Skateboarding has always been a technically-advanced sport. Now, a piece of digital technology exists to apply fitness tracking techniques to the sport for the first time. Amy Sandys reports

Challenge: During the 1950s, surfing the long beaches of California’s coast was the dream for many young men escaping the realities of daily life. Days and weeks were spent chasing the waves, burning in the hot sun and generally adopting the beach as home. Yet, inevitably, winter would draw in, and the surfer boys turned to California’s concrete sidewalks for entertainment.

The exact date skateboarding became a feature of urban life is hazy, as several people are cited as having had the idea to use the sprawling Los Angeles cityscape as an alternative surf paradise. What is certain, however, is that skateboarding has since become a sophisticated and highly technical extreme sport, with a devoted following. The sport became so popular that skateboarding legend Patti McGee made the cover of Life magazine in 1965.

And, with the development of polyurethane wheels in the early 1970s, skateboarding became much safer. Encroaching on the urban public consciousness, wheels on the sidewalks became almost as common a sight as surfboards on the waves.

Yet, as a sport traditionally undertaken solo, an element of camaraderie and companionship was perhaps missing from its competitive side. A solution was needed which, as well as allowing skaters to assess their performance away from the heat of the moment, new routes could be developed and new tricks attempted, with the support of the community.

It is doubtful that even McGee, or pro boarder of the 1990s, Tony Hawk, would guess that a sport which began with bored surfers attaching clay wheels onto a block of wood, would be at the forefront of a digital implementation project designed to enhance participant experience.

Strategy: To increase inclusivity, participation and connection between fellow riders, Buenos Aires-based start-up company Syrmo has developed the world’s biggest social media ‘exclusively for skateboarders’ – the Syrmo smart pad. A spokesperson from McCann Madrid, the agency charged with Syrmo’s public relations, says, “The target is beginner skateboarders who want to learn, and advanced skateboarders who want to improve their skateboarding experience and technique.”

The sophisticated nature of the modern skateboard allows this modification to be made without affecting its functionality, or performance of the participant. Syrmo is attached to the skateboard trucks via a metal join on the board’s underside, to ensure the wheels and bearings remain securely attached. Using smart technology, Syrmo encompasses electronic sensors and a link to an app on the rider’s smartphone to upload data about the ride online.

Skaters can then share achievements on social media and analyse their skateboarding performance; height, angles, air time, pop force and amount of tricks performed during a session are just some of the information its communicates. As well as aiding performance improvement by recording any failures and by suggesting what the skateboarder can learn, its interactive nature bills Syrmo as, ‘The biggest social network for skateboarders.’

So closely linked is Syrmo to the online community, that it is hailed by some as a natural progression from traditional skateboarding-based computer games. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series, first made in 1999 and still manufactured today, allows players to take on the persona of a skateboarder, partaking in tricks and flips while competing to earn points. Syrmo said in a released, “We realised it would be beyond awesome if there were a device that could bring the Tony Hawk video game to life.”

True to its word, Syrmo has used the competitive game concept, while digitally enhancing it to make Syrmo relevant for more modern communications platforms, such as smart phones.

To communicate the product’s versatility and innovation, McCann and Syrmo collaborated to host an event, ‘The Dark Side of Skateboarding.’ Held entirely in the dark, McCann and Syrmo invited four professional skateboarders along to take part in a competition, while wearing night vision glasses – in the absence of light, the winner was judged by Syrmo. By recording all the tricks in 3D, Syrmo was able to analyse the data collected, and determine the overall winner. “With The Dark Side of Skateboarding,” McCann’s spokesperson says, “We made a demonstration to reach everybody.”

Yet the event was not exclusively for the skateboarding professionals, and external stakeholders and audiences could also participate. The spokesperson says, “For the Dark Side of Skateboarding event, we changed our webpage to cover the competition. There you could follow the tricks, tracked by Syrmo, and ‘see’ the competition with a night vision camera.” Through Syrmo, skateboarders can be connected to both the immediate skateboarding community, and the wider community of interested parties who can see any tricks and activities performed in real time.

Results: The success of Syrmo ultimately rests on the acknowledgement that sometimes, even the most historic sports rely on innovation to ensure they remain relevant to modern demands.

With a measured increase in supplier orders and a recent visit to China by the Syrmo team, its product has become truly international – and has even been endorsed by Tony Hawk himself.

By transforming a skateboard into, literally, a smartboard, digital ensures that even a pastime originally designed to placate bored Californian surfers can revolutionise the current communications landscape, and vice versa. “The skateboard has
been around for almost 50 years without anything changing,” the McCann Madrid spokesperson says. “Syrmo is a technology that wants to revolutionise the world of skateboarding without changing its essence.”