The Second Rule of Blogging is...'Know Your Audience'

Welcome to back to the Long Push 2012 blog. 

The UK appears to be gripped by high winds and heavy rain/hail-stones. Not a chance of getting out on a board, or even a bike so far this week. So that gives me time to address the Second Rule of Blogging: Know Your Audience

After a phone conversation last night, I realised that, this blog is hopefully going to be followed by people from many different backgrounds and perspectives. Hopefully some in the longboarding/skateboarding community will want to follow my journey, but after someone else said to me, "That ride you're going to do sounds great, but...what is a longboard anyway?", I realised, I have some explaining to do!

OK, longboarders of the world, look away now, because I am going to make the statement that we all know and understand, but seldom want to acknowledge, and I have no desire to offend any of you (us). Ready? OK, here we go...

A longboard is, essentially...an overlong skateboard!

There, I said it! Of course, it's not JUST an overlong skateboard, it's much more than that;

It's freedom.

It takes skateboarding back to it's most pure purpose and function.

It's a lifestyle. 

To be specific, a longboard is usually in the region of 38" upwards to about 60" long, sometimes longer. When you consider that the sort of skateboards you see being ridden in towns and skateparks across the world are generally about 31", you can see that a longboard is considerably er...longer! Hence the name! Shapes and styles of decks vary dramatically. Here are some of mine, next to a standard street style skateboard...

Longboards use bigger, softer wheels than standard skateboards. And because the wheels are further apart (known as the 'wheelbase') this helps them roll faster and cope with rougher surfaces better than hard skatepark wheels.

The axles for the wheels are called 'trucks', and again longboards differ from regular skateboards by using wider trucks which generally use a different geometry to standard skateboard trucks. The wide trucks and longer wheelbase also make longboards more stable.

 

I'm not going to bother getting technical here. Just giving a basic description. Longboarders of the world, forgive me for giving such basic descriptions. But hopefully I can keep us all together on one page for the ride.  There are more than enough sites for us more experienced longboarders to start discussing the technical merits of angled riser pads, truck bushings vs springs and spacers etc for me not to have to do it here! But I will detail the set-up I'm using each time I do a training ride, for those who are interested.

Of course, at this point in time I realise I don't know who's interested. Right now I'm writing these words for no one but myself, however, I very much hope that will change and some of you will join me for the ride and support me along the way.


So that's the Second Rule of Blogging out of the way. Next time I'll cover the First Rule of Blogging and...introduce myself! But until then, for the non-skaters among you, don't take it from me. Take a look at this video from Original Skateboards to give you more idea of what longboarding is all about...

Chris