THOUSAND BOARDS A DAY

Bill Bahne Remembers the Avalanche Years for Bahne Skateboards.

I’m giving Bill Bahne the credit. He’s the guy who kind of major league started this - the distribution of the urethane wheel to more of a mainstream thing.

                                      - Jeff Ho, for this book, 2009

Tony Hawk’s first skateboard was a blue Bahne Photo: Lucia Griggi

Tony Hawk’s first skateboard was a blue Bahne, a gift from his brother Steve: “It's true that Tony's first board was a blue Bahne,” big brother Steve said in an email.

“It was a hand-me-down. I gave it to him when I visited home from college one weekend. That was probably 1977. He would've been eight or nine. I was 21 or 22. He and my folks lived in San Diego, I was just finishing up school at UCSB. Don't remember where I got it in the first place. I either bought it myself or got it as a present from my parents.

Tony still has that board. The wheels are fused with rust. I've heard it might end up in the Smithsonian.” Tony Hawk was not alone.

Tony Hawk hasn’t kept all his thousands of boards, but he kept his first one, a blue Bahne that was a gift from his brother Steve. Bahne helped launch Tony Hawk, but Bahne were also one of the first skateboard companies to go big in the Urethane Era - learning lessons and establishing margins and doing good things and bad things that helped the skateboard market evolve. Portrait: Lucia Griggi.