Razo scoots

I recently started skating again at the start of winter like I do every year. When I got myself to the local skate park I was awakened to a sickening new trend…….. The razor scooter

For the record I call them razo’s because razors kind of sound’s ok for a name, but the name razos makes them sound as lame as they really are. Anyway, so I get to the park and to my surprise razo scootering has somehow made resurgence in popularity and may even be considered cool amongst kids.

Now in my books razos are worse than fruit booters and those weird snake board things put together because they require absolutely no skill to ride at all. Coupled with the fact that they can be bought cheaply and adjusted so that any size kid can ride them I can see why they are an easy option. I though being young and nimble was about learning something worthwhile with the reward being the more time spent practicing the better you got.

But no, with this generating of kids who have everything at their fingertips and expect everything to be instant. Razos are the easy option, you walk into the store buy one, ride it straight to the local skate park and by the end of the day you’ll probably be able to do some tricks and ride ramps with all your friends from school. The main problem is that this is leaving kids no time to learn the rules and workings of a skate park and this can become quite dangerous for all involved.

There are two main groups of razo riders and i'm not sure which one is worse. First you got the under 10 years old age group. These kids come down the park with their bug-eyed parents. These kids cruise round the flats or around the top of the coping and are slow moving targets. When you come within an inch of absolutely flattening one of them, their parents just utter some throw away comment, like “aw be careful insert new age trendy name spelt wrong here”. Fuck don’t they realise that if a fully grown man runs their child down it won’t be pretty. This group of kids are bad but half the blame has to fall on the parents, as kids fewer than 10 don’t really have the freedom or money to buy a skateboard.

By far the worst group of razoist are the older kids from 10-17 who actually think that riding a razo is cool. These are kids who actually try and learn tricks on these things, even though I’m pretty sure there are only three tricks you can do on razos anyway. Possible tricks on razos include a fruity looking bunny hop thing, a tail whip and some kind of 180 disasters grind thing. Most of these tricks are completed with the mandatory foot planted on the ground, which isn’t really technically landing it anyway. Razo enthusiasts might try to claim there are more tricks than this, but any other trick is just a variation or combination of these tricks accept for maybe a 360 or a flip but I ain’t seen anyone do one of these down the local skate park.

So with this trend, I’m worried for the younger generation. As people my age start getting cruiser single kicks and search out classic skate decks, when these kids get older what will they do buy retro razos, I don’t really think so Overall it’s a disturbing trend, so do your bit to help. Next time you see some razoists, tell em....

‘’to go buy a fucking skateboard’’