Life, Liberty, &
the Pursuit of
LONGBOARDING
Father of Florida flatland freestyle, Bruce Walker, has ridden everywhere on
everything and feels most comfortable on the long one.
When I think about longboards I think
of an article a long time ago. It was about
a bunch of guys who weren't the rippers
or nothing, they weren't the pros, but they
were getting rad. I said, "Wow man, that
looks like some pretty serious stuff." They
were doing lipslides and riding the pipe
bowl on boards that were made out of
chiseled down 2 x 4's with trucks bolted
onto them. Nothing like the "high-tech"
planks that they have today. Concave
boards are custom but once you get past
a certain stage it's still just wood and metal
and urethane,
The idea of having a longboard is not
jack around on and get all tricky-dicky
It's just a way to cruise, man. The best part
about it is that your wheel base is so far
apart, and the farther apart your wheel
base is, the smoother the ride. Low and
slow, long and drawn.
Riding one is no different, but it feels
different. You step on it, you try it, and say,
"Uh, this doesn't feel right, it's sluggish,
on a desert island
it's heavy." If you live around, and you
and there was
had your board, and it was a longboard,
you wouldn't ever think about this techno-
concave, new shredder-type board/truck/
wheel combo that everybody else had,
because you'd be thinking about just you,
getting it together. You get used to any
thing. Riding a longboard certainly won't
hinder your riding any-you might really
turn on to some old-style stuff. Like
walk-overs or just, you know, cruise
Why always go so fast? You don't have
to get there in half the time. Usually when
you get where you're going you wish you
were still out skating anyway. If you skated
over with your longboard it would have
taken you a lot longer.
I'm not talking about a board like fifty
inches long, I'm talking over 36, 38, 40-
inches; because you can still ride ramps
and have fun with it. When I was a kid
we used to put trucks on 2x4's, right.
That's no big number, I think everybody did
that. Longboarding is the same concept.
It's not like, "How can you ride one of them
by Jake Shaft
The rula, Jake Phelps, prefers 'yardsticks' for all his skate duties. Photo: Luke Ogden