Photo: Steve Dykes for the NY Times A competitor in
the Festival of Speed this month, wearing a crazy
leather outfit.Longboarding has become very popular in recent years with people who want the thrill of skateboarding without the rebellious lifestyle and dangerous tricks. ActionWatch indicates that from 2009 to 2010, overall skateboard sales dropped 2 percent, while longboard sales rose 43 percent in surf and skate shops. Everyone and their mother is longboarding now, and people are starting to notice. Here is a piece by Matt Higgins from the New York Times covering everything from casual longboarding in Manhattan to downhill races in the Pacific Northwest.

GOLDENDALE, Wash. Here in the high desert east of the Cascades, where towering windmills quietly whir overhead, skaters hurtle downhill along a ribbon of blacktop six at a time wearing helmets and motorcycle leathers, hay bales stacked along switchbacks for the inevitable wipeouts.

But in the garment district in Manhattan, it is a slightly tamer story. One day in the spring, Todd Brunengraber stepped from his office on West 39th Street. Hearing a distinct hum from newly repaved Seventh Avenue, he turned and watched a commuter on a supersize skateboard whiz by.

The board was similar to the type he built in woodshop while growing up, but with big, candy-colored wheels. Soon, Brunengraber, a 62-year-old grandfather who had not set foot on a board in more than 25 years, spent $50 for a lesson and joined a growing legion of longboarders.

This summer, he has been pushing to and from Penn Station, and each night after work cruising a hill on his Bay Shore, N.Y., street.

It s a rush to get on it, he said.

Whether on a hair-raising rural road in the Pacific Northwest or in teeming Midtown traffic, longboards have become the fastest-growing segment in an otherwise sluggish skateboard market. In recent years, they have lured new participants to a pastime traditionally dominated by teenage boys and young men performing perilous stunts.

There s a real neo-hippie, everybody-welcome kind of vibe to longboarding, said Adam Goldstein, 43, who skates with his 10-year-old son around Manhattan.

Goldstein, who directs commercials, says he takes a longboard to commute while working in Los Angeles or Toronto. You can just go anywhere, he said.

With decks usually 34 inches or longer; trucks (axles) adapted for easier turning; and big, soft wheels, longboards provide a smoother skating experience than boards designed for performing tricks. Their size and stability make longboards well suited for cruising streets and college campuses. The price of a good longboard starts at about $150.

There s no stigma, said Larry Peterson, who made 2,500 boards in a dairy barn in Salem, Ore., last year under the brand Longboard Larry. It s one of the sports where someone who s 40 can go skate with someone who s 13 and nobody thinks it s weird.

With an inclusive, do-it-yourself ethic, longboarding has grown as a grass-roots movement mostly outside the established skateboard industry and spread from Southern California to places like Brooklyn and Bend, Ore.

Read the rest of the article here.