It's always complicated to determine exactly when a sport was born. What is sure, it is that longboard is aparru in the Fifties, that is to say before the advent of the skateboard. Let's take a look back at the birth and democratization of Longboard.
Made in Hawaii
Legend has it that the first longboard boards appeared in Oahu, Hawaii, sometime in the 1950s.
Surfers, for fun on the pavement, modified surf boards on which they added wheels to recreate the feeling of the wave. The practice then consists mainly in the adaptation of surf on the sidewalks and the new sidewalk surfing is particularly in sight: walking towards the nose, returning towards the tail and making turns kneeling on the board.
Anyway, the "asphalt surfers" were born and it wouldn't take long for them to cross the Pacific with their ideas, in the luggage of the surfers of Hawaii, direction: California and Australia.
Particularly popular since the 40s, surfing was imported by American soldiers returning from the Pacific after the war. With him, it is all the Surf-Style which accompanies it which breaks on the American West coast in the Fifties.
To California...
It is in California that the sport will know its rise from the end of the Fifties.
In 1963, Makaha Skateboards (Santa Monica) released the 33" Commander, the first mass-produced longboard that gave ideas to a lot of other companies. Very light (2.2kgs), the Commander has tiny "Chicago" trucks, "Chicago" Clay wheels and a wooden deck, 100% Made in USA. In 1970, Larry Stevenson of Makaha Skateboards invented the first "real" skates with kicktail and nose.
In 1972, the sport took a definitive turn with the arrival of Polyurethane wheels, popularized by surfer Frank Nasworthy, founder of Cadillac Wheels Company. Skateboarders and longboarders could finally reveal their potential with equipment adapted to the sport. Race and Slalom became major disciplines and the first real teams appeared.
In 1978, SkateBoarder magazine published an article entitled "Cult of Longboard" presenting the top representatives of the time.
While the skateboard will know in the 80's the media coverage and even the passage in the mass culture, the longboard will remain more confidential during many years. We will note nevertheless that Madrid Skateboards will propose some models during this decade and that we will find events of Downhill in some articles Thrasher!
Its return in force will correspond to the snowboarding event in the 90s, where the longboard will become the counterpart of the skateboard as the coolest discipline, and the most effective mode of transport on wheels. For surfers and snowboarders, it is also a way to continue having fun, even without snow or waves.
In the 90's, the first truck RKP appeared, which reverses the axis of the hanger, allowing carver to be used in a much more optimal way. This will be the last revolution that longboarding needed to really explode and it will open the door to many innovations that will follow, and to the appearance of all the sub-genre of the discipline.
... Then the world!
It was during this period that Sector 9 began mass producing longboards. With the new trucks RKP, more stable at high speed and more playful for the carving, the new branches of longboarding are defined: Long Distance Pushing / Pumping, Downhill, Dance, Freeride, slide, etc.
The Race in particular is becoming a major discipline with increasing media exposure. The ultimate search for speed will see its peak with Peter Connolly's record of September 16, 2017 at 146.73km/h, beaten in Canada.
The longboard finally develops at a much higher speed during its last 10 years of existence where we see the appearance of dozens of brands and equipment of all kinds. Since 2015, the number of longboarders on the spots has never been so important.