Longboarding part 2

So what is the physical difference between longboards and shortboards? It's not necessarily the length. Slalom boards are around the same length as shortboards, and slide boards match the shape. note: shortboards are between 28-33" long

Rundown of longboard disciplines:

1. Sliding: 28-40" boards, but any board can be slid using the rock-hard sliding wheels. Hard wheels means less grip and slides/rotations /drifting can be performed. Skate wheels have too small a contact area with the road and tend to grip because of the higher force per unit area. Here's some extra-pro stand up slides.
   
2. Slalom: 20"-34" ish boards, very soft grippy wheels, normally grippier back wheels than front wheels. Done like any other slalom, but with foot high cones on smooth steep hills, normally in parallel with another person in competitions. Video!
   
3. Cruising: Anything from 20" to 80". Any w heels. Freestyle riding -just enjoying mellow hills, flat beachfront etc. This includes cross-stepping as shown here by Adam Colton, superpro.
   
4. Carving: 20"-80" ish boards, but steeper hills. All about cutting across the slope to give a snow/surfboard feel and slower descent. Don e with medium-soft wheels with decent grip. Video!
   
5. Bombing/downhill: 30-44" boards. Medium /soft wheels. Ddifferent type of truck (the bit that holds the wheels). Fast. Very fast, no prisoners steep mountain runs, drifted corners. Full leathers and full face helmet required for all downhill competitions. At the downhill speeds, soft wheels can be slid to stop in an emergency.Video!

Engineering of Longboards

1. Decks: laminated wood, normally maple, bi rch, bamboo or any mix of these.
2. Wheels: polyurethane of different hardnesses(durometers) with a much harder plastic core to hold the bearings.
3. Bearings: 608 steel bearings; 22mm outer diameter, 8mm bore, 7mm thickness. Abec 7 is rated to 30,000rpm, because these bearings were first specified for grinders and circular saws. 2 bearings per wheel
4. Trucks: here's some pics; Skate style (used for any discipline), carving/downhill, slalom/carving, downhill. The plasticy bits are polyurethane bushings, and these are what give the truck resistance to turning.
   
   
   

Thats the basic tech stuff!
Seeya soon for another post.

Longboarding

Never ask a skater on a board longer than a normal skateboard (shortboard, tech deck, call it what you will) to do a kickflip for you. For they are a longboarder, and you generally can't ollie a longboard because of the shape of the board.

Longboarding is not about tricks (most of the time), not about kudos, not about elitism. Longboarding is FUN. As a minority sport, but also a very quick means of transport you can carry with you, longboarding makes getting around towns easy and fun when normal shortboards would suffer from rubbish surfaces, potholes, and low top speeds.

My experience of the UK longboard scene is of a larger and ever growing collective of disenfranchised/ageing shortboarders, kids finding longboarding easier to break into than shortboarding, and many other dedicated individuals boarding for whatever reason. Lush longboards (and I must mention the name, because they ARE the scene) have done huge amounts to promote longboarding. They're all freaking good at their disciplines, but when you go on sessions or charity rides they talk to you as equals, even if you can only just get the board going in a straight line. They are nice, and friendly and accepting. BECAUSE YOU LONGBOARD. I relaise not all skaters(shortboarders) are like the stereotype I am about to talk about, but the semi pro guys hanging around the skatepark who cut you up the whole time just to show you you're not as good as them tend to have the elitism element. The judging that happens to everyone from the edge of the halfpipe is what put me onto longboarding, rather than sticking with shortboarding.

The acceptance of longboarders by other boarders makes it almost a brotherhood (and sisterhood, sorry Kim), and that's what makes the sport so much more enjoyable for me than the many others I've tried. The size of the scene in the UK helps this - it's only just approaching a size where elitism would start to develop in any subculture. It does exist, but it can be ignored, or countered by the massive positive input from all the dedicated non-poser longboarders.

Longboarding abroad is much bigger; Canada and America, mainland Europe (namely the Alps) and Brazil play host to longboarding communities, but the attitude of the UK media and public towards skaters in general kind of hinders the growth of a sport such as longboarding. People are slowly warming to us though, and the UK scene is growing fast as longboards become a summer trend (although this encourages the elitism and posering as it becomes seen as a fad). Every summer there will be hardcore converts from the fad-followers. One day, maybe one day, the UK will be a superpower in terms of longboarding. One (longboarder) can hope.

This is a link to a vid of us having a session, with lots of fun stuff. Most of it was messing around. You will need Facebook I'm afraid - I'll sort some non FB video soon.