OJ

OJ Wheels is one of the most recognizable wheel brands to come out of American skateboarding. It sits inside NHS, Inc., the Santa Cruz (California) distributor that also houses Santa Cruz Skateboards, Independent Trucks and Creature. Born in the late 1970s around a bright orange urethane, OJ defined a whole generation of skatepark wheels and still stands for speed, soft gummy rides and its family of “Juice” formulas.

History

NHS was founded in 1973 in Santa Cruz by Richard Novak, Doug Haut and Jay Shuirman, and quickly became one of the driving forces of the skate industry. OJ arrived around 1977, within the Santa Cruz orbit, with the Super Juice: a vivid orange wheel, wider than most of its day, built to roll fast on ramps, empty pools and the concrete parks that were spreading across California. The name grew straight out of that unmistakable orange.

Through the 1980s, under the Santa Cruz Speed Wheels banner and the OJ II model, the brand rolled under the feet of some of the era’s most influential skaters, including Christian Hosoi, Natas Kaupas and Eric Dressen. The street-skating boom of the 1990s pushed the market toward small, hard wheels and dimmed OJ’s spotlight, but the brand never went away. From the 2000s onward, reissues of the classic shapes and a renewed appetite for heritage skate culture put it back in the conversation, this time with a catalog of modern formulas living alongside the vintage graphics.

The team

OJ’s current roster is deep and spans park, transition and street. It includes names like Chris Russell, Ben Raybourn, Greyson Fletcher, Erick Winkowski, Jon Dickson, Milton Martinez, Kieran Woolley, Collin Provost, Jake Johnson and Ryan Townley, with a European presence through Madars Apse, Barney Page, Keet Oldenbeuving and Vincent Matheron. The brand keeps the memory of two late riders, Ben Raemers and Henry Gartland, alive under its “Never Forget” banner. Video output from the team is steady, with individual parts and montages that show off the crew’s range from the park to the streets.

Construction and formulas

OJ builds its catalog around urethane formulas rather than gimmicks. Elite is the performance line, with a reinforced core meant to hold up to speed and wear; the classic Hot Juice and Super Juice are soft, shock-absorbing gummies for comfortable cruising over rough ground; and OG and Insane-A-Thane cover the bulk of park and street skating. One of its most distinctive touches is dual-durometer construction, such as the Double Duro line, which pairs two hardnesses in a single wheel for extra control without giving up roll speed. Across that range, OJ remains a go-to for anyone after soft cruiser gummies or fast park wheels with genuine pedigree.