Longboards have been a small part of skateboarding since the early '60s and peacefully coexisted with the popular "Popsicle-shaped" boards until the early '90s when skateboarders left the skate parks and half-pipes en masse for city streets.
"Every time skateboarding becomes incredibly focused on one type of skating, whether it's vert, skate parks or street skating, its myopia is its demise, because this focus drowns out whatever else is happening," Brooke said.
During this time, many shortboarders had little affinity for longboarders and their so-called hippie style. But by the mid-'90s, Sector 9, a company that focuses on longboarding, began to make it look cool, by merging the vibe of skateboarding and surfing.
Smaller companies also were actively refining designs during this time. Board makers continued to explore materials such as fiberglass, carbon fiber and eventually exotic woods such as bamboo to create lighter and more responsive boards. Truck technology also advanced, enhancing turning capability and enabling longboarders to fine-tune their trucks according to their riding preferences. And wheel-makers were all but reinventing the wheel, creating units that were not only fast but grippy and capable of rolling over small cracks and pebbles that stopped others in their tracks and sent skaters flying.
With this new gear, riding a longboard felt markedly different from riding a shortboard. Simply making turns was fun and easier than ever. People who had never skateboarded before were drawn to the sport, as were legions of former shortboarders who had quit, as 85% do before they turn 18, according to Brooke. He estimates there are now more than 750,000 longboarders in the United States, many of whom dabble in many of the subgenres within the subgenre.
Among the types of longboards are dancers (usually about 60 inches long, for skaters who practice fancy footwork while they roll), commuters/beer run boards for getting around town, downhill boards that are designed to be more stable at high speed, sliders that are set up to maximize the ability to handle four-wheel drifts (to slow down) while descending and boards designed for the quick-turning necessity of slalom. Ranging between $150 and $300, more expensive boards are often built with high-tech or earth-friendly materials, or both, and may include custom paint jobs or designs.
Bridging generations
