Longboarding: What's in a name?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." 

- Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet

Why is this called a motorcycle:

and this too:

and this as well:

when this is a skateboard:

but this is a longboard?:

Isn't a longboard just a long skateboard?

So what IS in a name? How did a longer than average skateboard known as a longboard eventually come to be considered a completely different vehicle altogether? Why do so many “skateboarders” hate “longboarders”? Other than equipment specs and terrain preference, surely they all have more in common than not, especially when they are compared to other sports.

There was a time when skateboarding was not so divided. Skateboarding legends and pioneers such as Tony Alva would happily ride pools, halfpipes, fullpipes, skateparks, streets, banks, or whatever else was available and he would compete in events such as slalom, downhill, freestyle, high jump and barrel jumping (!). Nothing was “gay”, it was all simply part of the fun activity called “skateboarding”.

But somewhere along the line a kind of tribalism infiltrated skateboarding. It started to become an “us vs. them” mentality, and skateboarding became more aligned with underground cultures such as punk rock. At the beginning this wasn't such a bad thing as it injected new energy and creativity into skateboarding, plus it was a bit of a practical marriage borne from the need of people who felt like outsiders to band together for mutual protection from a mainstream culture that could be extremely hostile to those who dared be different.

But as times changed and skateboarding became mainstream and the industry began to make a lot of money, things started to get confusing. "Street” skateboarding began to be considered by many to be the only legitimate form of skating (at least as far as most skateboard companies and the media that supported them was concerned), and young senses of self were being formed by identifying with an increasingly limited number of channels of expression. Skateboarding was becoming the exact thing it rebelled against in the first place: a narrow minded culture where peer pressure was exerted on those who dared to be different.

So perhaps it should be no surprise then that the appearance of longboards on the scene should create waves. Out the window went the by then standardized size and shape of a typical skateboard. Out went the standard tricks, terrain and even clothing. With longboarding, a new attitude reigned: anything goes.

The irony of course is that this attitude was not at all new. It was just new to the skaters who grew up being told by their peers and by the skateboard companies and by the media that “THIS is skateboarding, THAT is NOT. THIS is what a skateboarder does, THAT is NOT”. Definitions which were often rather abritrary. 

This resistance, the digging in of the heels against change is likely the result of a fear of losing one's self concept, a self concept that comes as much from the person focusing more on who they are NOT rather than who they ARE. The more they can narrow down that negative definition, the closer they feel to knowing who they are and where they belong. Unfortunately, narrow definitions of self usually result in narrow minds, and among other not so great things, narrow minds are just plain boring. Isn't skateboarding supposed to be the antithesis of boring?

Skateboarding, longboarding...tomayto, tomahto....whatever. Let's ride. -Kaiser

Darkspeed is Back!

Rumors of Darkspeed's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Darkspeed is officially back and this time we're serious. Better late than never.

Back in 2008 we were just a couple of skaters mucking around in the garage, making our own slide pucks to put on gloves we modded ourselves. After some experimenting with different plastics and shapes we found a formula that was extremely slippery but also lasted extremely long. It didn't cost us much more to make a couple dozen pairs of pucks than the few sets that we had intended to make for our personal use, and thankfully our friends at Local 124 put the extra sets we made up for sale in their skateshop.

Remarkably those first sets sold out in days and a business was born. By late summer our pucks had made it all the way to the Maryhill WA World Downhill Skateboarding Championships and on to the hands of many of the attending pros including the eventual champion's. Darkspeed had rapidly reached the world stage and we were on our way.

After seeing how many pro riders were buying Darkspeed pucks to replace the stock pucks that came with the new gloves that they received from their sponsors, it became obvious that we should have our own glove to be the perfect companion for our pucks. Low on cash, we solved this problem in the same DIY way that we started the pucks: we went into the garage and started experimenting with ways to "soup up" a stock pair of mechanic's gloves into decent slide gloves that could take the kind of beating downhill skateboarders dish out.

It was a lot of work to modify the gloves but when the first batch rolled out in the spring of 2010, an amazing thing happened: just like the pucks had done two years previously, the gloves took off immediately. Once again strictly via word of mouth in the longboarding community, requests for our gloves started pouring in from around the world.

Unfortunately the timing of the new glove's release coincided with a couple of events that almost stopped Darkspeed in its tracks just as the train was leaving the station.

Within a couple days, one of Darkspeed's original founders had to resign due to time restrictions, and the remaining partner severely injured his leg playing skateboard hockey at the Danger Bay race. Being on crutches made getting around extremely difficult, and so manufacturing gloves and pucks, taking and shipping orders and all the other chores related to running a growing business by himself was overwhelming. But rather than quit he enlisted team rider Nick Breton to help make the pucks and gloves to fill as many of the orders that were coming in as possible. But it was still not enough. We had to turn down at least a dozen orders for every one we were able to fill.

So at the end of the season the decision was made to design a glove from scratch and have it manufactured in a proper factory. Pro team rider Patrick Switzer helped test the prototypes and gave good feedback until we got the glove just right. This new glove debuted in the spring of 2011 and was an immediate hit because it was a properly designed slide glove with the kind of features WE wanted as riders.

However throughout 2011 and into 2012, the badly injured leg and other lingering health issues continued to plague Darkspeed and its ability to keep up with increasing demand. For the sake of getting healthy it was decided that Darkspeed would be put on hiatus for awhile. Going from a backyard hobbyist to an internationally known business in such a short time was a wild ride that we were completely unprepared for. Darkspeed became a victim of its own sudden success. So the next step was to enlist experienced business people with the same passion we have for making Darkspeed run like a true company.

And that is where we are today. We eventually found the kind of people that can inject new blood into Darkspeed so that it can hopefully continue on the rapidly rising path that it had been on preceding the hiatus. Much has happened in the two seasons since we were more active on the scene but we are confident that our products are still the best out there and that quality and performance are still the most important things to riders (along with cool looking designs of course). We are looking forward to the future because despite our early success we feel we are still just getting started. We have a lot of exciting ideas beyond slide pucks and gloves and clothes that we are working on that we know will be exciting to other riders too.

Check out our new website where you can purchase gloves, pucks, T Shirts and Hoodies: http://www.darkspeed-concepts.com/

Kaiser Darkspeed Interview

This is an interview I did with my friend Buck who I have been skateboarding with for a long time.

.................................................................................................................................................................

Buck: How did you get into making stuff for skateboarding?

Kaiser: I built my first skateboard ramp when I was 12 years old. I took apart the table I used for my train set for to make a little quarter pipe. It wasn't a good ramp but I guess it wasn't bad for my first try. I also made a couple sketchy decks out of plywood. I skated for a couple years and then I kind of fell out of it for awhile when I got serious about other sports, especially downhill ski racing. That's when I really got into modifying or making my own serious equipment.

Buck: What kind of equipment?

Kaiser: Almost all of it. I started by modifying my helmets. I'd cut them up, add or remove padding, and then I'd custom paint them. I had helmets with hot rod flames, camouflage, a spacey silver to blue metallic fade, tiger stripes and polka dots among other designs. I eventually developed a fairly unique tuck for downhill racing with my hands right up to my face so I ended up having to do custom bends on my poles to facilitate that position.

Modifying stuff got addicting. I once got a pair of boots two sizes too small and tore the stock foot beds out and I cut the shells up to get the kind of tight fit and flex I wanted. Sometimes I went overboard with the mods but that's how you learn. I learned nothing is perfect and can always be improved somehow, even if it is just to adapt for your own style and preferences.

Kaiser downhilling.

Buck: Did you get far in skiing?

Kaiser: I guess about as far as a poor flatlander can get in a super expensive mountain sport where you need to be training on snow in the mountains 8 months or more a year to get to the very top. Then there's the politics of who gets chosen to go to races or for the higher teams, and I had no one in my corner to defend me from the rich people and coaches who didn't like having a dirty skatepunk kicking their kids' asses. Lol One of my friends ended up getting a medal in the Olympics so that was cool and I was really proud of him.

Buck: So back to skateboarding. When did you get serious about it?

Kaiser: I never got serious about skating. Unlike skiing I was never competitive or ambitious about getting good at it. It was just for fun, which is probably why of all the sports I have done I have stuck with it for the longest. I never stressed about trying to be the best. And it was a natural extension of my musical and artistic pursuits.

Skateboarding is a creative act and skaters appreciate the arts. I was heavily into the punk scene and the whole "DIY ethic" of punk appealed to me. Once I quit skiing I just took all that energy and put it into making stuff to skate because I sucked at street skating and there were no ramps or skateparks around then. Anyways I preferred the speed and flow of bowls and ramps to the street.

Buck: Is that when you started building bowls?

Kaiser: I built a vert ramp first. It was 10 feet high and sixteen feet wide. It was pretty good but it only lasted a couple months before the cops made us tear it down. Then there were a couple of miniramps before I got a chance to try building a bowl. An indoor skatepark closed and the owner told me he'd let me and my friends have the wood if we did the work of tearing it down and carting it away. Some artist-musician friends of mine had a huge backyard in the house they rented in the inner city so I convinced them we should build a bowl. I'd never skated a wooden bowl let alone build one so it turned out to be a lot harder than I thought but it turned out pretty well.

The Flaky Hills Compound.

Buck: I remember that bowl. It was featured in Thrasher magazine.

Kaiser: Yeah that was the only backyard bowl of its kind in Canada at the time so it got kind of famous in the underground scene. People came from all over to skate it and the guys from Thrasher stopped by for a session when they were on tour with the Real and Antihero teams. Bob Burnquist messed up his ankle that day. I think he's OK now though haha. A couple months later Thrasher printed an article I wrote about the building of that bowl.

Pic from Thrasher Magazine's story on Flaky Hills.

Buck: I heard you built another bowl after that.

Kaiser: I got hired to design and build a skatepark inside an old movie theater. It was a hell build for various reasons but I worked my ass off because I wanted it to be my calling card to get more work. That was another bowl that had people coming from all over to skate it. (Name dropping alert) Jeff from Pearl Jam was here one year while on tour and he skated it with us. When he's on tour he skates parks all over the world and he called the Blood Bowl the best wood bowl he ever skated. That was quite an honor and a huge ego boost!

Avenue Skatepark's Blood Bowl

Buck: Is that when you started Darkspeed?

Kaiser: Sort of. But before that I actually started out trying to get a kneepad design to market. When I was a vert skater I was constantly frustrated with pads slipping off so I made my own pads. They were an improvement but still slipped down during heavy bails. I eventually realized that the only way to solve the problem was to completely redesign the concept of a kneepad. I had meetings with an inventors' investment group to get prototypes made and then try bringing the pads to market but then vert skating died and so the market for pads dried up. This was before skateparks started making a comeback.

Buck: What happened to the kneepads?

Kaiser: They are still on the back burner. They were such a radical departure from anything that came before that they would have taken a lot of money to get off the ground. They still ARE more radical than anything out there and they are more commercially viable than ever with all the skateparks, longboarding etc. But even with modern prototyping being more affordable and overseas manufacturing and all that they still require more money to get going than I have at the moment so they have to wait.

Buck: What's so radical about them?

Kaiser: Without giving away any secrets, they do what I originally set out to do which is stay on during even the most gnarly kneeslides, even on rough roads. But they will also be a lot cooler to wear and will stand up to the abuse longboarders dish out on abrasive concrete and asphalt. They also won't slide down constantly like other kneepads do and you will be able to take them apart to wash and dry more easily to avoid the dreaded "pad rot". With staph infections becoming more common that's important.

Buck: Cool. So where did Darkspeed come in?

Kaiser: Me and a friend started making grabrails for our boards when we built the Blood Bowl so we could do smith grinds and board slides better on the concrete coping. We made and sold "Shivs and Shanks" rails for a few years but there just isn't a big enough demand for old school rails to make it anything more than a hobby.

Shivs and Shanks

At the time we were getting into downhill longboarding so we used the knowledge from making the rails to come up with our own pucks. Like the rails they were just for us but people started asking where they could get some. We'd never even heard of a market for slide pucks but we thought we'd give it a shot. We bought 40 bucks worth of plastic and Velcro and the first batch of Darkspeed pucks went onto the hands of our friends.

Original Pucks Package.

Early Sticker.

Our friends started going to races and freerides and talking about them on the internet and word spread quick. Next thing we know we're getting requests from all over North America for our pucks. It was pretty cool to see our little garage project in pictures of world champions and other world renowned riders! That initial 40 bucks was the first and last investment ever put into Darkspeed. We owe no one money. Especially banks!

Zombie T.

Angelina Jolie Zombie T.

Buck: How did you get into gloves?

Kaiser: It took a couple years before we had the money saved up to pull that off. We ordered some generic gloves from a company and modified them ourselves, putting the Velcro on, reinforcing the fingertips and screening the new logo I created on. It was a lot of work so understandably my partner bowed out since he has a family and a full time job. He just didn't have the time to dedicate to it anymore.

It was tough because the same week I was delivering my first batch of gloves I wrecked my leg playing skateboard hockey at the Danger Bay race in B.C. I was in a cast and on crutches for six weeks and had to use a cane for about a month after that so I considered putting Darkspeed on hold but like the pucks before, once word got out about the gloves a lot of orders started to come in. So I got team member Nick Breton to help me make pucks and mod gloves and I did what I could from the couch.

Darkspeed Gloves v.1

Buck: That was the original glove. How did the version 2.0 glove come about?

Kaiser: It was the fall and I was ready to pack it in for the season when an overseas manufacturer approached me about doing gloves. Initially I was going to do an updated version of the gloves I already had but with the weak points improved but then I decided that I should have a completely original design. It took almost six months of designing, testing and back and forth discussions with the manufacturer and team member and tester Patrick Switzer to get the prototypes to where they needed to be but we did it. The factory was very obliging and patient with me and for that I am very grateful to them.

Darkspeed Gloves v.2 Black

Darkspeed Gloves v.2 White

Buck: So what is happening with Darkspeed now?

Kaiser: Well even before my injury I was dealing with a chronic illness that kept me from working a regular job. So that combined with the injury made operating things on my own very difficult. I wear a lot of hats as the designer, artist, webmaster, shipper, receiver etc and I noticed I was getting burned out and it was making my illness worse. By the end of last season I was not well so I knew I had to take a rest and reevaluate things. I took care of some lingering business, filled my last orders and then officially put Darkspeed on hiatus.

Buck: When will you be coming back?

Kaiser: Hopefully as soon as possible but only when certain things are in place to ensure that I am spending my energy doing the things I do best which is creating new stuff like the kneepads, a unique truck design, decks, skateparks made with new techniques and materials and all these other ideas I have had in mind for years. I just need to find the right people to work with to make that happen.

Buck: Where do you see Darkspeed going in the future?

Kaiser: Downhill skateboarding is the perfect mix of my previous involvement in skiing and the DIY ethic of art, music and skateboarding. My involvement is definitely an artistic take on technology and I really enjoy combining the two. I see no reason why a company like mine can't become a mix of hard goods, soft goods and creative content such as videos, music and the other arts me and my friends do. Making money is cool but to me money is merely another tool that allows me to accomplish creative goals. In other words, resting on my laurels by just churning out the same old widgets or generic art for cash has never been a motivating factor. To me it is the act of pushing boundaries and sharing the fruits of one's labors that is the most satisfying.

Buck: Ok cool. I wish you luck and thanks for your time!

Kaiser: Thank you too.

A few custom paintjobs on past decks.

P Swiss is THE MAN

Darkspeed team rider Patrick Switzer is having an historic season. He has won all six of the IGSA World Cup races he entered this year, with the last five being in a row including winning the last two on home soil, beating one of the most stacked fields in racing history at the Winsport Cup in Calgary and then adding the Canadian Championship title in Picton Ontario.

He has his GI Joe Kung Fu Grip firmly locked on the IGSA series lead (second place is Darkspeed team pro Alex Tongue), and likely has Concrete Wave Magazine's "Speedboarder of the Year" award in the bag too.

We are happy he is the cover subject of this month's Concrete Wave with his sweet Darkspeed gloves displayed front and center. (photo rights Concrete Wave. Thanks).

September is here

Just finished updating the website...FINALLY!!!

No, I am not going into why it has taken this long to do that or add a post here. Let's just say that if you leave a comment below (or even BETTER, send me money!!) to encourage me to devote more time to the social/creative/personal/communications side of Darkspeed and my own rather twisted mind, well then maybe I will.

Anyways, is it a coincidence that the same day I get around to updating all of this that I later find out that Darkspeed team pros Patrick and Alex are ranked as the number 1 and number 2 downhill skateboarders in the world? I think not. You guys rule and I am humbled and thankful you chose Darkspeed and stuck with it when you could have gone with any other company. And that goes for Nick, Zen, John, Mike, Kim, Ivan, Glenn and Aaron too. I really am lucky to have people like you spread the stoke because there is no way I could have done it myself. -Kaiser

Welcome

This blog will be where I post news, events, product information and pretty well anything else I feel inspired to create or share that is related to Darkspeed, skateboarding, or the creative/artistic culture that it is tightly bonded to. Sometimes there may be a flurry of posts and other times there may be longer lulls in activity but perhaps this should not be surprising to other skateboarders or creative types.