If you’re a serious snowboarder, at some point, you’ve at least toyed with the idea of extending the stoke all year by getting a longboard for off-season cross-training.
You may even already feel comfortable on a skateboard due to your past experience and/or your deeply entrenched board-riding skills.
Many snowboarders longboard during the spring and summer to keep their mid and lower body in shape while there’s no snow, and to continue to get that surfy feel with big slashy turns and higher speeds.
While longboarding may be able to get you that snowboarding fix you crave in the off-season, not all longboard setups feel like a snowboard. You need to get the right combination of deck size, shape, and trucks/wheels.
Some longboard riding styles like freeride and downhill, are also naturally closer to snowboarding, although carving on the right board may also give you that mountain feel.
Snowboarding vs longboarding similarities
Carving on a longboard can feel a lot like carving on a snowboard. With the right wheels (e.g. rounded lip, harder duro) you can also get a similar sliding/skidding feel in the back of the board that you get on the snow when pressing with your rear foot.
While carving on a longboard will give you that nice feeling, the main difference with snowboarding is that you can’t really ride on the edges of your longboard. Although, the lean you get from your trucks does provide a close emulation.
On a snowboard, you strive to carve on the metal edges instead of sliding the back of the board. Some really turny and grippy longboards (e.g. surf skates) are designed to achieve that snow/style carvy type of feel.
When riding a longboard, similar to snowboarding, you put your weight on your front foot instead of the rear foot for precise steering and wobble-free rides at higher speeds.
Freestyle longboarding is probably the closest riding style to snowboarding as it involves downhill riding with sliding to control speed and snowboard-like tricks such as 180s and switch stance.
Sliding is one of the first instinctive things you learn as a snowboarder for shedding speed. You simply ease into your slides.
Sliding on a longboard, on the other hand, takes a lot more practice and commitment – and guts due to the higher speed involved on concrete. You do want to avoid crashing on concrete!
That being said, snowboarders generally have an easier time than others learning to stand-up slide on a longboard. This should come right after getting comfortable carving and pushing on the longboard, as sliding is the most effective way to control speed, especially on hills.
Learning to slide a longboard requires an appropriate setup, including a comfortable, stable low-riding platform with decent foot lock-in, and appropriate trucks and wheels (more on this).
Features of a good longboard for snowboarders
Generally speaking, a drop-through or dropped deck with softer wheels and quality bearings will give you the closest to a snowboard feel. For snowboarding, using a low-riding longboard helps replicate the carving feel.
Alternatively to a freeride or downhill longboard, some snowboarders choose a pumping-focused setup allowing them to emulate snowboarding on flat ground.
A flexible deck with camber allows you to load up (compress) and use the rebound for energetic carving. Pumping longboards utilize the energy from the deck flex to generate speed.
When it comes to setup, snowboarders often run their trucks very loose and carefully choose their bushings for a carving feel closer to snowboarding.
Others prefer to run low-angle trucks (e.g. 43°) with barrel bushings for a less sketchy and “skatey” feel.
Surf skates are another approach to snowboarding on concrete. These boards use special geometry trucks resulting in much tighter and faster turning ability vs. regular cruisers. This lets you do turns similar to cross-under and crossover snowboard turns.
Some argue that surf skates are closer to the snappy feel of surfing than the drawn-out feel of snowboard carving. Some surf skate systems, nevertheless, are designed to emulate more of a classic/longboard/traditional style of riding (see Hamboards below).
Let’s look at a few recommended longboard setups for snowboarders.
Loaded Vanguard
Within Loaded’s lineup, the Vanguard is positioned as a snowboard-style flexy topmount primarily designed for exceptional carving and pumping.
It’s a full-sized longboard (38″ or 42″) characterized by a lightweight snowboard-like construction, a cambered profile with sidecuts, and high-energy flex.
Many riders rave about the Vanguard’s snowboard-like riding feel. The board’s soft flex allows you to really dig in and out of turns (especially Flex3). This feel can be further reinforced with wedged trucks or surf skate trucks.
Here’s a great feedback from a reader, Louis:
Vanguard owner here (Flex 4 with 85mm wheels and Paris trucks, 6’1″, 180lbs) coming from a much shorter and stiffer surfskate (C7 trucks)…
While I really enjoyed the low-speed, crazy-tight turns of surfskating in parking lots, I find longboard carving to be more fun. Obviously, the turns aren’t as tight because of the longer wheelbase, but the speed is so much higher. In the end, you get the same feeling of balancing that centrifugal force. But you cover so much more distance! Also, there is something magical about the flexing of the cambered Vanguard – feels just like skiing when it rebounds after you compress it. Also, when combined with 85mm wheels, pebbles and sidewalk cracks just aren’t a concern anymore.
Unlike a surfskate, can’t be pumped from a standstill or pumped uphill. It requires *momentum* in order to pump/carve. That means 6 hard kicks to get you up to speed. Then, if you’re on flat ground, you can pump and it simply becomes a question of maintaining that momentum with good pumping technique and cardio (just like on a surfskate) and timing the rebound from the deck with the rebound from the bushings (unlike a surfskate). And if you’re on a slight downhill, you can either pump to accelerate (seemingly no limit to how fast you can go) or turn the pumps into crazy carving arcs of variable radius. (Again, the flex adds so much to the experience.) It’s truly amazing how easy that last part is. It’s also amazing how forgiving the board is to little balancing errors, and how tolerant it is to foot placement (again, unlike a surfskate). Last thing: the Paris trucks need to be loose (nut flush with threads) for carving fun. Yet that doesn’t affect pushing/kicking stability at all (unlike on Carver trucks).
I’ve tried a lot of things to make the Vanguard more pumpable at slow speeds (like after two kicks instead of six kicks). In order of effectiveness: Orangatang orange nipples up front; 7 degree wedge up front; 165mm hanger width in the back (down from 180); 7 degree dewedge in the back; 43 deg baseplate in back (down from 50); 165mm hanger width up front; purple Cags up front (orange in back); running the back Cags backwards for shorter track. (Note that I tried Nipples and Knuckles in the back – orange and purple – and can’t find anything better than the red Paris V3 stock barrel/cone bushings.)(Note also that I can’t tell the difference between Flex 4 and Flex 3!) After all that effort, my conclusion is that I have only very marginally improved the performance as compared to the stock Paris 180mm symmetrical setup! To me, that means 2 things: this board is awesome in stock form; this board truly is a momentum board – for whatever reason.
Bottom line: this is an incredible board that delivers a carving sensation like nothing else short of parabolic skis or a snowboard. It is also super nimble while also efficient enough to cover a couple of fast miles over flat ground – a perfect commuter. But *do* expect to kick as much as you pump.
Louis
Check out my in-depth review of the Vanguard here.
Arbor Axis
This is Arbor’s flagship snowboard-inspired drop-through longboard. It’s a full symmetrical freeride shape with large wheel cutouts and sidecuts for extra responsiveness and carving ability.
The Axis comes in two sizes, 37″ (27.5″ wheelbase) and 40″ (30.5″ WB). The stiff and sturdy 8-ply maple construction, the low-riding drop-through design, and the long wheelbase make it very stable for fast freeride.
The lowset symmetrical shape of this board also adds to the snowboard feel, allowing for switch stance and easy sliding. This is reinforced by the snowboard-like sidecuts that facilitate carving and sliding. The board’s medium concave provides comfortable foot lock-in.
More about the Axis in this post
Landyachtz Fixed Blade
The Fixed Blade is super stable at higher speed thanks to its large standing platform, dropped lowered platform, and affirmed concave that locks your feet in nicely.
The Fixed Blade is 38″ x 9.8″ with a nice 29″ wheelbase. Despite its high stability, it’s a highly responsive freeride setup thanks to its topmount design. It’s a great board for snowboard-style carving, switch riding, and easy sliding.
Like its drop-through brother the Switchblade – this is one of the most durable boards on the market with a robust and stiff 8-ply maple deck reinforced with carbon stringers and a bottom fiberglass ply.
Large wheel cutouts provide ample wheel clearance for the 70mm Hawgs Supreme freeride wheels.
See the Fixed Blade here on Landyachtz. Also check out my review of the Switchblade (again; the drop-through version of the Fixed Blade).
Hamboards
Hamboards are stylish longboard-style surf skates with a carving feel close to snowboarding and longboard surfing.
These longboard skateboards – which get as long as 5 feet – are designed to do tight carves using have the same special spring-loaded trucks in the front and rear.
The 5-foot-long Logger model is generally considered to offer the closest experience to snowboarding when riding down moderate hills.
On flat ground, however, it takes quite a bit of body motion to give the board momentum through pumping – it’s easier to get it moving by pushing. Once it gains speed, however, the snowboarding feel is quite good.
Shorter models like the Huntington Hop also provide good cross-training for snowboarding in the off-season.
Waterborne Surf Skate Adapter
The Waterborne surf skate adapter lets you turn any regular longboard into a surf skate by inserting it between the truck and deck.
Snowboarders often find that inserting the Waterborne front and rail adapters on a full size (40+) deck provides a nice snowboard-style carving feel when pumping the board.
One thing to be aware of, however, is that the adapter tends to make your longboard back foot driven once you build up momentum, which for can get in the way of easy sliding.
Other snowboarders find that slapping the Waterborne on a mini-cruiser gives them that snowboard feel in terms of body motion in turns. However; the rear truck acts more like a stabilizing fin of a surfboard than the sliding rear of a snowboard.
Note that the Waterborne adapter was actually designed to emulate ocean surfing. Since snowboarding and surfing are similar in some aspects, snowboarders will likely find things they like even if they don’t surf.