Mountain / All terrain Boarding
Imagine snowboarding, surfing and skate boarding all mixed together to form the ultimate board sport, limited only by the riders imagination. Ride down a smooth grass bank one day, a rocky forestry track the next, then finish up the following day blasting up and down the beach attached to a kite.
Mountain boarding, also known as dirtboarding or all-terrain boarding (ATB), is a well established extreme sport, derived from snowboarding. Riders take to the hills of their local venue. Other accessible terrain includes BMX courses and mountainbike trails. early days there has been a competitive element encompassing racing and freestyle. Competitions have been organised in USA since 1994 and in the UK since 1997.
Tracing its roots to the 1970’s hotdoggers, skateboard culture has dominated every season since summer ended. Mountainboarding only expands on the possible terrain a boarder can dominate. And the sport is growing strong with every passing season. It is currently boasting participation by over 1 million athletes worldwide (Wall Street Journal, April 16th 1998).(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_boarding)
Board Description
A mountain board is similar to a longboard, sporting improved shocks and inflatable tires. Both of these improvements lend to improved shock absorption due to the heavy stress a rider undergoes while riding over extremely harsh terrain. The size of the deck on a boarder’s rig average’s somewhat smaller than a snowboard, approximately 110 cm in length. The four wheels of a mountainboard consist of small plastic or metal hubs with pneumatic tires of between 7″ and 13″ diameter. There are also three-wheeled variations such as the “Outback”, as well as the two-wheeled “Dirtsurfer” and “Surfari” inline boards. The latter can be described best as, “riding a bike with no hands… the faster you go, the more stable you are.” Dirtsurfers and Surfaris use 20″ spoked BMX wheels and are excellent for high-speed decents. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_boarding)