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» Everything you ever wanted to know about longboarding.
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Everything you ever wanted to know about longboarding. |
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One reason to love your longboard - The only protection you have to wear when riding your longboard is a decent helmet
'Us soul surfers over here, riding waves how theyre supposed to be ridden, unlike those hot-doggers over there, imposing thier own style of acrobatics on the wave' Sketchy quote from 'The North Shore' greatest surf film ever.
Ever since surfers took to the concrete, whether they evolved to Hardcore skaters, Technical Skaters and Soul skaters, there has always been the love of carving down hills and slalom - the soul skate boarders, and theres also the speed freaks, who like to hit 40 mph for some odd reason. i guess theyre trying to get some serious G's or something.
'Ahh 40 miles per hour isnt that fast' he cried, yeah it is, none of us here would be able to run out from speeds of over 16 mph. In this article i will (poorly) give you the baisic rudiments of DH longboarding.
I'll start with what board suits WHAT!
DH longboard - This sort of baby is the board that you want when attemping to hit Mach speeds down hill. Theres two factors, Speed and Stability For the high speeds the longer the deck, the faster you go! and you need Big Chunky wheels 70mm or more (slow accelleration means theyre hard for pushing, but 'sh*t hot' top speeds!), and they have to be grippy,for Stability you need to get as low on the floor as you can, so that means get rid of the risers, or youre in for a shaky ride and finally, splash out on high quality bearings, duffed up abec 3's will do no good.
Also make sure you tighten up your wheels and trucks, to avoid dreaded speed wobble (Tip - dont put your feet over the back truck if its a BIG board, as this gives you involuntary speed wobble at high speeds)
Flex - A board is said to flex when it bends some under weight. Boards with camber are meant to flex down some and then spring back up. Longboards with a notable amount of flex are Flexdex, Fibreflex and Supaflex.
Carving (classic) Boards
Well i read up on the internet that 48" is the average size for a carving board, so that doesnt leave me with alot to say (i take that statement back) because i use a 69cm slalom board Because i have the board they reccomend as a classic (Lush Kisiwa Longboard) and its fecking useless at carving down hills because its So big its impossible to get perpendicular (big word) to the road, i find with my smaller slalom board its so small that you can really push it when your carving and keep the speed down!
What i do agree on is that carving boards Must have grippy wheels, so you dont slide out when your carving deeply (I'll come back to that later) and to have a deck with flex in it to asorb vibrations from the road.
For a better classic concrete surfing experience, buy a board without flex, as it has the more rigid feeling of riding - like surfing. (i think theyre useless, because you cant acellerate around corners using the flex of the board, or pump for speed)
Camber - "A slightly arched surface." -Dictionary.com. If a longboard has camber, the middle of the board will be higher than the nose and tail. One way to imagine it is if you flipped the board over (trucks facing up) you could rock the board back and forth instead of it sitting flat.
Slalom boards
Slalom is the sh*t. For this i reccomend smaller boards with much camber, as you can make tighter turns at higher speeds! The flex is important because as you flex the board down, the wheels spread, and somehow you accellerate, which is what you want to make those tight corners. If your going for a small deck, buy some anorexic trucks (110's, 135's being standard ((The measurement for the length of the hanger)) The smaller the trucks are, the more turning radius you can get.
Apparently putting more responsive trucks on the back and less responsive trucks on the front makes the whole board more responsive? I guess it makes sense, because the tail would be swinging out more, but wouldnt that induce a slide?!
(-- I found a article talking about what type of slalom courses you can ride, a 'Tight slalom' is a course with the cones following one fall line, and to increase speed to increase difficulty, and the other is 'Giant Slalom' which is what i prefer where the course is made harder by increasing the offset of the cones from the fall line, more interesting and more challenging!--)
And again with the grippy wheels! For slalom i use 78A's, i'll explain the wheel grip index now!
Ever tried slalom on a skateboard? ever slid out? thats because the betties you use are HARD!
The wheel grip index (i made that name up) ranges from 94A (conkers) to 74A
94A - Maybe you could use these in a concrete park like Cardigan, but theyre pretty much useless otherwise.
90A - reminiscent of the old blue CS-62 Kryptonic slalom wheel.
86A - Dual purpose wheel
78A - These wheels are the most suited for the roads at home, they grip well and roll over anything! IF your going to buy anything 'Holden reccomends these!'
74A - You will be peeling these off the pavement, if your going to go for something this soft, have a look at the new rubber wheels that are out! perfect for learning - keep down speed and will never slide out!
But why did i start this article? To give you all a lesson in Carving.
Carving, derived from snowboarding, (cant tell you much about that) carving keeps your speed under control while your on a slope, by edgeing from side to side, to getting perpendicular to the slope stops your speed going out of hand, and its also a chance to impose your own style
Carving becomes second nature once youve got yourself a pair or grippy wheels, on my big Kisiwa, edging from side to side of the road does crap all, but with my small board i can explain how to make it as effective as you can
When you get your board/new wheels, push them to the limit, and see how much effort it takes to slide them out, because in deep carving a slide out can spin you 180, stop you or imprint the floor, on your face.
To Carve effectively, you have to detatch yourself from the sort of minor correctional turning you use on a skateboard, you have to learn how to use your arms and your knees to effect your turn, on a heelside turn, bend your legs, angle your body backwards, use your arms to balance you, and pump the flex, and you will get a short snappy turn, and for a toe turn, stick your arms out to balance you, keep your legs bent and shift your weight over the board as far as you can, to stop yourself falling off, tweak out your feet as much as you can, and straighten your legs in the turn to pump the flex to get a quicker turn.
So your bombing down a hill auntie maple steps out on to the road. you have to stop. what do you do?
a) Jump off the board - try a run out (if your going to fast/mis judge your speed, hope your wearing elbow pads)
b) Apply your disk brakes and roll to a gentle stop - now who the hell has those?
c) Coleman slide - a powerslide impressive enough, man, your Already a babe magnet
For a coleman slide, you will need a leather glove with a bit of chopping board melted too it or your hands get ripped to shreds.
For this, get into a drop knee turn and push the tail out with your back foot, and use your backhand to lean on which gets dragged along the floor)
(Tip - Dont stretch out your legs if you think its not going to work, because this just flings the skateboard from your feet and down you go)
Yet another handy tip - Wheelbite is when the wheel hits the deck in a deep turn, this is because your trucks are too loose, and ka-BLAM! Check the underside of your deck for marks from wheel bite. its lethal.
And finally, heres a few tricks that even the grommets can have a try at.
If your using a big board, cry cross stepping, hanging five/ten, 360 body varial or a spinner! (pivot 360 degrees on your toe)
im done.... dont be stupid, dont push yourself without some padding.
Special thanks to :
- http://perso.wanadoo.es/longboard/
- www.lushlongboarding.com
- www.silverfishlongboarding.com
Also check out :
- http://longboardingmaps.com |
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| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2003 4:10 pm |
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A very good read Holden, though it would seem you'd have to know a lil bit about longboarding to understand some of it. Never the less...very good, and i'm quite supirsed i read it all.
Keep it up Holden |
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| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2003 5:21 pm |
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 thanks dave, it took the better part of 2 hours for that! a few mistakes but who really cares! i'll try helping u on some things i didnt explain..
fall line - say if you roll a penny down a hill and it draws a imaginary line, you place the slalom cones down that line.
drop knee turn (for natural stance) - crouch, straighten your back foot, then drop your back (right) knee over the right side of the board, so like you would be falling off, but then grab the left rail of the board with your left hand to pull the side of the board up more than you could just trying to stand and turn! handy manouvre especially for big boards with no kicks. |
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| Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2004 2:01 am |
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Man! You should teach a long board class.
Great article. |
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| Posted: Thu May 20, 2004 5:21 pm |
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| What the fuc|<?, wha wha wha, who cares, this isnt fuc|<ing school. |
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