Skateboarding

Looking to spend that money from Grandma? How about a video camera? Making your own skate films is not only fun - if you get good at it, and capture some great tricks (or bails!), people will want to watch it!

Check out this list of the top Best Video Cameras for Skateboarding, to get some ideas. Whatever you're looking for, it should be on the list - all the way from good deals to expensive pro-grade, and ones carried in your hand or mounted on your board or helmet. There's also a new camera that's been added to the list - the thing's the size of a tube of chapstick! Crazy.

If you've used any of these cameras, post what you think about them below. Include any links to videos you might have shot, so that we can see the quality.

Better Skateboarding Wheels is coming out with a new system where you can have any picture you want printed on their skateboard wheels! This is a crazy time to be a skater - combine this with the companies who will print your own pictures on skateboard decks, and you can pretty much have a completely customized skateboard deck! Ride up at the park with your face on your wheels, on your deck, on your shirt, and ... well, on your head. That might be a bit much. Or how about giving your buddy a set of wheels with his name on em? Pretty sweet. Or, give everyone you know wheels with YOUR face on them! Again, I'm back at shameless self promotion... It's fun!

And just to let you know, Better Skateboard Wheels aren't junk blank wheels from China or anything. They're real skateboard wheels, the company is here in the USA, and they came up with their own urethane formula for wheels. They feel that they are better (thus the clever name) than the other wheels out there. They might be! I skated the ones they sent me, and they ride very nice. No flatspotting. No weird problems. Of course, it takes a while to know for sure, but I'm happy with them. Plus, they have my name and face on them! Check out this video about Better's custom printing for more info.

Summer is right around the corner - why not make this summer be the one that you check out a professional summer skateboarding camp? They can be great ways to get away, have some fun, make new friends and most of all to get personal and professional skateboarding instruction!

Depending on where you live, we have the Top Skateboard Camps of the Western US, and the Top Skateboard Camps of the Eastern US. For outside the US, I know of the Rubicon skate camp in the UK! They've been in business for a while now, and have a very solid reputation.

If you know of other skateboard camps that you'd like to let the world know about, OR if you've been to one of these camps and want to tell other skaters what it was like, please leave a comment below!

Being a skater can sometimes feel like being an outcast. In Afganistan, a group called Skateistan has been teaching skateboarding to young kids in the middle of war, religious conflict and oppression. Here you can find girls who must disguise themselves as boys. You can find pain, heart ache and loss. And in the middle of all of that? You can find this group of amazing people working with the local kids to bring hope, joy and life.

"A skateboard park and school surrounded by war makes perfect sense in a senseless world, doesn't it?" These are the opening lines of the new book, Skateistan: The Tale of Skateboarding in Afghanistan. This book shares the strange and beautiful intersection of traditional Afghan society and a new generation of Afghan skateboarders and artists. This 320-page color book features stunning, previously unpublished photographs accompanied by essays, interviews and personal stories from Skateistan's founder Oliver Percovich and the young Afghans that have gone from being students to teachers in the skatepark and classrooms. Full of hope, beauty, gritty honesty - and skateboards! - this is a story about Afghanistan that you won't find anywhere else.

The book comes out this summer. Check out the Skateistan website to pre order your copy!

This year's summit will host three special events: The Skateboarding Hall of Fame and Icon Awards (The 2012 inductees are Danny Bearer, Jay Adams, Mark Gonzales, Peggy Oki, John Humphrey, Frank Nasworthy, Glen E. Friedman and Black Flag), as well as special screenings of the new Bones Brigade Documentary by Stacy Peralta and the new Danny Way documentary Waiting for Lightning by Jacob Rosenberg.

Pro skaters are often the face and voice of skateboarding. So, what do they have to say?! Over the years I've collected a good amount of pro skater interviews, and today I put together a list of the best. Check out the top 10 pro skateboarder interviews, and see what the pros have to say about their lives, skateboarding, the future, and anything else on their minds.

Sliding can be one of the most enjoyable facets of downhill skateboarding. Few things simulate the feeling of slashing a wave or throwing an edge into deep powder like sliding can. Besides the fun, there's utility: a well-placed slide in a moment of danger can save your life. One of the best things about sliding is that so much can be done with a simple deck, some hard wheels and bearings that can take a beating. From a technical standpoint, there are some basics for tuning your board setup that I'll cover here. So, get your deck we'll do a few tweakers and it'll be time to screech on the street. Read Setting Up a Slide Deck!

• Ready to slide? Read How to Coleman Slide to learn how!

Photo © Sliverfish Longboarding

"The selected filmmaker will have the chance to work as part of a professional crew on an exciting LA-based video featuring the skater, actor, shop owner, shoe and skate park designer, and X-Games winner known as P-Rod. The video will be featured on AT&T's U-verse, YouTube, and a whole bunch of other places too. We'll be accepting applications via Facebook until April 22nd (11:59 PM EDT).The selected candidate will be notified in early May."

More details can be found at AT&T's official Facebook page - as well as email submission for applicants to enter.

The Skateboarding World Records list has been updated with some new in! Skateboarding is packed full of opportunities to set and/or break world records, and it is innovative and inventive enough that people are setting records all the time. If you know of another record that should be added to this list, let me know!

Rob Dyrdek's Wild Riders is now going to be a full fledged cartoon! I guess it was inevitable - the toys have done well, and are pretty cool. Plus, Dyrdek seems to come out with a new show every year and a half, and so it's about time! The first episode comes out April 27th, a little less than two weeks.

"I came up with the name when I was eleven years old," says Dyrdek, "when I needed a name for my first skate crew - who knew it would turn into such a mega brand."

Check out Wild Grinders Cartoon to find out more, hear more from Rob Dyrdek, read about who's involved, the characters, and the first episode.