Freestyle scootering

After the first version of the foldable kick scooter, invented by Swiss banker Wim Ouboter (founder of Micro-Mobility Switzerland), hit the market in 1999, scooters became extremely popular amongst kids worldwide. Micro was the first to produce and sell these scooters. Shortly after, Micro licensed their new invention to JD Sports who would go on to sell the scooter under the name Razor in the United States and under the name JD Bug in parts of Europe. Razor USA alone sold five million scooters in 2000, which was estimated to be around 65% of the market at the time. The invention of the foldable scooter was made with easy transportation in mind, however, some people with roots in skateboarding and BMX quickly realized the potential of using scooters to perform tricks in skateparks. Razor Scooters was the first company to form a legitimate team of scooter riders, including some of the best riders from the United States in the early 2000s. This team included riders such as Josh Toy, John Radtke and KC Corning. Videos like Razor Evolution (2000) and the RVM series (Razor Scooters Video Magazine) helped grow the interest in freestyle scootering, as a copy of RVM1 was included in the box with the first Razor A-model scooters. The popularity of the Razor scooter also resulted in the release of the video game Razor Freestyle Scooter (2000). Since the sport's inception in 1999, stunt scooters have significantly evolved. As the sport progresses, businesses and systems have been created to support the growth of the scootering community. An example of an early support system is the Scooter Resource (SR) forum founded by Andrew Broussard (also the CEO and founder of proto pro scooters) in 2003, which helped grow the scootering community by connecting people interested in scootering across the world. A similar forum for the French scooter community, Trotirider, was created by Fabian Delos around the same time. As scootering became more popular, there was a demand for stronger aftermarket parts and for scooter shops to carry those parts. The first ever scooter competition was held in Montreux, Switzerland in 2005. == Evolution of the professional freestyle scooter ==

A modern freestyle scooter is a lot different to the foldable scooter invented in 1999, both when it comes to looks and performance. For over two decades trick scooters have been evolving to what they are today. The biggest issue in the earlier years of freestyle scootering was the weak construction of the scooters that were available, causing them to break under the stress of freestyle riding. After all, the foldable scooters were created for simpler transportation and not intended for freestyle use, which meant they were light weight and not very heavy duty. The need for more reliable scooter parts eventually lead to the scooter community creating own 'hacks' to make the scooters more durable, such as bolting the folding mechanism, hot glueing the plastic core wheels and inserting an extra metal tube into the fork of the scooter to make it stronger. While these hacks extended the lifetime of the scooters, it was clear that the community was in need of aftermarket parts made specifically for trick scootering. The introduction of the threadless fork The most critical flaw in the construction of the early scooters, strength-wise, was the fork. To make production and assembly cheap, the forks included on the Micro and Razor scooters had threads, allowing for the use of a threaded headset. However, this also meant that (due to the threads) the thickness of the fork-tube was thinner than necessary compared to a threadless bicycle fork. This lead scooter rider and owner of Scooter Resource, Andrew Broussard to create the first threadless scooter fork, named the Scooter Resource fork or just SR fork for short. Later additions/improvements Other minor (but important) additions and improvements to the design of modern freestyle scooters are: This was done to increase the strength of the bolts and bearings. • Scooter specific grip tape - Like on a skateboard, the deck of the scooter is covered with grip tape to ensure good grip under the shoes of the rider. While in the early years of scootering most scooter riders bought large sheets of grip tape made for skateboard, it has in recent years popped up several companies manufacturing grip tape made specifically for scooters. • Handle grips by scooter brands - Like it was for the grip tape, early scooter riders often bought grips made for BMX bikes to put on their scooters. Recently, however, scooter companies begun producing handle grips themselves, with scooter specific details in mind when manufacturing. • Pegs/deck ends - Pegs (like found on a BMX bike) has been around for a while in the scooter community, both for the front and back wheel. In later years their popularity seems to have dropped in favour of deck ends. These are like rear pegs, only fit to match the width of the scooter deck. Having deck ends both allows for more trick options as well as increasing the lifetime of the back end of the scooter deck. == World Championships ==

In 2012 the first scootering world championships was organized by the International Scooter Association (ISA) (now known as the International Scooter Federation, ISF), won by Dakota Schuetz. Since then, the world championships have been held annually, with exception of the year 2020 due to restrictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. From the year 2019 there has been crowned a winner in three categories: men's park, men's street and women's park (prior to 2019 there was only one category, men's park). The winners are listed below: There are discussions about including scootering as a new sport in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. == Rider of the Year ==

The title Rider of the Year (also known as ROTY) is awarded annually by the online scooter media outlet Trendkill Collective. The award is given to the scooter rider voted the best or most impactful that year based on things such as the video footage produced, performance in contests/street jams and overall presence and impression. It is the members of the freestyle scooter community themselves that vote for their favorite rider based on a list of scooter riders that is hand picked by the staff at Trendkill at the end of every year. The tradition started in 2019 and is the only award of its kind in the freestyle scootering community. In 2022 French rider Lucas DiMeglio became the first non-American to win the ROTY award. == See also ==