Board magazine

BoardLong.

No gain without pain!

Skating with max&ben Boardshapes, first board & tips DOWNHILL VS DANCE VS SLIDE AWesome wallpapers photo’s and more History & Relations A ‘how to clean your bearings’ tutorial

Longboarding?

Its a sport, related to skateboarding. It is about downhill racing, slalom, sliding, dancing, transport and freeride.

Some other relations are surfing and snowboarding.

The movement called ‘carving’ while cruising or going downhill is like the same. That is why they created longboarding, to get the surf feeling while the weather did not allow surfing or snowboarding.

What is longboarding?

It´s a sport related to skateboarding, surfing and snowboarding. In the 50´s riders began to find a connection between surfing, snowboarding, skating and an elegant way of transportation. A longboard is more comfortable and efficiet than a skateboard. One push will get you much further on a longboard than a skateboard.

The feeling of carving on a snowboard is quite the same as carving on a longboard. This is because the board is longer than a skateboard.

There are a few different styles. The most common ones are cruising, downhill, freestyle and dancing. Each can be done on any longboard, but different shapes makes different styles easier. For example, dancing on a longer longboard is much more fun, you’ve got a lot more space to walk and dance on your board.

When you downhill, you might prefer a very low deck with a low point of gravity, which avoids speedwobbles and crashing with your teeth in the asphalt.

In this magazine you’ll find information about different styles and read about experiences from several boarders and photo’s of their boarding style. There will be a short story about the history of longboarding, and some information about wheels and boardshapes. There will be a short help guide for beginners, tips for their first board, and how to find your own way&style. There will be a tutorial about how to clean your bearings. Have fun and keep on rolling!

My experience

To me.. this sport is about back to basics. I can find myself in just a piece of wood with a set of wheels.

The feeling you’ll get while bombing a hill, or just carving trough the nature, it is indescribable. I love to ride in nature, feeling free and pushing my own limits to the max.

It gives me some sort of a kick My style lies in speed and action. I really love to climb a hill and then feel the satisfaction while bombing it together with my friends. I’m not a pro though, I’ve learned a lot from others. Right now I’ve got my first slides, ‘under the knee’, as we say it in Dutch.

My best tip to people who want to taste an more extremer sport than football, join your locals, try some different styles and make distance.

Keep trying and dont fear for speed or failure.

Max Frings

Photos taken by Bram Linderman

Max Frings.

Questions & Answers 1. What is your name?

Max 2. How old are you, Max? 18 3. Where do you come from?

I lived in Arnhem my whole life

6. So you longboard and you skateboard, which do you prefer, and why?

I have no preference, I like the fact that skateboards are light and that you can pop them. For longboarding I like the smooth feeling of the ride.

7. Do you like other sports which are related to skateboarding?

Yes, surfing and snowboarding

4. Do you like beer?

I like Fristi 5. Tell us something about your history in the skate scene, when did you begin?

I began skateboarding in 2007 in a little skatepark in Presikhaaf

8. What is your biggest accident ever on a board?

I snapped my eardrum while windsurfing, little head concussion while snowboarding, bruised my wrists a couple times with skating, so no bad accidents really.

9. Would you like to be in a flesh eating commercial?

Only for human flesh 10. What is your sickest trick ever done?

I’m not really a good skater, but I think some dancing lines like cross-steps into 180 steps into fakie peter pan 11. Why do you prefer freestyle over downhill?

Because I love the creativity that comes with freestyle 12. Who do you think really killed Tupac?

I think I did

13. What have been the best trips you’ve gon on?

I cycled to Northern Spain, and after that I travelled through Spain and Portugal for 6 weeks with my longboard, which was really awesome.

15. Where do you buy your skate/ longboard setups and stuff?

Usually Brainwash skateboardstore in Arnhem

16. Anything you want to say to the world?

14. Did you ever go trough a graffi- Share the wealth ti phase?

Not really, I sprayed some things a couple 17. If you went back in time and could kill the infant Hitler, would times you?

Hitler is cute

18. What is in your opinion the best spot in Arnhem?

For freestyle the marketplace, for freeriding some hills around Hoogkamp or Geitenkamp and for Downhill it’s Posbank 19. What do you think you’d be doing if you hadn’t found skateboarding?

Jerking off all day

Ben Alcasas.

Photos taken by Bram Linderman

Clarity To me longboarding is about finding your true self by playing with your survival instinct.

It’s putting yourself into dangerous situations that require absolute focus and concentration. Forcing your body into a state of awareness where all the stress, worries and trivial pursuits of life are removed and replaced by your instinctive will to survive.

It’s in this hightened state of awareness that you experience the purest form of of yourself. Because once you put your body into potentially life threatning situations you function freely and completely without mental clutter.

Whether or not you’ve succeeded in life, what you should have for dinner, if your boss hates you or not wont decide if you bail or make it and so for the brief moment it’s wiped from your mind. When you’re flying down a hill on a longboard all you can think of is making it in one piece, it’s absolute clarity.

It’s the most primal and pure state of mind where the one most important aspect of life is the only aspect of life: survival.

1. What is your name?

Ben the Hill Billy.

2. What is your age?

23 3. Why do you put chicken salad on your tosti?

Cause warm chicken is so much better then cold chicken, of course.

4. Tell us something about your skating history It’s bloody.

5. What got you into skating?

Blood.

6. What do you prefer, longboard or skateboard, and why?

Longboarding, more blood.

7. You’re worst injury?

Lost alot of blood.

8. What spots do you prefer for your skate sessions?

Rough asphalt, more blood.

9. Why do you prefer downhill over freestyle/ freeride?

Downhill, more speed = more blood.

10. What do you eat when you are at the posbank?

Ghetto ass hot dogs.

11. What do you do in normal life?

Bleed.

12. Do you believe the world ends at 21 december?

Depends on what hill I bomb that day.

13. What kind of food do you really love?

Anything that makes you feel more like a man just looking at it.

14. Where lies your true nature, ninja or kung fu?

Ninja's, more bloodshed.

15. Would you like to meet justin bieber?

Nope, not bloody enough.

16. What are marshmallow people?

Youtube it.

17. Is there something you want to say to the world?

No, I’m not pretentious.

18. Do you believe in zombies?

Zombies are like unicorns, they look awesome but what the fuck would you do with one in real life?

19. Have you ever been to china? of course, get with the times man.

HELP? Boardshapes, there are a lot of them.

Every boardshape is different, you’ve got a few basic shapes which are used a lot.

As told before, the longboard emerged from surfers that wanted to surf on the streets when the weather did not allow them to surf on water. In this guide I’ll explain some stuff about two basic boardshapes and boardproperties

“Join your locals on meetings and try different shapes to feel which suits you best.”

What boardshape suits my style?

These two shapes are basic shapes.

There are a lot more of shapes, longer, more dropped or more topmounted.

Every property makes a deckshape differ from another. Everyone likes their style in another way. For example, downhill can be done on top mounted or very dropped. When I’m downhilling at Posbank in The Netherlands I see people doing the hills on both. They will have their reasons, because some really like to just take the hill straight down, but others like to drift trough curves or do a lot of slides.

As last shape I’ll talk about dancers. A dance board is especially for the boarding style called ´dancing´. Ofcourse you can downhill and slide on these boards, but it is more difficult. Dancing is in my opinion a very relaxing and natural style.

You use your board as ground and try to do some epic movements on your board while riding. Ofcourse is this more fun on a larger board because you have more space to dance. Dancers are often ´long´ boards with flex (see the next page for more information about flex).

Have a look at picture [3].

Lets begin with the pintail [1]. The basic form of the longboard. It’s a very good beginners shape. You can do every style on it. Especially for beginners it is a good way to find your own style and interests. If you want to specialize in downhill or dancing and you get more advanced you’ll soon realize you’ll need another board shape. It is a good beginners board, but there are more, and in my opinion, better choices. A pintail is always top mounted. This means that the board has more grip, is higher and makes sharp curves. A few disadvantages are that sliding is more difficult (but still able) and it is less stable then a drop-tru board.

The second one I’mm going to have a talk about is the droptrough shape [2]. My first board experiences were on a droptrough shape and I still love my board. The droptrough is slightly ‘dropped’ so your gravity point will be lower. Sliding is easier and downhill is more stable. As you can see on the image the truck comes trough the deck, which is in my opinion, quite relaxing.

When you are pushing your stand feet is at a lower level, which makes it less exhausting to do long distance.

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2.

3.

Concave, Camber and Flex Every longboard is different. You’ll feel it while you’re riding around. A few terms which are used in description of longboards are ‘concave’, ‘camber’ and ‘flex’.

on the ground and view the deck from behind one of the trucks, you can view the concave of the board. Have a look at picture [4].

Lets begin with concave. Concave is very easy to describe. When a boardbuilder is creating a longboard he sometimes bows the board. The rider will be more stable because his foot has more grip on the board. Have a look at picture [4] for more explanation. There are a few different concave types. The most basic one is the V concave. If you’d lay the board

Camber is another propertie. There are not a lot of boards which posess this property, but they do exist. The middle of the board will be higher than the nose and the tail. Camber makes riding over bumps in the road a lot more comfortable. At picture [5] you can see what camber exactly is. Most camber board have flex.

4.

6.

5.

Flex is very easy to describe. The board is able to bow a lot when it has a lot of flex.

There are boards which have absolutely no flex, mostly downhill boards. Dancers and freeriders love it. It absorbs a lot of shocks and it gives you a surf feeling.

There are boards which touch the ground with the middle when you start jumping on them. They will not break. Take a look at picture [6].

Bearing cleaning guide

Step one. This is a guide about cleaning your bearings.

Ofcourse you dont have to do it every week, but if your bearings are rolling with a lot of resistance, or if they make a lot of sound it might be time to clean them.

Get your stuff together! Skatetool, wheels, bearings, citrus oil or other cleaning stuff (like

Step two. You have to get those dirty bearings out of your wheels! Put the end of your truck axis in the bearing, and then put some force on your wheel to wipp ‘em out. They should

Photos taken by Bram Linderman

paint thinner), paper, filter, truck, a nice place to work, electricity, hair dryer, water and something like lubric oil.

You’ll need all of these to clean your bearings in a proper way. Ofcourse you can do it with just some papers, but if you have the patience and time to do it, why not?

come out very easy.

Continue and get all of them out and brace yourself for the next step!

Step three. You have to get the dirt off your bearings. Clean it with a piece of paper until their natural look comes back.

Step four. Now you want to get those shields off your bearings because it´s the inside which is the most importenant.

Get a small thin tool like tweezers or a

tiny paperclip. Anything that is tiny and thin will do though. Then you´ll stick in in the inner side of the ring and whip them out.

Step five. You took all the shields off.

Make sure you clean the inside of the shields with a piece of paper too! Now you put your bearings in the cleaner (we

used citrus oil, get some at your local store) and shake a few minutes. Then leave them for a minute.

Step six. Take the bearings out. You have to get all the oil out of your bearings, so we’ll do a few things to reach that goal.

Roll them against the paper and tap/

smash them against the paper to get all the oil left out. When you’re paper stays clean it is enough.

Step seven. They are not clean yet.

Hold your bearings for a minute of two in warm water, and when you think that it is done you get the water out of your

bearings in the exact same way as step six.

After this you’ll have to dry them with your hair dryer. Make sure that all the moisture is gone!!

Step eight. Remember, you still have to put some oil in them. Put at ONE side of your bearing the shields back on. Make sure they are clear. You just push them

in your bearing as showed on the picture above. They should get in very easy.

Step nine. You dont want dry bearings.

Put some light oil like lubric oil or tiny mechanisms. This will let your bearings roll like never before. Make sure the oil

is not to fat, because that may slow your bearings down, especially at cruising.

Step ten. Put your shields back as we did at step eight. Make sure they are al clicked in.

Step eleven. Put your bearings back in your wheel. This may requisite some strength. Put one bearing on your axis and push the wheen against it so the

bearing wil click in your wheel. Then turn them around and do the same way. Dont forget the spacers!

Author Bram Linderman

Max & Ben PHOTOGRAPHY Bram Linderman

Bearing guide PHOTOGRAPHY Bram Linderman

Other photography Fartinabags Flickr page

Special Thanks Ben Alcasas Max Frings

Printing House Outhuis & Kemperman

Š Bram Linderman