Longboarding to me isn’t simply flat day fun. Riding the concrete waves is just as exhilarating as surfing, and growing in popularity amongst the female population.
My hometown, Newquay, has a thriving longboard community. When I first took it up me and my husband joined in with a group of skaters called “Newquay Longboarders” who met up on a hilly car park almost every day. Lots of towns have a longboard or skate crew and you can probably find yours on facebook with a little searching.
The car park was perfect as it has three mellow parking levels to practise on and get your balance (or use to slow down after bombing the steep sectionsl!) and a twisting top to bottom hill connecting the three. This is pretty steep and allows for plenty of speed. Needless to say, it has coloured us all with plenty of road rash and bruises!
Over time I have developed my skills on a longboard to mimic the moves I use in surfing and I look for roads and hills that are ideal for this. For surfy, carvey skating a long gradual slope is needed, ideally wide and smooth. You still need to get a good deal of speed, but too much and you can speed wobble on loose trucks and end up wiping out.
To turn a longboard you can move in the same way as you would to do a carving turn on a surfboard. Rotate at the core the way you want to turn, lean on you toes or your heels and you will move rail to rail in the same direction as you lean.
This has been extremely helpful when transferred over to surfing. I find that when I am regularly skating, I surf more rail to rail too. It looks cleaner and more stylish than before.
Theres another really cool move on a longboard that can help you with surfing. If you want to get really powerful snaps, then learning to slide on a longboard is a great tool. It’s really difficult (or at least for me!) You need to come into it with quite a bit of speed and then put almost all your weight on the front foot only and push hard out with the back. Keep you body low and central otherwise you will just fall off backwards. You can grab rail or not, depending on your style. You will be sliding horizontally down a hill then…..you also need to try and turn it back to straight and stand back up to carry on skating.
Transfer this move over to your forehand top turn when there is a lip to hit.
Photo: Naomi Roesner
Photo: Naomi Roesner
Photo: Naomi Roesner
As with surfing though, don’t take it too seriously. You will relax more and develop your own style when you are just out having fun. Learning just a little bit more on the skate every time will build your confidence up to the bigger hills and faster carves. It’s cool to have a second passion as you can’t always surf all day, or the conditions might not play ball. All you need is a road and ideally not too much rain.
I love it so much now that my Osprey longboards are a staple on a surf trip. I can fit a longboard into my surfboard bag.
My skate came with me to the Canary Islands last time I went there. Such a good decision, as there are loads of long wide smooth roads connecting the island towns which have sparse traffic. Because they are volcanic islands they are mountainous, so the pickings were rich. There are quite a lot of new developments as their tourism industry is growing so I was lucky to even find newly build roads, on a hill, that cars couldn’t even go on!
So my advice is to definitly embrace both surfing and longboarding as they compliment each other really well. It will open possibilities on a trip and ultimately you get more time on board!
Photo: Adam Laister
Photo: Adam Laister
Photo: Checkered Photography
