Skateboard

Carrie and Carl are twins and Laketon's youngest detectives. They were watching TV when the phone rang. "I need you guys to solve a mystery," Alan Rees said. "Come on over and I'll tell you what happened. " On the way to Alan's house, the twins saw Betsy Watters playing with a dollhouse in her yard. "Isn't it pretty? It's all blue because that's my favorite color," she told Carrie. "I remember when I loved playing with dolls," Carrie told her brother as they hurried along.

The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to seek a speed limit for skateboarders and penalize them for failing to follow a range of traffic rules, from stopping at stop signs to yielding to pedestrians. On a 12 to 0 vote, the council instructed City Atty. Carmen Trutanich to draft an ordinance that would prohibit "unsafe" skateboard activity and limit riders to a speed of 25 mph. The proposal was initiated by Councilman Joe Buscaino, who described it as a response to the death of two skateboarders over the last year.

Still got a skateboard buried somewhere in a corner of the garage? Celebrity personal trainer Mike Donavanik - http://www.mikedfitness.com - suggests you drag it out and repurpose it for this simple and effective fitness move, the skateboard pike. Why you should try it: These assisted pikes work your entire core and build upper body strength. What to do: Place the toes of both feet on the middle of a skateboard placed underneath you. Arms are on the ground in front in a push-up position.

Still got a skateboard buried somewhere in a corner of the garage? Celebrity personal trainer Mike Donavanik - http://www.mikedfitness.com - suggests you drag it out and repurpose it for this simple and effective fitness move, the skateboard pike. Why you should try it: These assisted pikes work your entire core and build upper body strength. What to do: Place the toes of both feet on the middle of a skateboard placed underneath you. Arms are on the ground in front in a push-up position.

'Skateboard: Evolution and Art in California' Where: California Heritage Museum, 2612 Main St., Santa Monica When: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. Ends May 30 Price: $8 Contact: (310) 392-8537 or www.californiaheritage

We've asked you for reviews of good books you have read: "Skateboard Tough" by Matt Christopher Brett and his family had just moved to Springton. While they were digging, they found a skateboard. Written on it was "The Lizard." Brett tries out the skateboard and finds that he can do tricks he couldn't do before. His friend tells him the history of the board. It used to belong to Lance Hawker, a champion skateboarder who was run over by a car and died.

Palo Alto, the city that reimburses its employees 7 cents a mile to ride bikes to work, has taken steps to encourage commuter use of the skateboard. With passage of a controversial ordinance, the city is permitting skateboards on all but 25 of its busiest streets. The move has thrilled skateboarders--many cities, including nearby San Francisco, make skateboarding illegal-- but is unpopular with bicyclists, who fought for years to develop a bike trail system on Palo Alto streets.

A 16-year-old boy was beaten to death with a skateboard after he and a friend were attacked by three teenagers at a condominium complex, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department reported Tuesday. Richard Johnson was unconscious when police found him Monday afternoon. He was airlifted to Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, where he died of head injuries, police said. Johnson's friend, whose name was not released, was treated for minor injuries and released.

Possibly shrinking the concrete universe for skateboarders, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will discuss banning skaters from some sidewalks in unincorporated communities across the county. Supervisor Kathy Long suggested the ban after hearing complaints from property owners--primarily churches and businesses--that skateboarders are damaging property and disturbing patrons. Property owners have also expressed concerns about possible legal liability if a skateboarder is injured, Long said.

The likelihood that a skateboard park could someday be built on a downtown corner known as the Village Entrance increased slightly this week as the City Council agreed that the possibility deserved further study. Council members said Tuesday that they would also be willing to consider other sites, should any become available. The city's recreation committee has been searching for more than two years for an appropriate spot to build a skateboard park.

Tom Schaar landed a 1080. That's all that needs to be said -- and pretty much all the 12-year-old from Malibu could say immediately after becoming the first skateboarder ever to complete three full rotations in the air and land with his board still underneath him. "I did a 1080!" an out-of-breath and excited Schaar exclaimed into the camera that captured him completing the stunt on only his fifth attempt. Schaar recently became one of only a handful of skaters to land a 900. He set out to nail the 1080 on the MegaRamp at Woodward West in Tehachapi, which was customized by Schaar's sponsor, Red Bull, to feature a 70-foot roll-in ramp that leads to a 50-gap and then a quarterpipe ramp with a 27-foot wall.

Larry Stevenson, a Venice Beach lifeguard who helped popularize skateboarding in the early 1960s by marketing his Makaha boards to riders eager to essentially surf on land, has died. He was 81. Stevenson, who had Parkinson's disease, died Sunday at Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center, said his son, Curt. "He was the guy who said, 'I can merge surfing with the skateboard culture,'" said Michael Brooke, author of the 1999 skateboarding history "The Concrete Wave. " "At one point in time, there was nobody bigger making skateboards.

Dominant online video site YouTube has launched a lineup of sports channels featuring some of the biggest names in action sports — including pro skateboarder Tony Hawk, snowboarder Shaun White and surfer Kelly Slater. The four channels seek to tap into the rising popularity of action sports — especially among teens and twentysomethings — by offering clips, commentary and live events on YouTube. The original content represents another step in the site's efforts to augment its user-created videos with more professionally programmed offerings.

Jacques Heim, the 47-year-old artistic director of the dance company Diavolo, is spending a good chunk of his time lately hanging out with a group of teenage skateboarders. He watches them zoom up and fly off specially designed ramps in his company's warehouse-like space in downtown Los Angeles and, at appropriate moments, tosses them a lot "of random questions," he says. "I'll ask, 'What does fear mean to you?' Or 'Why would you abandon movement in midair?' And I've learned that the word 'commitment' to these kids is as powerful to them as it is to any adult," he says.

James Van Doren and his older brother Paul had only sample sneakers to offer when they opened their first store, in Anaheim, in 1966. They took a dozen orders in the morning and delivered custom canvas deck shoes, made in their adjacent factory, in the afternoon. Operating as the Van Doren Rubber Co., the brothers and two other co-founders planned to succeed by cutting out the middleman and selling their distinctive thick rubber-soled shoes directly to the public. By the early 1970s, the company owed some of its success to Southern California's burgeoning skateboard culture.

So far there have been no dead bodies, no safes stuffed with soggy cash, no rusty stolen cars. The only things exposed by the receding water at Echo Park Lake have been shopping carts, 55-gallon steel barrels, a parking-enforcement "boot" and lots of skateboards. But who knows what is still hidden in the muck at the bottom of the 13-acre lake, soon to be dredged and outfitted with a leak-proof clay liner? Officials say that leaks once required them to replenish the lake with valuable drinking water.

A 22-year-old man who tried to escape robbers by having his dog tow him on a skateboard was caught, beaten and robbed, authorities said. Derrick Wayne Morris was treated at Ventura County Medical Center and released, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Unless they're supervised by adults, children younger than 10 shouldn't use skateboards and those younger than 8 shouldn't use non-motorized scooters, according to new guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Non-motorized scooters have soared in popularity--with an accompanying rise in injuries--in the last two years. The recommendations update the academy's 1995 skateboard policy, which says children younger than 5 shouldn't use them at all.

The weather on Venice Beach was typical for a Sunday afternoon in August: The sun was out, there was a slight breeze, the thermometer registered 74 degrees. So, naturally, it was the perfect day for snowboarding. In a patch on the boardwalk amid wandering tourists and crispy beach bums, a snowcapped mountain had been erected out of scaffolding, plywood and massive bricks of ice chipped into a wintry powder. It was built just for the day for the Supergirl Jam, a women's competition in snowboarding, skateboarding and surfing.

When even the skateboarders start commenting on the heat, you know it's hot. But 16-year-old Nyjah Huston survived the temperatures as well as eight runs in two rounds Saturday to claim his first X Games gold medal. "One of the best feelings of my whole life," said Huston, a Northern California native who now resides in Huntington Beach. "Definitely the best win of my career. After getting silver the last two years, when you get gold, it just feels so great. " Huston advanced from an elimination round earlier in the afternoon, and then took to the concrete plaza four times in the finals, all in the glaring sun. "When you get to the end of your run, your legs are definitely giving out," Huston said.