How to stop on longboard

Congratulations on getting to know the basics of owning a longboard! I remember the days where I just began skating. The feeling is great, and you feel that you couldn’t stay away from your deck for too long.

Just like any means of transportation, if you know how to get it moving, you should also know how to put it to rest.

Halting your longboard requires coordination with your foot and the speed at which you are about to stop. Without further ado, I will tell you how to stop on a longboard.

What You Need

To avoid serious scrapes and fractures, make sure to always wear protective gear. Even if we don’t want it to happen, we should always anticipate scenarios that are not too appealing to make us even more aware of our environment and ride longboards safely.

The Speed Defines Your Approach

If you’re traveling on a level ground at a relatively slow velocity, the most convenient and apparent approach to come to a complete stop is to just cease applying force on the board and let the resistance of friction do the work to decelerate it. Make sure that there is room to do this task, too.

If you’re traveling at a moderate pace, you may simply get off your board and pick it up. Hit the tail of your board on the ground, and when it tilts up, catch it with your hand. Walk away with a knowing smirk on your face. I do not advise this for beginners, though.

Running it out at higher speed is an option when you are going quickly. It is critical that you can run as quickly as your skateboard, else you can trip when getting off. If you go faster than 20 miles an hour, you absolutely should not do this.

The use of your foot to slow down is one of the simplest methods, and experience allows it to be effective even at higher speeds. This ability is fairly simple to master and may be useful in a variety of situations, from getting about town, to running downhill.

It’s well-suited for reducing speeds of modest quantities, or coming to a halt when you’re riding slowly. If you are a newbie, you may want to tackle this first. While retaining the majority of your center of gravity on the front foot, put your back foot on the ground.

Begin by moving your foot lightly across the ground. Then gradually apply force to help you balance. To prevent accidents, you should not stamp on the ground with your back foot. Doing so will cause you to be ripped off your board.

The more you master this technique, the more quickly you can halt in short distances. Be careful of how frequently you use this procedure, since it may ruin your shoes if you perform this method frequently.

Taking Advantage of the Environment

If you can’t use your foot as a stopping tool, you might as well use your surroundings to help you achieve this task.

The easiest way to stop naturally is to look for an uphill area. The nature of uphill surfaces will help you naturally slow down due to gravity. Although this is the easiest method, not every suburb or neighborhood will have a slope.

Another helpful environment to put an end to your adventure is a grassy surface. If you can find a way to go towards a park or your garden, you can expect your board to slow down significantly in this terrain.

Carving to Reduce Speed

When on a slope, using your foot to stop might be difficult or even hazardous.

In this case, you may use carving. To descend down a hill, a rider leans against the slope while turning back and forth, as if trying to climb up the slope. Your aim is to reduce the wheels’ traction until they glide.

It may be possible for the wheels to lose traction and stop in a short amount of time. Carving keeps the wheels spinning while sliding lets you move the longboard sideways over the road to prevent the wheels from rolling.

Carving can consist of very tight turns, which lead to the reduction of speed when the turns are continuous. For long and deep carves, the trucks need to be unconstrained.

When carving, ability and repeated practice are essential. Plus, you need to have enough clearance for the wide turns.

Sliding Methods

Techniques such as Coleman slides are available for boarders to use. However, they are not easy to accomplish. These are recommended when you are going fast, for instant turnaround and immediate stoppage.

For downhill rides, it is important to know at least one of the hand-down slide basics, along with foot braking, before trying anything substantial. While doing hand-down slides to slow yourself, your feet don’t have to leave the board.

Your footwear will last even longer since this move does not require your shoes to work. However, the pace of hand-assisted slides is difficult to regulate versus foot braking. The thing that sacrifices the most in this technique is the wheels of your board.

To do the Coleman, sit on the deck with your feet parallel to the board’s deck and use your toes to slide on the deck. On a tight deck, ensure your heels are situated near the end of the board. Your front leg should handle all of your weight.

To complete the slide, hold your free hand in front and move it behind you and then towards your edge. Twist your shoulders to swing to the preferred direction. Watch out for possible obstacles.

Conclusion

The road to perfecting the skills of using a longboard can be tiring; you should not only practice how to improve stunts, but also the ability to safely get yourself off the board after use.

There are many ways on how to stop a longboard. The most fundamental step is to use your feet and create friction against the surface. Another method is to choose a suitable environment. Some users may prefer to repeatedly carve, while experts show off with a slide.

The best method of stopping your board is the one that you are most comfortable with. Always keep on practicing to get the best results. Do not get ahead of yourself. Doing advanced techniques like slides can even cause an injury for beginners who do it wrong.

I am Michael, and I have been enjoying this fun sport for seven years. And nothing is better than having a community to share our passion for those thrilling tricks. I am ready to tell you all I know about skateboarding, showing you how to choose a good board and trick to start and how the practice goes. Stay tuned!

If you are not used to riding a longboard, then getting the appropriate kind of longboard, to begin with, should be your primary concern. Next to it is to learn how to stop on a longboard in order for you to avoid any incidents of crashing or ending yourself being hurt when riding at any particular speed.

There are several methods you can use to mellow your speed or stop on your longboard. The applicability of these methods will somehow depend on the expertise of the rider. You cannot be reckless in applying these methods without ensuring your capacity to execute them.

These methods vary from basic to advance, simple to difficult, operable at reduced to higher speeds. In order to stop your longboard, you have the following selections to consider – from the simplest to relatively technical:

1. Hop off from your longboard and run it out
2. Find a rough surface like grass and furl onto it
3. Brake through the use of the sole of your foot
4. Carving dismisses the hill
5. Gliding your longboard

Some Methods on How to Stop on a Longboard

1. Hopping Off from a Longboard

If you are riding your longboard on a flat surface while you are applying a low speed, the simplest and the easiest method to stop the longboard is to simply stop pushing and hop off from it. This will encourage the friction from the ground to mellow you down. What is important is you have sufficient space ahead.

If you are just riding your longboard with walking speed, simply step off and collect your board. However, if you are riding at a faster speed, you may try to step out and run it out. Just make sure that you are able to run as quick as your longboard, otherwise, you may just see yourself in the ground because you fell down. Do not be too adventurous and attempt to do this if you are going over 20mph.

You must understand that this method can also be dangerous as the longboard can turn away from you. It may strike someone or move aimlessly in the road and alarm vehicle drivers. You may try to prevent it by kicking the back of your longboard while you jump to reduce its speed. Remember, if you are about to hop off your longboard in order to stop it, never push the board faster than your ability to run.

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2. Furling on a Rough Surface

This method is also very easy to execute. Although the execution would seem to be a no-brainer, it still deserves to be elaborated on this write-up.

Furling on a rough surface such as gravel or grass while you are riding on a longboard can slow down your board or even completely stop you. Obviously, this implies that you have to choose a road which has the reinforcement of some gravel or grass on the side.

This method is proven to work efficiently. But how quickly you can go relies on the available rough surface. If you are bound to land on a surface with short grasses, you can prettily go fast given that there is sufficient grass surface.

However, going too quick onto abundant grass might possibly make you slump as your longboard may result in a deadlock. Just remember to always make your brain work and begin slow. Grasses may also protect your butt if you are going through speed stumbles at high speed.

3. Brake through your Foot Sole

This method is a bit more technical compared to the first two methods. Many riders of the longboard are familiar about foot braking. This is possibly you can end up executing naturally, however, there are some tips and strategies which can help you learn faster and prevent certain common errors.

Foot braking requires useful knowledge. The most essential thing when braking through your foot sole is to acquire the ability to balance in one leg (usually with the front leg) by drifting your weight into it and arching your front knee in order to bring your back foot lowered into the ground.

After then, draw your back foot level on the ground in order to slow down yourself through the friction applied by your shoe. Remember, the majority of your weight depends on the front leg, having your front foot on the deck positioned forward. Simply switch a bit of your weight to your other leg in order to put little pressure through your foot in the ground and establish that friction.

It is very essential to manage the quantity of pressure you put through your back foot. There is a valid reason why you should watch for the applied pressure. Excessive pressure may terminate your longboard dead and might cause to throw you forward. What would be ideal is to scrape the ground through the sole of your shoe. You must lightly touch the ground behind the center of gravity in order to keep your balance.

One effective way of practicing foot braking is to make a rapid push to make your longboard roll. Rather than immediately delivering your push foot back into the deck, keep it hanging and in light proximity with the floor. The position is similar to braking and pushing. Your balance can become steady from pushing, what you have to do is simply be in contact with the ground a little more.

You may practice riding your longboard with only one leg. This will help you establish your courage in executing foot braking while you are at higher speeds. To give you an idea on how to do an efficient foot braking technique variety for moderate speeds, here are some steps you can do:

4. Solidify your body

Reinforce yourself through your two hands on your front thigh to secure stability

This stance lets you put down your foot on the ground farther towards the back while keeping a firm balance.

5. Foot Braking when in higher speeds

You must know that foot braking is not that simple if you are doing a bit fast. By practicing it, you must know how to execute it amply around 20mph. There are some riders that can expertly enforce it even at 30mph, however, this needs a great capability to keep your center of gravity.

If you have to stop your longboard but you can sense that you are approaching too fast to make foot brake, try to initially cast off some speed through air braking, carving if in a hill, or furl it out if in a flat surface.

If you do not feel easy brushing or dragging your foot in the ground, you may try to make quick kicks to the ground rather than a fixed foot drag. By doing so, you can keep the center of your gravity, while you bend and unbend your front knee in order to carry out the consecutive small kicks.

With higher speeds, you may be hesitant to try foot braking. If you feel that way, try to bend down on the longboard to drop the center of your gravity, then you can nudge brake much heavier through your back foot into the ground.

6. Foot and shoe braking

There is no doubt that foot braking is an effective method to stop your longboard. However, this method may also lead to shoe damages.

If you happen to ride your longboard daily, then you must always anticipate deterioration on your shoe. You may opt to select affordable shoes which you can easily dispose of once they get worn out. Or you may opt to get more durable shoes.

7. Carving

When riding your longboard on a hill, you may come to a point where applying foot brake becomes hard or even dangerous. Thus, you have to think of something else to stop your longboard at this type of momentum.

One method that you can try to apply is carving. It comprises turning backward and forwards while inclining against the hill as if you intend to ride uphill. The goal your carving is to make sharply enough until the wheels nearly surrender traction and begin gliding. Through carving, the wheels may surrender grip and glide in a matter of seconds. Different from carving, sliding will let you push the longboard sideward across the road in order for the wheels to end spinning and surrender traction.

Excessive carving comprises very cramped turns, nearly as if you are about to slide. The minimal reduction of traction occurring in the successive turns trims some speed in an efficient approach. The trucks have to be unconstrained enough to pluck deep and long carves.

Skill, as well as continuous practicing, are needed when executing carving. These are important while you switch the weight of your body and drift firmly into one edge of the board.

You must also understand that carving basically will not give you a complete stop if you are riding fast heading downhill – except if the road is sufficiently wide for you to certainly fulfill a complete U-turn and lead to going uphill. It is an efficient approach to slow down the speed until you reach the point that you are already able to perform foot brake.

Nevertheless, it needs sufficient clearance in order for you to execute these long turns, which in reality is not always the situation.

8. Gliding the Longboard

Gliding is considered to be the ultimate strategy of braking, however, it is also the most difficult and the most dangerous until you are able to completely master it. Gliding can be thrilling. It is very technical and very efficient for reducing speed and stopping the longboard.

However, there is a negative side of gliding. It may damage your bearings and wheels. Now, you might begin to question now – is it really necessary to do gliding to effectively stop longboard? A lot of longboard riders do not apply speed which is higher than 20mph, and they commonly will not consider going on really lofty hills. If you are one of these riders, then there really is no necessity to learn gliding unless you really want to learn its execution. A lot of riders prefer to use foot braking.

Nevertheless, if you see yourself riding your longboard to increasing speeds, you may ultimately see yourself in a scenario where you are riding too fast for you to run off, carve, or foot brake. And yet you are still getting up speed since you are heading downhill. In this case, gliding is the only method you can do to finally stop your longboard.

If you intend to acquire the basic knowledge on how to do effective gliding to stop your longboard, then it is ultimately important that you wear a helmet, slide gloves, knee pads, and elbow pads.

As for your board, you will acquire the skills of stopping glide a lot faster if you use appropriate wheels and trucks. Gliding will come more manageable with soft brushings and loose trucks, and round lipped, smaller, tougher wheels which provide minimal resistance if you push sideward your longboard.

Conclusion

Familiarizing the methods on how to stop on a longboard extends from basic to advance strategies, based on your riding speed, your environment, your riding style, and of course the kind of longboard that you use.

If you only ride your longboard around town, you may try to execute and master the foot braking method. But if love to ride your longboard downhill in average speeds, then carving deep turns in a slope will give you the edge of managing your speed and let you execute foot brake. Although at higher speeds, you will have to learn how to glide in order for you to manage your speed and efficiently terminate in entire downhill situations.

Acquiring the skills of gliding is not that simple and comprises some hard work and continuous practice, but it is not only an ideal venture for your safety when riding in longboard faster, it is also the thrilling part of riding a longboard which many riders see the benefit of mastering it.

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