How to Go About Picking Your First Longboard

Longboarding: a sport that demands finesse, patience and dedication. A sport unparalleled; where intensity and adrenaline flows hand-in-hand with serenity. Where speedy reflexes hold importance tantamount to careful movements, a strange contrast.

Longboarding opens one to a world of thrilling experiences, of calm cruising down winding mountains and exhilarating rides down steep hilltops. But like (a somewhat mismatched comparison here) Alexander the Great loved and conquered with Bucephalus, his trustworthy stallion, a budding longboarder must find a longboard he will love and enjoy; this is quintessential in ensuring one's first experience with longboarding is a relatively enjoyable one.

Yes, you will fall, at least once, on your first time longboarding. Like everything else in life, remembering that cliched quote about 'picking yourself back up after falling' is a necessary application - but in the case of longboarding, and many other board sports - this especially holds true. You will fall, over and over again, but every time you pick yourself up, your muscle memory, utilizing pain, will create a mental note - and you learn for the better.

There is something else to this, though. I'd like to bring up one important point: with the right longboard, you will fall less, but learn more. This is a given, and this is why picking a longboard is extremely important, and is arguably the most important first step to longboarding. A good longboard makes all the difference in the world - depending on how a good fit your longboard is for you, your first longboard will define your opinion of longboarding. So, what, you might ask, would be the best solution - the best way of knowing which longboard to pick?

Well, research is key. I now regret my first longboard purchase; it was one that could have been saved if only I had made an informed decision. I bought a relatively expensive longboard, that was sub-par in performance. Worst of all, I had planned on trying out hillbombing on my shiny new longboard, but I had no clue it wasn't meant for that at all. So, lacking the proper knowledge, I attempted a ride down a steep tall hill in my neighborhood, with disastrous results. Beyond physical pain from a rough tumble, I also experienced regret from not doing my research. I learnt a very important lesson that day - to do some homework before attempting a dangerous ride down a hill.

The best way to save yourself from making a horrible purchase is to read longboard reviews - from reliable sources, of course. A cursory search on Google can quickly lead you to sites rich in content regarding longboarding. Some sites offer longboard reviews - often by longboarding experts and enthusiasts. Longboard reviews no doubt offer lots of valuable insight and can help you make a much more informed decision.

These are the main reasons why you, as a budding longboarder, should dive deep into longboarding sources before picking a longboard:

• Learn the terminology! You should familiarize yourself with different terms in longboarding so as to avoid confusion.

• Longboards come in different shapes and sizes and are equipped with different components - this is because some longboards are made with a certain longboarding discipline in mind. If you want a longboard for speedriding, find one built and optimized for that purpose. Consider everything else a bonus.

• Longboards are also in different sizes built to be suited for different age groups. Make sure you find out a longboard's dimensions, and how it suits you, before choosing to buy it. Longboards in different flexes are individually suited for each weight category.

These are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to reading longboard reviews. Of course, as with any other product decision, you, as the consumer, a stranger to the products, should do some research - this has importance tenfold when it comes to longboarding - because this product decision can lead to a full-fledged passion.

Article Written By: Jw Hu

Check out some beginner longboard reviews: [http://longboardreviews.org]