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The Best Places to Longboard

Finding the best places to longboard can be quite the hassle depending on your location and how far you’re willing to go to have a one-of-a-kind longboarding experience. But for those of you willing to go the distance, we have gathered a number of awesome locations that are prime places to experience longboarding. Now obviously, you can find great places to longboard in every state and probably even every town, but we collected some data to bring you some of the best places to longboard according to popularity polls and usage information. So let’s get into it and see what some of the top places are, shall we?

One of the primary frontrunners in longboarding is the beautiful state of California, which is widely acknowledged to be the birthplace of the sport. More specifically, some of the best places to longboard here are in San Francisco and Los Angeles. With numerous long and winding roads with copious amounts of hilly terrain out that way, you can really pick up some speed!

Another great option among the best places to longboard is wilderness country in Wyoming and Montana. A more specific location is at Bear Tooth Pass, which bridges the two states and is known for being one of the most awesome and unique longboarding experiences you can find out there.

Coming up as a third option in our best places to longboard list has to be the state of Washington. Check out the Soos Creek Trail in King County, Green Lake Park with all its amazing views, or maybe Point Defiance Park with its incredible trails. Washington really delivers in solid longboarding spots.

No matter where you’re located, the whole goal of longboarding is to go adventuring and find those sweet spots that give you an awesome longboarding experience. But if you feel your area is all dried up and you want to do some extra traveling to get that longboarding rush, we here at Black Longboards hope this list helped you get some new inspiration on where to go next for the best places to longboard.

Liberate Yourself

The Liberator is the first of our new Downhill/Freeride decks we are releasing.

We have been working on this model for several years and have been through many proto's through the process. Check out the SPEC'S:

  • Length - 37.5"    
  • Width - 10"     
  • Wheel Base - 27, 27.5, 28"    
  • Drop - 0.375"     
  • Construction - BCG Spine     
  • Weight - 4.8 lbs 

 

BCG Spine - Construction

 

Let me tell you a little bit about Black's Longboard Construction. We have this little hidden secret within each of our DH/FR decks called the BCG SPINE!! Do you know how long it took to come out with something really unique in the Longboard World? There are only so many ways to build a longboard deck right? WRONG! That's why longboarding is such an interesting sport. You can do something other than just change the graphic on the bottom of a street deck to make it different. Instead,  you can change the shape, design, concave, contour, drop, drop-thru, rocker, mounting, kicks, pedals, W/B, length, width, waist, hips, etc. All of this is to try to get an edge in the sport. After years of testing different materials, wood, glass, fibers, plastics and cloths using different  techniques we feel like we have finally done what we set out to do.  Our goal was to make a very unique and versatile deck in both design and construction.   We finally feel we have created something for the longboard world that we can be extremely proud of and that is worth taking a look at. It's not your stereotypical longboard.

 

The BCG Spine stands for Bamboo Carbon Glass. Let me start with the Bamboo. The center core of our board is multiple layers of bamboo epoxied together. Bamboo is great because it is eco-friendly, extremely light, and durable. The durability comes from the millions of bamboo fibers that make up one layer of bamboo. Unlike hard woods like maple, bamboo doesn't have the tendency to split but rather dent when it comes in contact with a curb after a missed toe side drift. For this reason the board holds up much better to the demands of serious skating. The bamboo is then sandwiched in between a 6 inch piece of dense Carbon Fiber on the top of the deck and a 3 inch piece of Carbon Fiber between the bottom two layers of bamboo. Carbon Fiber is extremely light and stiff when mixed with epoxy. This layering of the Carbon creates a "Super V" for rigidity and balance when the rider stands on the board. This Carbon runs all the way through the board and because we don't wrap the carbon around the board it is completely protected and will not brake. Carbon fibers are subject to break when it is exposed and not protected . Just ask anyone who has purchased a board with carbon fiber wrapped around a foam core. It only takes one hit and it's over.

 

Now to the Glass or fiberglass. Tri axle fiberglass is used in all of our boards because it offers strength in every direction. This fiberglass in combination with a strong marine grade epoxy makes for a stiff board while still allowing the board to flex under hard landings without breaking the board and springing back into place for a comfortable landing. The fiberglass within the board sandwiches the carbon fiber and bamboo, thereby protecting them and infusing them all together for added strength. 

 

 

The last part of the BCG Spine is the Spine. The Spine is the bottom layer of the board's core made out of bamboo. It acts just like a spine in the human body, it adds strength in all the right places. Because it is a spine and only runs down the center of the board it shaves off a lot of weight from the deck while still keeping it stiff. Another cool feature the spine offers is natural wheel wells. Because of the thicker center and gradual tapering you are able to put bigger wheels on the deck without getting wheel bite. Last of all is the sublimated art work that is incased within the board creating a life long graphic on the board that won't get worn off during your life time. 

 

That's the BCG Spine in a nut shell.

 

RAD Completes

We are excited to offer RAD Wheels with our new Graphic DH/FR Series. With each complete you will be able to choose from the Advantage, or the Release crown core wheels in both Duro's. At Black we want to offer our customers the best components with our completes. RAD offers great wheels. Caliber offers great Trucks. And Seismic offers great Tekton bearings. These can all be found on our highly anticipated and newly constructed decks that we will be releasing. You will also find that the price of these amazing completes will be VERY competitive with companies who offer a Canadian Maple deck with mediocre components. Black decks are NOT made of Canadian maple for a multiple of reasons but mainly because it is the most inexpensive way to make a board, and you get what you pay for right? Instead Black decks are made of Composites with a Bamboo Black Spine Core, and is EXTREMELY durable. You won't find any delaminating, cracking, splitting, or breaking boards here. You will, however, find a great board at a a great price.

The Big Re-Release

Ready, set, wait.... Over the next few months we are going to be re- releasing our line up of cruiser/carvers in our new Graphic Series, after the debut of our DH/FR Decks. The New Graphic Series was inspired by you, our customers. Some common feedback we would receive from our followers was that they loved the quality and look of our Classic Series (which had the finish of a show car over a high quality wood species of your choice) , but the draw back was the price. Well we listened , and you were correct. We needed to figure out how to get our man hours and cure time down to compensate for price, and still offer the same quality board. With some time in testing new materials, new pressing techniques, and some golden contacts we were able to set out what you inspired us to do WHILE  adding graphics to our boards. Through this process we were able to keep our original high quality products while making the decks (composites), still have our unique glass like finish, and also lower the cost significantly to our customers. Our first deck to be released will be the Liberator with the Imperial shortly after. Keep in touch.