Best Colorado Locations To Longboard

(Please note: most of the hills listed herein are TRULY dangerous, and can result in death if taken without proper safety measures and research into your own Skating ability. Please skate the more ominous and foreboding paths at your own peril, as Colorado has cliffs, and big cliffs at that!)

Here in Colorado we are truly lucky for the variety that our location offers. We have the best hot springs, the best views, the best camping and hunting and the best home that any outdoors lover could wish for. More important that all of that, (yes, even more important than nude days at Orvis), we have the best hills and mountains in the states. We have a wide array of inclines, switchbacks, back roads and main roads to fit the day long cruiser or the twenty-five second downhill nut. For traveling street surfers from outside of the rocky mountains, it can be daunting to find the best places to put your wheels to this prime Colorado pavement, and intimidating to hear what the local Reddit road rashes have said. This is a traveling street surfer's guide to provide you the best and most pristine places to bring a board and bomb hard, or take a leisurely cruise to enjoy the amazing sights and sounds of Colorado. If you are coming from the west coast there are hidden gems in Grand Junction to lay your wheels against. The first route in Grand Junction, Colorado is the Riverfront Trail, which (for the most part) is a long and smooth footpath that snakes along the Colorado River all the way From Palisade to the base of the Glade Park. This scenic and leisurely route is an all day affair, so bring plenty of water. On the scarier side of Western Colorado there is the Glade Park Road, which is a winding set of switchbacks that curl just over 22 miles with stunning and famous views the whole way through. This is a path frequented by bicyclists, but the terrain is ready and waiting for a brave Longboarder to test his gusto. (And it will take gusto, as these cliffs have taken lives before.) The Denver Metro area is a maze of hills and most of the parks there have a smooth sidewalk to circle them and paths like Cherry Creek or Bear Creek Trail offer a very leisurely ride. (Be aware, though, that Denver cyclists take their bike trails rather seriously and will often assume they have the right of way.) For a more aggressive run and a good chance to bring some road rash home with you; visit the Golden are or grab a backpack and Longboard and explore around the lookout mountain area. Even the subdivisions there have nice inclines. Another Scenic Colorado Longboard trip would be found in the Durango area, where the Animas River Trail wraps for 7 miles through the city. There are majestic views of this old west town to be had, so take your time on an Animas cruise. If you are feeling like a quick-draw daredevil, however, spend your time around Durango investigating The Million Dollar Highway. As one of the most dangerous roads in the world for cars; this would be a formidable foe for any fan of possibly fatal downhill boarding. In Delta, just south of the Grand Mesa, there is also the Uncompahgre RiverWay Trail that winds for 12 (mostly paved) miles. The trail connects Ouray to Delta and provides gorgeous views the whole way. While in the shadow of the Grand Mesa you may as well pay a visit there to find all of breakneck downhill areas that lie across the sides and top of the scenic mountain and through the back streets of Orchard City and Cedaredge. Finally, in Fort Collins; there is a cornucopia of paved bicycle paths that allow fantastic day trips around this college town. Trails like the Spring Creek Trail or Fossil Creek Trail offers smooth rides and the college town setting that will likely include a couple of other longboarders. To test the limits of your own education and live a little riskier pay a visit to Colorado Springs, where the Pikes Peak Downhill Races take place. The roads will not be blocked as they are during race time, but it's worth a visit to know what it takes to make it Pro! While an average Skate is limited to an average skate park; we have the whole state of Colorado as a Longboarder's skate park. It is a diverse place that can truly offer great longboarding in every city, and we have plenty of room for company! 

Photo by @NoahBergPhotography  Model: @VictorFossen 

LongJohns Longboards Launch Party - August 10th 5:00 - 9:00 PM

After almost a decade of perfecting our design and after a great many hours of work and collaboration the time has finally come; the newest and hottest designs in the Colorado street surfer scene are ready to hit the market!

A long time in the making; it all started with a simple request from John and Mary Hoovers Daughter that John build her a Longboard. As most longboarders know it is easy to become obsessed and John surely did became obsessed as well. It took a large amount of research, rough models, different materials and of course crash tests. The design was perfected, the materials refined, and finally something amazing was created. From a simple request of an awesome longboard for their daughter; John and Mary Hoover designed and perfected a Longboard specifically for YOU! Just like our Colorado native longboarders; these boards are designed to be durable, flexible, and beautiful!

John did not know on his own how to get his new longboard to market and made the decision to sell the company to the successful and proven entrepreneurs Brigette and Jay Modglin to bring this hand crafted product directly to you. Having proven success in the denver real estate market and expertise to loan to the project made Jay and Brigette ideal to help grow the LongJohns Longboards brand into the trendsetting and unique company that it is destined to be! With help from Jay and Brigette Modglin to bring this amazing Longboard to market; we are finally ready to show off our amazing product to you!

“It is our goal to provide quality and innovative longboard designs locally carved and perfected to high quality standards; enhancing the longboard experience for many. We are devoted to high standards of customer care and will exceed your expectations of variety and unique product. We look forward to your new longboard experience.” That is our mission statement, and we are dangerously determined to bring you a product that you will rely upon and swear by. The wait is finally over and the real fun is about to start!

Join us on Wednesday, August the 10th at Progressive Signs LLC to be be one of the first lucky longboarders to catch this wave. Come and enjoy the iconic classic cheeseburgers and the infamous “Jalapeno Popper” or “The Retro” from 5280 Sliders and get that sweet tooth satiated with confectioneries from The Desert Stand! Enjoy the local businesses sharing this event with us like SPRUCE, PB love CO, Belong Designs and Denver Style Magazine. Come to see our launch and stay for this great Colorado evening with good company, good food, and the best longboards.

Get ready to put true craftsmanship to work for all of your Longboard needs, get ready to have the coolest board in town, and get ready for LongJohns Longboards to be your new favorite street surfer brand!

Come join us at our launch party to be one of the first of many lucky longboarders to

Enjoy Riding The Concrete Waves on a LongJohns Longboard!

Photo by @NoahBergPhotography

LongJohns Longboards Party at Progressive Signs In Sunnyside.   

Photo By @NoahBergPhotography  

The Difference Between A Longboard And A Skateboard

 (May at first seem small)

Upon first glance you are completely correct; the skateboard and the longboard seem very similar. Anatomically speaking they are composed of all the same parts. There are wheels, bearings, trucks, decks and screws and spacers and all of those parts appear vary similar in form an function. The basic appearance and format are the same but the differences between longboarding and skateboarding go far deeper than even the grain in the bamboo decks. From the manner that each device was conceived, to the time and part of the world that they came from; skateboarding and longboarding are far more different than their parts would depict.

Of course there were skateboards first, but this is not true either really. The original source of the skateboard is debated, and generally assumed to be a spontaneous creation of general ingenuity and human need. Like it had been predestined that man skate. Physical evidence would show that first there were various sizes of boxes with wheels and handle bars attached, but they were not used in the manner that today's folding scooters or trick scooters were used. It was not a common sight to see a  kids or flat boards until the first apparent sightings in Paris in the 1940's.

Longboarding, of course, was began in Hawaii in the 1950's, but did not face the same consistent popularity that Skateboarding had faced. Longboarding fit a certain type of boarder that was used to surfing and and was more popular in beach and coastal areas for this reason. We have all heard this same story told a million different ways; but the actual differences between being a “Skater” and a “Longboarder” are not so superficial as the differences in origin, either.

The differences in each type of board permeate even into the riders mentality. It may be a remnant of the island start of longboarding, it may be the competitive atmosphere of skateboarding. While a skateboarder may see rails and benches and want to jump or grind or smash face; a longboarder will seek the smoothest stretch of road or the sidewalk with the least deep cracks to slow the board. (That is not to say that a longboarder won't smash their face from time to time, these things happen. Often in fact.)

For a great many years skateboarding has been a professional and extreme sport and has consisted of very intricate and demanding skills that are often showcased in competitions that take the spotlight in extreme sport interests. While there are now just as many competitions and events for Longboarding as for Skateboarding; this has only been the case for the last twenty years or so and the competitions are far different from each other.

In Skateboarding the competition theme these is generally trick skating. This consists of your various ollies, your kick-flips, your grabs, and generally the most daring maneuvering. These tricks are dangerous, and the internet in teeming with videos of the great number of fail videos to prove this. While longboarding can be just as (if not WAY more) dangerous than skating, it is generally accepted that longboarding is a bit more laid back.

Longboarding allows for more momentum from each push and is generally considered better for  transportation. Longboarding competitions are more themed to speed races, downhill “bombing”, carving, drifting, and other things relevant to speed and distance competing. These competitions require whole stretches of road and attract some of the fastest long boarders in the world, and require highly specialized longboards and full body safety gear to complete the run without turning your entire body into a road rash.

Both Skateboarding and longboarding do require specialized equipment, but the myriad of board shapes and lengths and practical specialized applications is also greater in longboards. A generic skateboard fits a generally recognizable shape, while the length is really the only defining factor for a longboard and it can fit a great many other formats.

Longboards come in shapes like Street Surfer forms that are generally surf board shaped, the downhill bombers like the ones with drop-through decks and sunken bellies to sit the rider low, all the way to the  lifted longboards that can even have motors and even treads instead of tires. That right; treads as in tank treads, for your longboard.

These two very different devices are often seen as two sides of the same coin, but both of these wheeled boards are very different when you look closer at their creation, their proliferation to the market, their popularity, and even the mentality of the riders. These differences do not mean that either type of boarding is better than the other; but we are all aware who looks the coolest surfing down the sidewalk.

Photo by @NoahBergPhotography