The Longboard Blog

New TLS Stickers have arrived. We are including the Sasquatch sticker for the month of December, and will then move to the Little Red Riding Hood Sticker. Both stickers are also available for purchase from the stickers section of the site.

Soul Ryde longboards have just arrived, and I took some close up photos so you can see just how much detail these boards have. The solid wood series decks are made from mahogany and the graphics are laser etched into the material. The veneer series decks have laser cut color died veneers that have been inlayed into the deck, and then an additional laser graphic is burned in. The amount of work and detail from Soul Ryde is just astonishing.

November of 2007, we created the Wise Owl Project, our way of giving back to the forests for the wood we use to produce longboards. When a customer purchases a complete longboard skateboard or a Wise Owl Sticker, we have a tree planted by donating to The American Forests Foundation’s Global Releaf2 Project. Fast forward to November 2008, and we are proud to say that we will be sending a check to have 2212 trees planted.

With the success of the Wise Owl Project over the last year, we will be continuing our program and will include additional reforesting organizations. We’ve also redesigned the Wise Owl Sticker for the new season. Thanks to everyone that supported the project with purchasing a complete longboard and additional stickers.

The holiday season emails are beginning to arrive, and the most common question has been, “I want to get a longboard for my [girlfriend, husband, etc.], but I don’t know where to start”. I will do my best to provide you with a basic guide on choosing a longboard as a gift.

If the person you are shopping for is a longboard enthusiast, then it’s very likely that they may have dropped a hint on specific products or you may know the style of riding they prefer. For this guide, I will center my attention on longboards with universal capabilities, such as cruising with some speed and carving.

Longboard skateboards have become increasingly popular as a mode of transportation. People use longboards for commuting to the office, cruising to class on college campuses, and training for winter sports like snowboarding.

Length: Longboards between the length of 38″ and 47″ are preferred for longer distance riding. Longer boards tend to be more stable and track straight due to a larger turning radius. Longboards under 38″ have a shorter turning radius which make them good for shorter commutes and college campuses.

Materials: Longboards come in many different materials, such as wood, wood composites [blend of more than one material], and full composites [absence of wood]. Wood is the most familiar material, and offer a very light and stiff platform. Boards with a low amount of flex are good for cruising since a flexible board may rob you of energy from the up and down motion. Wood composite boards are usually thinner, stronger, and have added flexibility. The flexibility of these boards are great for carving, where the flex creates a spring action pumping in and out of turns. Full composite boards can be made of all fiberglass and even see-through plastics. These materials can enhance performance and visual appeal.

Ok, we know how hard it is to find just the right gift for the holidays, and the last thing you need, is to worry about an order arriving in time for the holidays. The calendar shows what shipping methods you could use to receive an order on or before the 25th. Please keep in mind that UPS and USPS are very busy during the last 2 weeks before Christmas, so we cannot guarantee these dates. Most orders are shipping the next business day, but to be safe, we would recommend ordering early.

Yeah, I know what you are asking yourself. Are the Orangatangs the wheels or the 2 silly guys behind them? So I guess the answer is a little bit of both. The Orangatang Wheels have been selling just as soon as they arrived, so we decided to increase the stock. They are now available in Purple and in the same 70mm and 75mm sizes. The Purple Orangatangs are 83a durometer, so they will be slightly faster and easier to use for sliding. As for the 2 in the background, they are both in stock and ready to ship as well [the one on the left would like to be shipped to Long Beach].

We just added a bunch of much anticipated speedboards to the site this week. The first batch is from Kebbek, including for the first time, a Bamboo Bassi and Bamboo Revenger. The Ian Comishin has been reworked in Bamboo and also sports the name J.F. Boily as well. The new Switchback looks to be true to it’s name, and is a fully symmetrical board, and is using a 2 tone bamboo veneer.

Rayne Speedboards do not stay on the shelves very long, and I would predict the same for the new Nemesis. After receiving a Nemesis prototype last winter, I have been wanting to share this amazing board with our customers. The Nemesis has 6 layers of a darkened bamboo core and fiberglass on both sides. We were only able to get 20 in this shipment, so grab one soon. We also received a new Avenger. The new Avenger is clad with new graphics and a stiff bamboo structure skinned with fiberglass.

These are the first 2 stickers from our limited production sticker program. When you place an order, you will receive one sticker, which happens to be the Speedboarder Sticker currently. When most of one design sells, we will retire it, and move to a new design. We will try to keep enough of the retired stickers on hand to sell on the sticker section of our site.

Many customers have mentioned that they need to sell their old longboards before purchasing a new one, so we decided to let users take advantage of our large viewer base and launched The Longboard Trader. The site works very similar to Craigslist, in that users are contacted by an anonymous email form, and then the transaction is negotiated between the lister and buyer. The Longboard Store often receives over 20,000 visitors per day, so there’s a very good chance of selling longboard related items on the trader site. Best of all, this service is completely free. The Longboard Trader.

Dear fellow longboarders…[by the way, this is our version of the state of the union address]. The state of longboarding is very strong. Despite fears of a recession in the US economy and high fuel costs, citizens are still reveling in America’s new past-time, longboarding. Not to mention that longboards run on a couple slices of pizza and a cold bear [hmm, gives me an idea for a new study]. We have seen near 4 times the traffic on our website over this time last year, and we receive emails from new longboard companies every week. The bounty of longboarding products is growing. Until next time, happy traveling.