Modern skateboarding was born of the anti-establishment ethos. Many cities across the country still outlaw the practice of riding boards and wheels in certain areas. That’s why, as a game rooted firmly in rebellion, it’s hard for me to see a recent application created by a new company called Syrmo working in the skate world. Call me crazy.
Syrmo, with the assist from the Spanish arm of the McCann advertising agency, created a Smart Pad that fits between the board’s trucks and the deck and electronically records every movement of the board and rider. The program, which then sends the info to the app on a smart phone, allows skaters to look at things like height, angles, air, pop force, number of tricks per session and even fails. Much like Strava for cyclists who can compare times on a particular trail, the app can connect a community of skateboarders so they can then measure each other’s, ahem, air?
I’m all for innovation and making our sports better–and more fun–but would skaters actually use an app like that? It doesn’t seem likely as the cross section of society that includes skateboarders seems more apt to just roll. They like to get in a zone, be it with a pack at a skatepark (the only social network they need) or solo, just finding flow–earbuds firmly planted–on a particular street with features they’ve gotten to know in their hometown: a set of stairs, a clean rail or even a flower box to ollie over.
Syrmo put together a little event, the “Dark Side of Skateboarding,” and signed up several Spanish pros and had them compete against one another in the dark using night vision (see below). The Syrmo App judged their performance. Now it’s up to the skateboarding world at large to judge if something like this will actually work for them. Seems like a longshot.
