Adrenaline rushes…it’s exhilarating. A sharp whoosh pierces the silence of a quiet afternoon as Ricky O’Hara, a senior at Los Gatos High School, accelerates down the hill at a thrilling 65 miles per hour.
In seventh grade, Ricky developed his passion for downhill skateboarding after watching videos of people stylishly sliding down steep hills. While watching the professionals in action, he thought, “oh, I can do it too” – ambitious, maybe, but that did not stop him from grabbing a board and attempting it himself.
Though…it may have cost falling and breaking his collarbone after speeding downhill on his skateboard with only a helmet as protection, this was the start of his downhill skateboarding journey.
“Downhill skateboarding is like cars drifting, but it’s skateboards instead,” Ricky said. “The weather here can be very windy, so you sometimes have to slide or drift the board like a car does.”
It was these unpredictable weather conditions that fueled his curiosity and motivation to understand his skateboarding gear, specifically, how he should adjust his setup when necessary.
His form is also something he needs to pay attention to, as it allows him to speed up or slow down on curves of the road. There are two main riding positions: tucking and standing upright. Tucking emulates a ski racer getting super low with their chests on their knees to maximize aerodynamics and speed. Standing upright, on the other hand, is for daily skateboarding or leisure.
In downhill skateboarding, because unpredictable road and weather conditions are inevitable, it is often easy to feel fearful of what can happen.
“But because of that, skateboarding taught me how to approach fear as a whole,” Ricky said. “When going downhill on a skateboard at 60 miles per hour, I’m terrified. But I have to be consciously thinking about everything I’m doing. Otherwise, I’m just going to be freaking out. It has taught me how to keep a level head, even when I’m in a really stressful situation and am in a scary situation.”
A year and a half ago, he found a larger downhill skateboarding community in the Bay Area that has been a driving motivator for him to keep going.
“This was huge for me because I was able to get free equipment, tips on my gear and how to set things up, as well as coaching for my form and different etiquette or safety rules,” Ricky said.
Constantly fixing and adjusting gear depending on the style of skateboarding sparked Ricky’s gravitation toward engineering, a passion that started from fifth grade when he learned how to solder with kits to reinstall and design new parts for his drone. Now, whenever he has an idea, he dives headfirst to tackle a project around it. That’s why building electric skateboards almost felt like second nature.
In the future, Ricky hopes to build and create things that are going to be beneficial to other people by eliminating minor inconveniences that really should not exist, but often do.
“Ideally, I want to have more resources to fully pursue my ideas,” Ricky said, “I have a lot of things I want to build, but sometimes it’s just hard to make progress with the limited resources I have.”
Finally, Ricky credits his sophomore English Honors teacher, Mr. Schunk, for his advice to embrace life’s uncertainty and pursue what truly makes you happy.
With that, Ricky wants to remind people that if you
“Stay true to yourself, it’s going to be okay.”
-Ricky O’Hara, 2025
Teens of Bay Area 
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