There is a question that gets thrown around a lot in skateboarding – “What is the world’s hardest skateboard trick?” But can that question ever really be answered? Maybe not, because it is not something that is easy to put a finger on, since one skateboarder’s opinion may differ from the next, and what one skater may consider to be a very difficult trick, or maybe even the most difficult of all, maybe may not be so difficult for others. But as a skateboard blogger, I do get this question time and time again, so I will attempt to solve this puzzle once and for all.
We could possibly throw the kickflip into the hat of discussion. Pro skateboarding great Tony Hawk himself has said that the kickflip was one of the hardest tricks in skateboarding to learn, and that even he still has problems with it. Sure, there are more advanced and difficult tricks in the world of skateboarding, but for many, the kickflip is a particular struggle, and once it is learned, learning more advanced tricks seems easier and the learning curve improves. But on the other hand, like we already said, there are harder tricks out there. In fact, even the heelflip, the kickfklip’s twin brother, is said by most to be a harder version of the kickflip. So moving on…
How about the tre-flip? It is two tricks in one, basically a pop shuvit and a kickflip together, and it is thought by many to be one of the hardest flatland skateboard tricks.
We could bring up the impossible. I mean, the name itself says it all. Impossible. It just makes it sound so, well, impossible. Legend has it that the trick’s inventor, Rodney Mullen, had thought it up and before he had actually landed yet he was explaining that to friends and they stated that it would in fact be, “impossible”.
But what about vert/transition tricks? It would be unfair to the argument to leave vert tricks out if the argument, and there are those that would say that maybe vert is more difficult than street also (although there are those that will argue the opposite as well). The Mctwist was once thought to be quite difficult. In September 2010 Bob Burnquist landed the world’s first ever 900 on a mega ramp. Does that mean that at the time of this writing, that the 900 would be the world’s hardest skateboarding trick?
Alas, just like the age old question about how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know.
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