Shoes are the foundation of your wardrobe, however, when it comes to skateboarding they are also the foundation of your stability. If you put the wrong shoes on your feet you can end up with sore arches and ankles, or worse yet sprained or strained muscles in your legs. If you are looking for a great pair of skateboarding shoes then try on the Vans Caballero.

Vans Caballero - The Basics
Vans Caballero are a mid rise shoe that offers an extra comfortable and supportive fit. They retail for about $64.00 and offer a medium width. They come in women's sizes 5-11, including half sizes, and men's sizes 3.5-13, including half sizes.

There are three styles that you can choose between. The most classic style is the black and white option. For a slight variation on this style you can also select the charcoal and white option. Finally, there is a more colorful option that offers a shoe design in black, white and ultra violet. All three styles come with the signature Steve Cabellero logo, which commemorates his 20th anniversary as a skateboarder.

The shoe itself has a suede or a leather upper and a cotton lining. They weigh in at an average of 20 ounces, however, this will vary depending on the size that you order.

Steve Cabellero
The Vans Caballero is a shoe that was designed to honor skateboarder Steve Cabellero. He's been grinding and tricking out since the late 1970s. Today he is known for his ramp work, however, he also has a history of being a top pool and vert trickster. Currently his favorite trick is done on a mini-ramp and it involves going from an Ollie to a k-grind to a Fakie stance. He also likes to do flip tricks while street boarding.

Cabellero is a family man with a great wife and a new baby. He is a San Jose native and he still lives in the American Southwest. When he is not skateboarding or promoting his career, he still jams with a variety of garage bands.

If you are a fan of Steve Cabellero, or if you just need a great pair of shoes, then try on the Vans Cabellero.

What does Chaz Ortiz have in common with Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning, Derek Jeter and Dwyane Wade? They're all ad pitchmen for Gatorade. Except, skateboarder Chaz Ortiz might better described as a pitchkid rather than a pitchman. He turns 15 years old until May 4, and yet he's already a veteran pro.

Chaz Ortiz doesn't come from one of those sunny skateboarding havens in southern California or in Florida. He hails from Chicago, where people know "the Hawk" not as Tony Hawk, but as the bitter winter wind that screeches from Lake Michigan. This means the weather often is not suited to skating, but that hasn't stopped Chaz.

When he was 6-years-old, Chaz Ortiz begged his father for a skateboard. It was a classic case of ask and you shall receive. And with his birthday in early May, Chaz had an entire Windy City skate season ahead of him. Chaz Ortiz immediately started practicing tricks, day and night, and he got better and better. Two summers ago, he competed on the Free Flow Tour, which is the premier amateur tour. He not only dazzled the crowds and the judges, but he actually won the season championship at the age of 13.

In June 2008, Chaz's first pro contest was the AST Dew Tour's Panasonic Open in Baltimore.
He placed third behind superstars Ryan Shecker and Paul Rodriquez. In September, he captured the Toyota Challenge in Salt Lake City in front of 26,000 fans and he went on to capture the season championship.

Despite his youth, Chaz is known for riding in a smooth style that goes beyond his years. Ryan Sheckler commented, "He deserves everything he has coming to him. I think that Chaz has the potential to be the next 'it' skater. He has the attitude of a champion, he skates like a champion; he skates like he wants to learn how to do everything that's going on in the skateboard world."

Chaz Ortiz says, "Just skate hard, skate your best, and don't get yourself down. Just go out there and skate how you know how to skate, make sure you have your run planned, and just have fun."

SOURCES:
http://www.kidzworld.com/article/14592-chaz-ortiz-biography
http://skateboardermag.com/skateboarder-news-features/news/chaz-ortiz-on-gatorade/
http://www.grindtv.com/athlete/Chaz_Ortiz/2627/bio/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaz_Ortiz

Rodney Mullen grew up in Florida and wanted a skateboard as a child, but his father resisted. His father perceived that older skateboarders were lousy role models who represented a counterculture way of life.
Finally, 10-year-old Rodney Mullen got his skateboard. It wasn't on Christmas, but on New Year's Day 1977. Still, Rodney's father warned that the first time he hurt himself, that would be it.

Sure enough, young Rodney Mullen took a spill. He could have twisted his ankle or scraped his knee or bruised his shoulder, but instead, Rodney knocked his teeth out. This wasn't the best "choice" for an injury. His dad placed a high value on strong, healthy teeth. His dad was a dentist! Somehow, Rodney Mullen managed to get his skateboard back. He started winning contests that same year, turned pro at age 14, and became a street skating legend.

Rodney Mullen has been called "The Thomas Edison of Skateboarding." At age 42, he's not forgotten by the younger crowd. He's known for inventing an array of tricks, such as the ollie and the kickflip, for his successors to build upon. Mullen was past his prime before skateboarders started showing their stuff all over the web, but his fans have produced tapes that have drawn as many as 1.5 million views on YouTube.

"I never really felt like I fit in (as a youngster)," Mullen once told an interviewer. "It's probably a common bond that a lot of skaters have, and I certainly felt that. I really liked the individuality of it, where you don't have to dress up all the time. You're really on your own. You didn't have a coach, no one's going to tell you what to do and it never ends in terms of the possibility of what you can do."

Despite the respect of his peers and the admiration of his successors, Rodney Mullen always will remain a sort of lone wolf. "I always like to skate at night," he said. "There's something about being alone to me that's so conducive of it all. Plus the practicalities of living in the city, because that's the time to hit things up, since no one's around."

Who knows what tricks Rodney Mullen has performed, that nobody has seen. However, he is willing to share some things, to the extent that he wrote an autobiography "The Mutt," published in 2003.

Sources:
http://www.rodneymullen.net/bio/
http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/2008/jan/16/q-skateboarder-rodney-mullen/

California's Amy Caron is only 24 years, but she is among the pioneers in putting women's pro skateboarding on the map. Amy Caron remains as active as she can in women's pro skateboarding, even though the events remain few and far between. Caron was a star in the still-popular 2003 movie, "A.K.A.: Girl Skater," which documented a group of lady pros on an event and contest tour through the skateboarding hotbed of Australia. Other stars of A.K.A.: Girl Skater also included women's pro skateboarding stars Vanessa Torres, Monica Shaw and Jamie Reyes.

Last summer, Amy Caron participated in the Supergirl Jam in her new hometown of Huntington Beach. She grew up in the San Francisco area, in the town of Half Moon Bay, and began skateboarding when she was 11 years old. "When I was a kid, there was no event that girls could compete in, let alone an event dedicated just to girls," Caron says. "Last year, I saw tons of little girls in the crowd, and you could tell they were just in awe, which was really cool."

Amy Caron didn't let the lack of role models hold her back. She describes how her family used to let her go into "The City," which is what the kids in Half Moon Bay say when they are describing San Francisco. She hung out on Pier 7 at The Embarcadero. "There was a big skate scene there with the San Francisco kids (mostly boys), and they rubbed off on me," Caron recalls. Mostly the San Francisco kids would go to street spots to skate the rails, she says, "but every now and then we would bomb down something big, like California Street. You gotta love it. It's definitely an art."

Male pro skateboarders have events year-round. Women such as Amy Caron are pretty much relegated to an every-weekend summer schedule, but she says that in the fall she is able to travel overseas with her sponsors. All in all, pro skateboarding helps Amy Caron to earn a living.

Sources:
http://www.examiner.com/a-1504907~3_Minute_Interview__Amy_Caron.html

Brazilian skateboarder Bob Burnquist has come up with so many fantastic original tricks, even Bob can't name them all. For example, in his childhood hometown of Sao Paolo last December, he clinched the 2008 World Cup Skateboarding vert season championship by performing a backside 360 stale fish and an indie 540 over the gap.

Although 32-year-old Bob Burnquist has many career claims to fame, most of his skateboard fans look first to the vert contest at the 2001 X-Games. Burnquist knocked off two-time defending champ Bucky Lasek with a final run that included "multiple tricks that had never been seen before." He received 98 points, still an X-Games record. Part of the memory is that Tony Hawk, as TV commentator, was screaming so loudly in disbelief that he nearly lost his voice. This is part of the reason why Bob Burnquist is featured in so many of Tony Hawk's video games.

If Bob Burnquist is from Brazil, why does he have two names instead of one, such as Pele? His mother is Brazilian, while his father is Swedish. His full birth name is Robert Dean Silva Burnquist. Bob Burnquist took up skateboarding at age 11, turned pro at 14 and has never looked back. He was 18 when he showed up at Seattle's 1995 Slam City Jam as a virtual unknown, dazzled the judges (and fellow skaters) and won first-place.

Burnquist now lives in Vista, California, as a dual citizen of Brazil and the United States. His significant other is pro skateboarder Jen O'Brien, and their daughter's name is Lotus. They have a world-class vert ramp in their backyard.

To make the most of his fame, Bob Burnquist spreads his personal social messages as an environmental activist and a vegetarian. The Bob Burnquist Foundation reaches out to schools with information about organic farming and gardening. These activities may seem down to earth for a high-flying skateboard trickster, but Bob Burnquist's motto sums it up: "Live your life, and be in control, by learning to let go."

Sources:
http://www.bobburnquist.com/
http://www.bobburnquist.org/
http://oakley.com/sports/skate/athletes/2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Burnquist

Gailea Momolu says he is a skateboarder first and a rapper second, and one fan says he is "more of a dancer than a rapper." Indeed, Gailea Momolu has a great pair of feet.

Gailea Momolu's parents are from Liberia, although he was born in Boston and he grew up near Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Now 28, he makes his home in Vancouver, British Columbia. He lived for some time in Los Angeles, the informal capitol of skateboarding, in order to make connections and find sponsors, but he says he likes Vancouver better. "It's a good skate scene out here," Momolu says. "There is a lot of focus on the talent, but the scene could be a lot better when it comes to kids getting hooked up and getting their names out there." Besides, Momolu has a girlfriend in Vancouver. That might explain why he doesn't like L.A. as much as other skateboarders.

As for favorite places to skateboard, Gailea Momolu picks Shenzhen, China. Yes, China. "People in China really don't know what to do when they see me skate," Momolu says. "They just crowd around and watch. It's a new sport to them." He explains that his love for Shenzhen "is because it's all unique marble, the 10-out-of-10 top marble."

Gailea Momolu describes his skate style as "raw and relaxed." These two words may not seem to go together, but Momolu insists that he can remain relaxed and still get raw. "I'm a handrail skater, I guess, but pretty much I try to skate anything and everything," Momolu says. "The reason I say 'raw' is because of my pop. I don't like to flaunt myself too much, but I've heard so many people say that about me."

Gailea Momolu has a comparatively late start in skateboarding. He was more interested in basketball as a youngster, and he didn't get his first used skateboard until he was 13 years old. But he fell in love with that board and remembers taking train rides to Toronto and Montreal in order to get in on the action during the winter months. "I'll stay in skateboarding for as long as I can," Gailea Momolu says. "I just want to be a household name. I just want to keep doing what I'm doing."

Sources:
http://www.skaterrap.com/features.php
http://www.colormagazine.ca/print/feature/view/gailea-momolu
http://goskateboarding.ca/gailea_momolu?news_id=359&uniqid=
http://www.inqmnd.ca/site/#tableOfContents-more_39

In 1999, skateboarding legend Andy MacDonald delivered a speech in then-President Bill Clinton's White House. Then Andy MacDonald skated across the marble floor. True enough, Bill Clinton as we know was a permissive sort of president, but still? You might have thought that by doing this, Andy MacDonald was on drugs. Actually, Andy MacDonald had just delivered an anti-drug speech.

Andy MacDonald, 35, is the Big Mac of skateboarding, an eight-time World Cup champion. Do you want to talk about a fan-friendly guy? Skateboarders are not exactly known for having highly literate web sites. Most often a skateboarder web site viewer is steered to videos of the skater doing all kinds of tricks, while learning little about the skateboarder as a person. But if you go to andymacdonald.com, you are greeted with this: "Welcome to Andy MacDonald's web site. If you have a slow Internet connection, click the slow button. If you have a fast connection, click the fast button." Well, of course we clicked the "slow" button, and sure enough, we received fast access to many of Andy MacDonald's writings and musings. Dang, thanks, Andy!

Just for a sampling, Andy MacDonald writes about his adolescent years in "All 80's All Day." He speaks of attending a recent retro 1980s skateboard event: "In the 1980's, the more accessories you were rocking, the more styling your kit: I had my boom box from high school, a neon FreeStyle watch as well as a Pop-Swatch on my shirt, suspenders on my Don Johnson pants with neon green Maui and Sons short-shorts to skate in, OG Airwalk Disaster's with the mud flap and paint splatter as well as a set of Airwalk prototypes to skate in complete with Smith lace savers, a custom made red Flyaway helmet, blue Rector elbows and Pain Cheater knee pads, oh and a radical 'flop' hairdo I did it myself with a set of buzzers the night before ... All this gear made it almost impossible to skate, but it didn't matter."

Andy MacDonald's next web site section explains how he joins Tony Hawk in raising funds for public skate parks. This guy is such a real deal. Respect Andy MacDonald! And to the younger skaters: Learn how to put something on your web sites besides videos.

Sources:
http://www.andymacdonald.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Macdonald

Benji Galloway, 30, is among the world's best contest pro skateboard competitors. The past season was one of his best.

But Benji Galloway is almost among the least popular pro skateboarders in some circles. Some rivals say he is overly competitive. Others believe he is conceited. Somebody even spray-painted a pair of huge bacon strips on Benji Galloway's van one time, in an apparent reference to his connection with Bacon Skateboards.

Benji Galloway first insists he has plenty of friends on pro skateboardingbut acknowledges he has some detractors as well. Omar Hassan, Brian Patch and Frank Gerwer are among them.

Benji Galloway perceives that he may be viewed as an outsider because he grew up in the Deep South near Charleston, South Carolina, so he's not exactly a skateboard/surfer beach dude. He learned to skate in a facility called the Charleston Hanger Bowl, which he describes as "all wood and metal ramps with flesh eating screws sticking out." Therefore, he wore knee pads; in fact, he had basketball knee pads before he begged his strict father to borrow $9 for skateboarder knee pads. When Benji Galloway began entering competitions, he was the only guy in knee pads, so he figures other skaters saw him as either a showboat or a dork.

Benji Galloway also doesn't shy away from the fact that he concentrates on contest skating and racking up World Cup points. He says he needs to make some money. He's not the most popular guy with sponsors, and he doesn't appear in skateboard magazines as often as many of his peers. He does work as a carpenter, including construction of skateboarding ramps, in order to make a living. Not too many pro skateboarders are carpenters from South Carolina.

His rivalry with Omar Hassan, says Benji Galloway, started when Omar "felt he got the short end of the stick" from judges at a contest. Omar Hassan and Brian Patch then reportedly began calling Benji Galloway "Session Killer," because they didn't want to skate with him.

Frank Gerwer reportedly has a different nickname for Benji Galloway, "Content Point Guy." Galloway simply answers, "Well, I don't want to go to a contest and get last."

Sources:
http://www.automaticmag.com/issue59/issue59_benji.php
http://www.juicemagazine.com/Juice_store.html
http://www.skateboardermag.com/av/scmbnjgllwy/
http://www.bnqt.com/article.php?id=5933

So you think you know everything about Bam Margera, the pro skateboarder who also is a stuntman, movie director and MTV "Jackass" personality? Well, then, you probably do know everything. But just in case . . .

Bam was born September 28, 1979, as Brandon Cole Margera. This occurred in West Chester, Pa., a place not exactly known for skateboarding at the time. His grandpa gave him his nickname when he was a 3-year-old, because he constantly was running into walls. He started boarding as an 8-year-old. Therefore, this was a rare case in which the skateboard outdoors may have been safer than the walls indoors.

He's a dropout, but he was a good enough son to comply with his parents' pleas to achieve a GED. This stands for General Educational Development certificate. It is not officially a high school diploma.

Skateboarding may seem to have become secondary for Bam, but without the sport, you may never have heard from him. His breakthrough into entertainment came during the late 1990s, when he started filming himself and his friends doing stunts. The compilation of "CKY (Camp Kill Yourself): Landspeed" was released in 1999, followed by three sequels. (One more than for The Godfather!).

The CKY acronym was not exactly original for Bam, since his brother Jess is in a band of the same name.

Margera is a member of Team Element, the demonstration team for Element Skateboards, and he has other sponsors. He also sells tons of stuff on his website. This makes him a pro, even though he really isn't good enough to enter regular competitions. However, he is among fewer than 20 skateboarders known to have landed The Loop.

After some stormy love relations, Bam Margera married Missy Rothstein in February 2007. Did this lead him to settle down? Well, he led the Jackass crew tag along on the honeymoon in Dubai, and he ended up with a $13,000 tab for damage done to the hotel. His reaction: "I was kind of ready for it though. ... If something doesn't get broken, then that's not right."

SOURCES
www.bamargera.com
www://www.imdb.com/name/nm0546640/bio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bam_Margera