Independent

Independent doesn’t make decks. It makes trucks, and since 1978 it’s the yardstick every other truck gets measured against. The first Stage 1 dropped on May 23 of that year in Newark, California, built to combine the turn of the Bennett with the durability of the Tracker. By the brand’s own account it had grabbed roughly 50% of the market within six months. Behind it were Fausto Vitello and Eric Swenson, owners of the Ermico Enterprises foundry, alongside Richard Novak and Jay Shuirman of NHS. The brand still sits under NHS out of Santa Cruz, and the trucks are still cast at Ermico itself, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

History

In 1979 Jim Phillips drew the Independent cross, inspired by the surfer’s-cross tradition, and it went on to become one of the most tattooed and bootlegged marks in skating. Two years later, in 1981, Vitello and Swenson started Thrasher; Vitello himself admitted the magazine was launched partly as a way to advertise their skate products. The geometry set trends too. In 1993 the Stage VII moved the mounting holes toward the center of the board to protect the bolts on noseslides and tailslides, and that tweak became the standard everyone else followed.

Not every call landed the first time. The lower Stage IX (2003) let purists down, and when the Stage 11 arrived in 2012-13 the brand deliberately went back to the classic Stage V-VII geometry and 55mm height. Some of that pressure came from a genuine cult around vintage trucks: collectors pay $200 and up for 80s and 90s stages, and Geoff Rowley rode nothing but 1993-era Stage VIIs for years.

The Stage system

Independent’s whole history runs in Roman numerals, from the Stage 1 (1978) to the current Stage 11. That top line splits into Standard, Hollow, Forged Hollow and Forged Titanium depending on how light (and pricey) you want to go, with a lower Mid line sitting next to the classic full-height truck. The “Ride the Best” slogan and co-branded work with NHS sibling Santa Cruz round out the range, along with series done with Vans, Motörhead and Primitive.

The team

The current signature roster is Erick Winkowski, Andrew Reynolds, Tiago Lemos, Pedro Delfino and Tom Knox, each with their own truck. Also on the team are Milton Martinez, Chris Joslin, Louie Lopez, Lizzie Armanto, longtime pro Tony Trujillo and legend Lance Mountain. Going back, Tony Hawk rode for the historic team and Rick Blackhart was involved in the earliest development and testing. His line sums up why so many riders switched to Indy: of the competition’s trucks, “one broke, and one didn’t turn.”