foot pulls the board up into the air

Pivot - A trick where the truck touches the top of the lip, or coping for just a moment before reentry

Poser - Pretender; someone that dresses like a skateboarder but doesn't skateboard

Quarter-pipe - A ramp which is equal to one quarter of a 360 pipe

Rad - Cool

Ripper - A really good and consistent skater

Sick - Cool

Slam - A bad unexpected fall

Sweet - Cool

Tail - The back part of the skateboard

Tight - Cool

Toe Rail - The rail of the board on which the toe of the foot rests

Trucks - The two parts of the skateboard connecting the deck with the wheels

Transfer - Changing from rail to rail or ramp to ramp

Tweak - Bending or contorting the body and board during a skateboard maneuver

Vert Ramp - A half-pipe where the steepest section of the ramp is straight down

Translation from the first paragraph of the main story:

"This guy is good. He jumped over six stairs on his skateboard without falling down. Then he flipped his board over a large bush and performed a really cool turn. He followed with a quite difficult aerial trick and landed on a ramp. Then he tried to grab his board while jumping high in the air, but aborted the trick midway through." <@$p>

This list and translation was compiled with substantial help from Palo Verde School students Nik Killian, age 11, Max Minowitz, age 10, and various Web sites. - Daryl Savage