Skating those big gnarly hills can really put your skills to the test and being properly prepared is vital to being safe and having fun. You need to be comfortable on your board and know how to do the basics such as carving and footbreaking (sliding certainly helps too). Once you start feeling confident about bombing hills, follow these short guidelines to help defeat that big hill you’ve had your eye on.

1. Proper Safety Gear – Having adequate safety gear such as a helmet, gloves, knee/elbow pads is crucial to being confident on hills and can really help prevent injury. At the very least you should be wearing a helmet (full face for high speeds) and slide gloves as these areas are the most prone to injury. Slide gloves also help with cornering and sliding to help kill speed, so it really is a no brainer to have a pair.

2. Scout the Road – Make sure to walk the whole downhill run to look for areas of loose gravel and big potholes that may send you flying off your board. It’s important to make sure you have enough space to ride out your speed at the end (especially if you are unable to slide or footbreak at high speed).

3. Proper Downhill Gear – Not all skateboards are made the same and some are just not adequate for doing downhill skateboarding safely. Generally downhill boards are much stiffer as having flex in the board makes it really squirrely at higher speeds. Longboards such as the Loaded Dervish are notoriously flexy and should be avoided at all costs for downhill skateboarding.  Shorter wheelbases will also make the ride more unstable and generally the lower the board the more stable it is at higher speeds.

4. Inspect Your Gear – You must inspect all your gear before bombing that big hill, simple things like a loose axle nut can really ruin your day believe me. I’ve had two separate instances of finishing a downhill run picking up my board and having the truck hanger just drop off my board, pretty scary to think if that happened at high speed. Also make sure your trucks are tightened/loose enough for what your doing. Too lose and you may get speed wobbles, too tight and you may not be able to carve enough which again can cause speed wobbles.  Also make sure your bearings are clean and lubed, the last thing you want is a bearing to sieze up while at 40 mph (yes it can happen).

5. Avoid Traffic – If the downhill run your thinking about doing has a lot of car traffic on it, then think about finding a different hill. Cars are your number one enemy and obstacle and people in cars really don’t understand longboarders so try and avoid them at all costs. If you do decide to skate a high traffic road, make sure you know how to shutdown slide and footbreak effectively.

6. Play it Safe – On your first run make sure to try and play it safe, try taking the hill from halfway up instead of the full thing to see how you handle the corners and turns. Many times I’ve went to bomb a hill only to end up going way faster than expected. Make sure to just take it easy and airbrake and footbreak before corners to shave speed off so you can make the turn safely.

7. Follow Car – Having a follow car is certainly a nice thing to have but isn’t as necessary as the other steps. A follow car can stay behind the skater blocking any traffic from riding up behind the skaters dangerously as cars often love to do.  I definitely recommend having one if the option is there (its nice to have a lift back up the hill too!)

8. Blind Corners – Always make sure to STAY in your lane when taking a blind corner and make sure your at a safe speed. Always try to be conservative when it comes to cornering as it’s very easy to get runover if your not paying attention completely.

9. Have fun – Downhill skateboarding is all about having fun so get out there and bomb those gnarly hills. Just make sure to do it right and safely and you will become much more comfortable on your board at those high speeds. Remember having the right gear is vital to being a successful downhill rider.

Stopping on a longboard is one of the most crucial steps to becoming a better longboarder. It may take awhile to learn some of these techniques but it’s well worth it for your safety. Besides who actually likes getting road rash?

1. Air Braking – Standing straight up with your arms out to increase wind resistance and lower your overall speed.

Wind braking is a very effective technique to decrease your speed (to about 25-30mph if done properly) and is extremely useful when doing downhill. It’s nice to be able to shave some speed off so you can take a turn easier or avoid a potential obstacle.

2. Footbraking – Taking one foot off the skateboard and dragging it along the pavement to increase friction and decrease your speed.

Footbraking is one of the most effective ways to stop and is fairly easy to learn. You simply take your back foot off the board and press it down lightly increasing the weight slowly on your dragging foot so you don’t eat asphalt. I recommend learning footbraking as soon as you start longboarding, it’s extremely useful and can save you a lot of skin.

3. Carving – Turning across the road back and forth.

Carving is probably one of the first things you’ll learn when first starting to longboard. It is one of the best ways to reduce speeds but is pretty hard to come to a complete stop when going fast. The more aggressive and wider the carves the more your going to slow down.

4. Running it off - Jumping off your longboard and trying to run off the speed.

This is probably one of the worst and most dangerous ways to try and stop when going fast. For a new longboarder this is the first thing you think of doing when you start going beyond your limits. It’s very easy to underestimate how fast your going so be sure to know you can actually run the speed off. I certainly don’t recommend this method and your sure to eat some pavement if you make a habit out of it.

5. Sliding – Breaking the skateboard’s wheels out in a controlled movement.

Sliding is hands down the most effective way to stop when longboarding and learning how to do it will make you a much better rider. It is the hardest method to learn but it is well worth it if your going to be going fast. The most popular kinds of slides are the Coleman, Bert and Standup.

6.Rolling off the road - Rolling from the road to another surface to cause friction.

This method involves rolling off the road onto some other surface such as grass or dirt to try and kill off any speed. It certainly is better than running off the board but it can be a bit risky and should only be used as a last resort.

7. Ride it out – Staying on your longboard till the road flattens and coming to a stop naturally.

The best and usually easiest method of stopping. When doing any downhill runs always make sure to scope out the bottom and make sure you have ample room to ride it out and slow down.

So get out there and start practicing these ways of stopping.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

I thought I’d give my take on the ever popular Dervish by Loaded Longboards. The dervish is a drop-thru style, desgined to accomodate the Randall R-II, Paris, Holey, Bear, Gullwing Charger and Tracker Fastrack Trucks. The dervish is also available in two flexes depending on your weight. The guys over at Loaded Longboards really wanted to create a great all around, fun board when they created the Dervish and they certainly did a good job.

The first thoughts on riding the dervish was how similar it felt to riding a snowboard. I think that’s really what the design was going for and it feels extremely lively. The dervish can take on lots of stuff you throw at it, whether it be carving and cruising or sliding and a little downhill action. Keep in mind it is not a downhill board and the flex on it makes the Loaded Dervish very hairy at high speeds (45mph+). Sure there’s some people out there who have gone faster on one but there’s a reason all the best downhill boards are stiff. I personally took it to about a max of 35mph on one of my runs and although it felt fine, the Loaded Dervish definitely wouldn’t feel comfortable at a higher speed.

Anyway overall the board felt solid and was super easy to ride. The dervish sits nice and low thanks to its drop-through design, so pushing is a breeze. Speedchecking with 75mm Lime BigZigs was not a problem and coleman sliding was a blast. The board is definitely fun to just ride around and do some hard carving. Pumping around the neighborhood on the Dervish was really fun and the longboard just felt super lively under my feet. I did take it to a parking garage longboard session as well and it handled the 5-story garage no problem.

The setup I was on had Paris 180 trucks that were setup extremely loose with Venom bushings. I feel like the Paris trucks really make this board come alive with some aftermarket bushings. The Dervish is a bit on the expensive side with a complete running about $230 or so which is comparable to other high end longboarding manufacturers such as Rayne and Landyachtz. Also note that a drawback to the Dervish is it lacks a kicktail, so keep that in mind if your needing a board to ollie lots of curbs and ledges. I personally don’t own one but it would certainly be a nice addition to anyone’s quiver if your looking to carve, slide and just cruise around. The Loaded Dervish is a definite great choice for someones first board as long as their not looking to do serious downhill.

Check out this great video of the Adam’s brothers ripping it up and making it look easy on the Loaded Dervish.

We all know how popular Sector 9 longboards are these days. Based out of San Diego, CA, they have been manufacturing longboards since the early 1990s.  In addition their the biggest longboarding brand in the game and have a large variety of boards that cater to all the disciplines. Whether you want to carve or cruise or downhill, Sector 9 probably has a board for you.

It seems they have gotten a somewhat tarnished image recently from being so commercialized and being available in all the malls. Just because a lot of people have them doesn’t make them bad boards. Every Sector 9 I’ve used is great and I have quite a few buddies who rip theres no problem. One of my buddies has the Sector 9 Kommi which is an awesome downhill board and is really great at carving. If your a beginner looking to longboard you can’t go wrong with picking one up.

One of the models I really enjoyed was the Goddess of Speed which is part of their carving series. Its nice and long and the concave is great keeping you locked in for hard carving and slides. It’s one of the many pintail style boards Sector 9 has and it’s an extremely responsive board. If your looking for something shorter in length definitely look into the Joel Tudor model or the Cosmic Sun. Both are great for city riding where you need to make tight turns to avoid those pedestrians.

Now I’m going to be honest here and say I’m not a huge fan of Sector 9’s wheels. There are some that are great such as the race formula series and the goddess of speed. When it comes to choosing longboard wheels I’d try and stick with some Zigzags/Bigzigs or even the recent orangatangs by Loaded. Also if you picked up a stock setup from a store like West 49 or something, definitely think about changing out the bearings for Bones Reds or something of similar quality. Decent bearings along with wheels will really help improve your ride.

Overall it’s hard to find bad things about all the Sector 9 longboards I’ve tried. If your a newbie looking to get a board check em out because they are cheap yet good quality. It’s a great buy if your not totally sure about longboarding yet and don’t want to drop the money on a more expensive brand.

Sector 9 Cosmic Rider

Sector 9 Kommi

I bailed while doing a minor downhill run I’ve done a hundred times. Took a really sharp corner way too fast and just got chucked off the board and my elbow took most of the fall. Could of been way worse but it sucked pretty bad till it healed up a bit after 2 weeks. Definitely think about adding elbow pads to your longboarding gear list if you don’t already use em, they can save you a lot of skin.