How to go faster on a longboard – Longboarding with the maximum speed is the dream of every longboarder. While you are riding, you wish to go faster and faster and try to find ways to get more speed. In fact, the wish to get more speed motivates a beginner longboarder to become an expert rider.
There are several ways as well as several factors that help and stop you from going faster on a longboard. Sometimes, when you are racing with your friends, you realize that there is a mistake that you are making or some flaw in stopping you from getting faster.
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While you are practicing to ride a longboard, you can learn to go faster hand to hand, or after just learning how to ride a longboard, the choice is yours. But it is better to get entirely comfortable and then try tricks to get faster so that you can maintain balance even at high speed.
How To Go Faster on a Longboard
For maintaining good speed on a longboard, consider the following factors:
Choose the Right Longboard for Speed
The most important consideration that will help you with going faster on the longboard is choosing the right longboard. Before getting faster, it is necessary to get stable and have a grip on the longboard; therefore, you should select the longboards that offer a good grip.
The right longboard should also allow quick turning at sharp turns and sliding. Of the two kinds of skateboards, i.e., top mount and drop through, top mount is mainly preferred for speed longboarding as it gives more control to the rider for speed turning.
Besides good grip and stability of longboard, you definitely need to know your type of longboard. The one that is good for you according to your foot size, your preferred riding position, and significantly how and where you want to ride. Are you a racer or just an amateur longboarder? Choosing the right longboard for you depend on all of these factors.
Replace the Low-Quality Parts
When your longboard has good quality wheels, they move smoothly. The qualities of a wheel include that they are bigger, stiffer, and have large cores, thus making it easily possible to go faster.
On the other hand, if your longboard has small wheels, it won’t cover large distances and will knock into small rocks and bumps. The soft wheels get pressed on the road, and wheels with smaller cores also press too much against the road compared to those with bigger cores.
Similarly, the better the bearings, the more speed you can go for. If you figure out that your bearings are getting rusted and stopping you from going faster, then it is time to either lubricate them or change them.
Don’t get misled by the ABEC ratings of a company’s bearings. While choosing the bearings brand, keep in mind the good bearing qualities instead of relying on the ratings. A good quality bearing is round with cages made of plastic and rubber sealing that you can take.
You don’t have to use the same bearings provided with your longboard. Please find out the best brand of bearings and once you get your desired ones, attach them to your longboard and try out going faster with them. But only finding the best quality bearings is not enough; you will have to maintain them by cleaning regularly and oiling them to protect them from rust.
Learning Aerodynamics
Sometimes it’s the air that is slowing you down and becoming a hurdle in going faster on a longboard. Fortunately, you can stop that by learning aerodynamics. When you reach a reasonable speed or go down, you can bend down and stay lower.
Maintaining yourself in the lowered poster can decrease air pressure on your body, and you can go faster. So you should definitely learn aerodynamics and practice it on steep roads and downhills.
Tight Axle Nuts Might be Stopping You
Getting prepared for your first ride, you might have tightened the axle nuts, or maybe they came that way. You can try loosening them because tight axle nuts don’t allow the wheels to rotate speedily and go faster on the longboard.
Keep the axle nuts fixed at a position that let the wheels spin smoothly but make sure they are not too loose because they will fall off and turn your speed ride into trouble. You can ask an expert rider or watch tutorials for proper guidance. It’s also better to check the axle nuts before every ride to avoid accidents.
Another factor that might cause a problem is the side-to-side moving of wheels. It happens when the trucks of the longboard are loosened. Tightening the trucks will let the wheels move straight and steadily.
Work on your Balance
To retain the speed, you need to balance your weight on the longboard. So besides learning to go faster on a longboard, work on maintaining your balance. Enhance your grip and try to keep your body straight. Keep your foot on the center of a longboard.
As soon as you acquire a good balance, it gets easier for you to get faster. When you can balance, you can stop or make a sudden turn without any difficulty. Practice the immediate brake, so you don’t feel nervous about going faster.
Keep your Longboard Clean and Renewed
Longboarding on roads, especially in the rain and wind, can fill the wheels and bearings of your longboard with dirt and dust. They stop moving smoothly, affecting the speed wheels and stopping you from going faster.
Therefore, you should regularly clean all the parts of your longboard by washing and drying them with a clean cloth. Soak the bearings in water and in acetone or thinner to remove all the dirt. You can remove the bearings’ plastic cage and clean them from the inside.
After cleaning the bearings, use a damp cloth or towel to wipe the dirt from the wheels and deck. After cleaning, reattach all the parts and compare the speed and smoothness of the longboard before and after cleaning. If it doesn’t help, you can buy new bearings and wheels and renew your longboard.
Keep a Straight Track
Constantly turning and moving from side to side can slow you down. Keep your longboard move in a straight line. It’s easier to move further by kicking with your foot for some time only, and then the longboard goes straight with speed. But if you choose a good quality truck for longboard, it will let you move faster even with less foot kicking.
Contrarily, when you are longboarding from hills or mounts, you need to go down slowly, so most of the riders choose to slow down by constantly switching from one side to the other. However, Moving in a straight line on a steep road can give you the fastest ride on your longboard.
Secure your Ride
Adopting security measures and wearing safety pads as well as a helmet is another factor that helps you with high-speed longboarding. It boosts your confidence and lets you become carefree about any injuries or damage. You know that there are fewer chances of an accident, and even if one happens, you are wearing protective equipment.
Following the rules of longboarding, properly checking for any crack on your longboards, tightening the loosened truck, and looking for any obstacles on the road are must for preparing for a thrilling and speedy longboard riding.
Rough Surface and Smooth Surface
If you are in the mood to get along and fast ride on your longboard, you are definitely going to select a perfect road or track for that. To move faster on the longboard, the surface has to be smooth or steep so that you don’t have to kick your foot on the ground again and again.
You can faster on a rough road because your longboard wheels will bump into something after every few seconds. It will slow down your speed and cause an accident if you try to go faster.
Wrapping up – How to go Faster on a Longboard
As discussed above, you can go faster on a longboard by using various techniques. But the most important thing is to have a longboard that can let you go faster by having good quality parts. Similarly, you cannot go smoothly on a rough surface, so you should not try a speed ride if the surface is not smooth or steep. Lastly, keep practicing for speed because practice makes perfect.