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Listen carefully and you might hear whispering amongst the denizens of urban culture that suggests that contemporary skateboarding has become stagnant – too dominated by corporate business to be the progressive alternative cultural pursuit that it once was. As if to corroborate the suspicion, the Vinyl Cruiser from new UK company, Brighton Skateboards, seems a self-conscious return to the type of boards ridden in the ‘hot-dogging’ 1970s.
As such it would be easy to be disparaging and see it as a mindless piece of nostalgia, but unboxed it becomes quickly apparent that the Brighton Cruiser is nothing less than the concept reinvented with the crucial benefit of 40 years of skateboarding manufacturing know-how. Gleaming with newness, the Brighton Retro Cruiser is redolent of a ‘readymade’ art piece. There is a reassuring quality of production in its functional components – from the smooth perfection of an injection moulded plastic platform (n.b – available in a range of pleasingly vibrant bubblegum colours), to the durability of cast metal axles, to the flawless urethane of those wide footprint wheels.
With such literal plastic qualities it seems to be the kind of item that should be gallerised by some Postmodern ironic artist, but happily for us it is not yet Pop Art, but rather evidently, an essential piece of pop culture. This means whether you are fresh to the sideways life or a seasoned veteran, you now have the chance to discover your own route onboard the Cruiser, a product that more than lives up to the promise of its advertising. It is stable enough for a learner to carve up the pavement like a veritable Z-Boy and yet it also easily embraces new-school flip-trickery should the urge take you.
Whatever your particular fancy, the Brighton reminds us that the heart of skateboarding is the revitalising capacity of rolling along in a sideways stance and the sense of freedom that this abstract reinterpretation of the urban environment provides…and best of all it’s small enough to pop in your briefcase, hand bag or back-pack.
N.B. This article was originally published by Whiteboard Journal
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