Texas Longboarder

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I encourage the use of proper safety equipment while skateboarding (which includes longboarding). It is up to each individual rider to decide what safety equipment is appropriate in any given situation. For faster/challenging/sketchier downhill runs, I wear a helmet, slider gloves, and knee pads. On other kinds of terrain I wear various kinds of safety equipment, depending on what I’m doing.

I don’t recommend skating on streets with traffic. It can be hard to avoid traffic completely, but I try to keep to very very low traffic streets, with plenty of room to avoid oncoming cars, opening car doors, kids on bikes, etc.

I do recommend that new longboarders work up to harder skating gradually. It is very common for someone who has skated before to grab a longboard and head to the nearest hill, usually without even a helmet, and proceed to bomb the hill. However, they don’t realize just how fast 20mph+ is, especially when there are no brakes, they don’t know how to slide to stop, and the hill just keeps going. They don’t know how to deal with speed wobbles. And of course, they don’t know that they don’t know, so they do it anyway, resulting in some kind of injury.

Seriously, I’ve heard of new longboarders actually dying or being severely messed up by sliding into parked cars, getting hit, etc. Downhill doesn’t look complicated, but it requires a lot of skill and judgement. I have the judgement, but not all of the skill, so I stick to fun hills with a little challenge and very little traffic.

Respect the hill, or it will eat you.