Yo Yo :-) Summer is on the way...

Hey gang,

I am new to the sport. Don't even have my board yet. Its being made to spec as
I type. I just torqued my ankle playing hoops, so not to thrilled about that...I might
have to stare at my board a couple weeks before heading out for the first ride.

I am old enough to be most of you guys dad. lol (40yr), but still young at heart.

I owned an Yamaha R1 and just sold it and decided to try out another sport. I
figured if I can ride 170 mph on a bike, I should be able to handle 30 on a side street. lol
We will see. Anyway, I had two boards made, one for my son, who is 12 and one for
me. I used to ride all over town on my board when I was 14 and always remember how
much fun it was. I miss those days and thought doing that with my son and creating
some cool memories would be worth the cuts, bruises and breaks.

I know there is an intro thread, but I thought more of you might see this. My board is
a 48 inch bamboo board (design help by Adam Colton who is friends with a friend
who is making the board) with custom paint, Randal R2 180mm Tucks, orangatang wheels with a drop thru on
the trucks, its going to be a real nice first ride I think. Looking forward to the good times.

Just wanted to stop in for pointers and some insight into the sport. Hope to meet up with
some of you sometime, until then keep the rubber side down and have a sweet time. Peace!

wirefire

sounds like you got a pretty good set-up. if you don't have a helmet and slide gloves i would definitely look into those. they can be very helpful.
the best place to take your longboard out when you first get it is just around the neighborhood. get used to the feel of the board/trucks and then slowly start working up to bigger hills. parking garages are a great place to go to learn (they are usually dry too) and mt. tabor is a good place, but even tabor can be a bit much for a beginner.
start off on small stuff and work your way up. remember to have fun!

:-)

I have a nice helmet and plan on gloves and elbow pads until I get the hang of it. I have
wakebaoarded and snowboarded many many times...that should help my balance...

Looking forward to it...thanks!

Welcome to the sport - we have a really great bunch of guys here and they're always helpful. Check this site to see if there are any beginner routes in your area:
http://www.local124.com/portal/index.php?option=com_gmroute

the most important skill to learn when you are beginning is stopping. There is only a certain speed where jumping off the front of your board is effective. the easiest way to do that is sliding, and you are going to need gloves for that one. airbraking and footbraking are also effective ways of slowing or stopping. welcome to the longboard world and be safe. and just remember, daggers do not in fact "rule."

Ryan, welcome to the world of contributing to conversations, I'm glad you finally joined us!

What everyone said is right on. Learn to foot brake before anything else and that will open up all sorts of doors for you. Find a super mellow downhill in your neighborhood, practice dragging your back foot while keeping the majority of your weigh on your front leg (on the board). Experiment with applying more and less pressure. You will destroy shoes in the process but it is worth it to master foot braking. One of the hard things for me to figure out when I was learning to foot brake was keeping my front foot across the width of the board enough for me to still be able to control which direction it went, even with the other foot not on the board. So if you keep slowly veering off one direction every time you foot brake, try positioning your front foot more evenly across the board.

Learning how to knee-slide on knee pads is really useful too. I still don't have that one down, but I've seen it save a lot of people's legs when they just drop to their knees and slide rather than try to run it out or take a tumble.

There are usually weekly sessions that you can check out. Monday is at switchbacks in Washington Park. Tuesday night is parking garages during winter. Wednesday afternoon is Mt. Tabor. There are always people down to give you pointers.

Good luck!

Bamboo 48" by a friend of adam colton's.


Sounds like a Longboard Larry Komodo.