Mechanics of an Ollie...

An Ollie when mentioned in the same sentence as skateboarding is either an air off ramp or halfpipe without using your hands or in street skating is the most basic trick used to get the skateboard off the ground and into a variety of other more complicated manouvres.

I sometimes get asked how to do Ollies and it is one of those things that any experienced skateboarder really has to think about because it becomes so second nature, there is absolutely no thought in it at all. To the uninitiated it can look slightly unbelievable as the skateboarder lifts him or herself along with the skateboard off the ground (sometimes to a considerable height, I think the record from flat ground is around 45 inches) using nothing more than their feet.

It all really is just physics and timing but is still very hard thing to master.

I tried taking this shot up at Dunfermline skate park but for 1 there were 2 kids just seemingly chasing each other round and round the park on BMXs and it would seem that if there's a bright centre to the universe, Dunfermline skatepark is probably it with it's floodlights. You can see the skatepark floodlights from the other side of the Forth Road Bridge.

The lights are 2 torches, 1 white attached to the front and 1 red attached to the back underneath my board. I thought it'd be interesting to see the route my board took through the air.


edit::
Here's a couple more showing the full tricks...
Rolling Ollie.
Ollie Kickflip...
for the kickflip, you do the Ollie but then kick the board in midair to spin it 360degrees along it's lengthwise axis and land back on it on the ground.