There is something cyclical about skateboarding. In the push and pull between eras, brands, tricks, and icons, one name always reemerges with renewed velocity—Steve Caballero. A skater who defined style in the bones of pool coping and vert transitions, Caballero is again carving a new path in 2025—not by revolutionizing tricks, but by launching a deck brand entirely his own. It is, in some sense, a return to the foundation. The launch isn’t nostalgic—it’s ancestral, elemental. And for those who’ve followed Caballero’s four-decade evolution, the move reads less as a career pivot than a continuation of a life practiced as perpetual expression.

Caballero’s new brand, which he’s chosen to simply name CAB, is not interested in bombast. There are no celebrity co-signs, no Super Bowl stunt launches, no algorithm-fueled marketing jargon. What there is, however, is shape. Texture. Wood grains selected not for digital render but for tactile resonance. CAB decks—designed, illustrated, and signed off by Caballero himself—are not cultural afterthoughts. They are functional relics. Carved with reverence, screen-printed with punk meticulousness, and built for performance.

The year 2025 is crowded with corporate realignments in the skate industry—streaming-backed energy drinks masquerading as community efforts, VC-funded e-skate startups seeking IPOs, legacy brands absorbed by sportswear conglomerates. In that matrix, CAB feels defiant. Like a zine in a world of quarterly reports. Like a backyard ramp in a city of AI gyms. Caballero has returned to the soul of skateboarding not as a retreat, but as a correction.

From Bones to Boards: A Lifelong Blueprint

To speak of Steve Caballero in 2025 is to trace a map with decades-old ink still drying. He is one of skateboarding’s most enduring archetypes—equal parts athlete, artist, and historian. A member of the original Bones Brigade alongside Tony Hawk, Rodney Mullen, Lance Mountain, and Mike McGill, Caballero forged an identity in the firestorm of 1980s skate explosion. His name became synonymous with vertical command and stylistic finesse, not to mention the eponymous “Caballerial”—a fakie 360 ollie that redefined vert trick nomenclature.

But what sets Caballero apart isn’t merely technical innovation; it’s endurance. While many icons from the Bones Brigade era leaned into commentary or curation, Caballero kept skating. Parks, streets, pools, ramps—he remained both mentor and practitioner. His physical longevity has been matched only by his spiritual curiosity, oscillating between faith, fine art, punk music, and motocross. CAB, the brand, is an extension of all these selves.

A Brand Built Like a Sketchbook

What makes CAB decks distinct isn’t just that Caballero is at the helm—it’s how personal the project is. Each deck is a hand-involved process. While mass-market brands use computer-generated heat transfers and licensed templates, CAB returns to the roots: board shaping sessions in Northern California workshops, artist collaborations forged over coffee and jam sessions, and a packaging ethos that refuses to treat skateboards like sneaker drops.

The graphic language of CAB is neither minimal nor maximal. It is, instead, expressive. Recalling his visual art practice, Caballero approaches each deck as a triptych: movement, memory, and message. The inaugural series includes a limited “Dragonfire” line—riffing on his classic Powell Peralta dragon graphic—but rendered in sumi ink, etched into natural maple with burnt edge finishes. Another series, called “Quiet Ramp,” includes a deck adorned with hand-drawn vignettes of backyard halfpipes in quiet suburbia—an homage to the unsung sanctuaries of the 1980s skate boom.

Even the dimensions buck market standardization. CAB offers wider decks for older skaters returning to ramps, slightly altered nose kicks for vert transitions, and a reissue of Caballero’s 1991 shape—dubbed the “Torch”—for street traditionalists. In a world awash with identical popsicles, CAB insists on silhouettes that remember where they came from.

The Artist-Owner Paradigm

Steve Caballero’s identity has always oscillated between athlete and artist. It’s not a duality—it’s a continuum. He paints, plays music, sculpts, and sketches with the same rhythmic curiosity that defines his skating. CAB is not a side project but an integration. Decks are illustrated in tandem with larger canvases. Some CAB boards will release as limited “Art Deck Editions,” accompanied by original ink work, or layered with acrylic textures only visible up close. Others will come with zines designed by Caballero and his circle of friends—a throwback to DIY print culture that shaped skateboarding’s early years.

This emphasis on touch—on materiality—is intentional. Caballero has voiced his concerns about skateboarding’s increasing detachment from its physical roots. In recent interviews, he’s expressed unease with the digitization of community, the commodification of identity. CAB is his response—a company not made for the algorithm but for the grip tape. You can’t swipe a CAB deck. You have to ride it, mark it, scratch it.

And while many athlete-founded brands delegate design and production to internal teams, CAB remains stubbornly hands-on. Every prototype is tested by Caballero himself. Every graphic gets his feedback. It’s not a vanity label—it’s a working studio.

Intergenerational Intention

CAB does not exist in a vacuum. One of its most compelling aspects is its attention to generational legacy. The brand is not designed to simply serve nostalgia-drunk Gen Xers or legacy collectors—it’s meant to introduce new skaters to the lineage of what made skateboarding culture radical in the first place.

To that end, CAB is launching a program called “First Ride.” Every month, the brand will donate custom completes to youth skateparks and underserved communities across California and beyond. Each board comes with a hand-signed letter from Caballero, a zine explaining the history of the deck’s shape and artwork, and a QR code linking to exclusive video tutorials—not hosted on social media, but on CAB’s own analog-inspired platform: The Cab Lab.

This pedagogical ethos sets CAB apart from other throwback labels. It’s not merely about commemorating the past—it’s about equipping the future with the stories that matter. CAB understands that the value of a skateboard isn’t in the resale price but in the scars it gathers.

Cultural Response and Market Context

CAB’s launch has arrived at a crossroads moment in skateboarding. The sport has entered Olympic discourse, streetwear synergy, and real estate-backed urban redesign. Skateboarding is less subcultural and more infrastructural than ever. Against this backdrop, Caballero’s brand operates like a counter-church. It doesn’t deny skateboarding’s newfound legitimacy, but it demands an excavation of its essence.

Critics and collectors alike are already paying attention. Select CAB prototypes were shown privately at the 2025 Long Beach Agenda Show, where independent skate shops from Tokyo, Paris, and São Paulo placed early orders. There’s no e-commerce drop yet, and CAB plans to sell exclusively through a small network of core shops and direct artist showcases for the first year. Distribution will remain limited—by design.

There is already talk of CAB becoming a cult imprint in the way Welcome Skateboards or Anti-Hero once were. But Caballero doesn’t seem to be angling for mass-market disruption. As he noted during a panel in Santa Cruz earlier this spring, “CAB isn’t about growth. It’s about roots.”

Faith, Flow, and Craft

There is also a spiritual undertone to this endeavor. Caballero, who has spoken openly about his Christian faith, views skateboarding as a kind of sacred rhythm. In recent projects, he’s explored the parallels between prayer and repetition, between creative surrender and the physics of flow. CAB boards sometimes feature biblical inscriptions—but never as slogans. They’re embedded in the grain, like whispered affirmations: “Proverbs 16:3,” or “Walk by faith, not by sight.”

This quiet integration of belief and craft adds depth to CAB’s mission. It repositions skateboarding not just as a lifestyle or sport, but as a mode of witness. In a world addicted to acceleration, CAB invites deceleration. Ride slower. Carve harder. Know who shaped your deck.

Toward Legacy

If the 1980s gave us the myth of Caballero, and the 2000s preserved his image through documentaries and reissues, then 2025 offers something more intimate: the actual imprint of his hands, his ink, his shaping preferences. CAB is less a brand than a medium—Caballero’s life, not just represented, but reactivated through wood, art, and motion.

And maybe that’s what skateboarding needs now. Not another logo. Not another influencer collab. But a return to form—not as nostalgia, but as renewal. CAB is that return. A deck that remembers. A deck that knows where it’s going because it knows where it’s been.

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