How to ride your surfskate skogging style

In fact I would go as far as to say that Skogging is a really convenient way to ride a surfskate, if you want to commute some longer distances with it. Maybe it is even the best way to use your surfskate for riding distances. 

Most of us might think, that pumping is the best way to propel a surfskate. It is true that surf skates can be pumped quite easily, even from a standstill, but the very loose truck systems are not optimized for efficient pumping that will allow you to keep a constant pace over longer distances. Eventually you will end up consuming too much of your power and get exhausted.

Then what about the good old pushing technique? Though you can propel any skateboard by pushing it, it is not as easy with a surfskate as the very responsive trucks will require a lot of balance if you want to push in a straight way. You will always have to make sure your foot is positioned right in the middle of the deck and constantly keep the balance when pushing.

This is where surfy skogging can be of advantage. Of course it also requires a lot of balance to ride in a one footed way while pushing with either leg. But it allows you to keep your stance more sideways in a surfing position while carving around. This way you can go conform with the characteristics of the surfskate, which is constructed to easily turn from rail to rail. With some practice it will become easier and feel better, to keep your balance in a one footed position while pressing the rail to one side and riding a curve you can finish by putting your foot on the ground to push out of it. The real difficulty will be to learn to push with your non dominant leg. But trying to keep your balance while pushing straight forward on a surfskate could be much more annoying in the long run.

So my hope is that this will inspire more surfskaters to look into the art of Skogging, so they can feel the flow that comes with it. Once you master it, you will already have become addicted for sure.

Here´s the article on Surfertoday:

And here's my new video on surfskogging:

It shows how to do one footed surfskog infinity loops to train for surfy skogging.

The second part shows the basics of commuting with a surfskate skogging style. But please be always careful not to impede others on your way when carving from side to side.

Bringing more kick into surfskating with one footed turns

In this video I´m using the Waterborne surf adapter in the front together with the Waterborne railadapter in the back, which allows for really sharp turns.

Surfskogging - Skog loose - Skogging - Surfskate

Surf-Skogging with the Logger from Hamboards

I rediscovered this video a friend made in summer last year. He did it mainly to test the camera and for the fun of video editing. Initially we were not sure if to post it to the public and over time I forgot about it. But when watching it again just recently, I started to wish that spring was already here to ride the Hamboard Logger again. So I did some minor edits and decided to publish it in hope that it might inspire your surfskating and skogging, too, because spring is just around the corner.

Be prepared for more content to come this year.

Thanks to Hamboards for allowing us to use the picture of their Hamboard Classic in the video. And thank you to Chris Yandall for inventing the art of Skogging.

The Logger is a Skogger

Testing the Hamboards Logger for surfskogging and ambidextrous pumping (with video below)

The majority of boards used for surfskating tend to be the size of a usual skateboard. But there are surfskate longboards as well. These huge and often flat boards are perfect for cruising and they have enough space to perform different kinds of boardwalks, in the same way as it is done on a surfboard. One of the best known manufacturers for longboards made for surfskating is Hamboards from Huntington Beach in California. They sell complete setups since many years now. Meanwhile they are using their own HST (Hamboard Spring Torsion) trucks (which are inspired by the Original S8 trucks) together with their own Hamboards wheels. As big and flat boards are nice for skogging footwork, while constantly switching your stance, I decided to get myself a Hamboard and test it for surfskogging (see video below).

Luckily in Europe the boards are available from Hamboards in the UK. So you don‘t have to order them from overseas which drastically reduces the shipping costs. And until now there are still no customs to pay. The boards are not cheap, but considering their quality components which are maid to last for years, the price seems to be reasonable.

My board of choice was the Hamboards Logger Walnut (279 GBP without shipping), as I like its wooden look. With a length of 5 foot (about 152 cm) it is not too big and heavy but with still enough room for all the footwork you like. It also has more flex than the bigger Hamboards Classics, which is something that adds to the fun for me. Compared to the other bigger versions of the Hamboards the narrower shape of the Logger allows for deep carving without railbites.

When riding it, the first thing I noticed was that the wide restorative spring trucks can give you a very stable feel when riding in the central position. This allows for safe pushing which is often not easy to do with other surfskate systems. I like that I can easily skog the board, even when rolling at higher speed. But as soon as you shift your weight from side to side, you will notice the extreme turning capabilities of the trucks. Despite the length of the board it is possible to perform very tight turns. The deep lean of the trucks together with the big flat surface of the deck and the large 83 mm wheels make this board setup predestined for cruising around in surfskogging style.

But what about pumping? If you like to propel your surfskate by pumping, this board could be a real challenge for you. Because the stock silver springs are the same in the front and back, the trucks perform identical in lean and turn. As a result the board will not pump as effortless as all the boards with swivel arms in the front and more stabilizing trucks in the back. It takes more than some wiggling to pump a Hamboard. In order to gain speed by pumping you need to use your whole body in an up and down movement while shifting your weight from rail to rail. If you cannot keep up a proper surfskate pumping technique you will slow down immediately. It is possible to propel all other surfskate trucks just by using a wiggling motion but you cannot cheat to successfully pump a Hamboard, as it will only move if you really know how to pump. It may be more similar to the feel of pumping a surfboard on water, which makes the board a good training tool for surfers to learn the correct form. For surfskoggers it is a great board to check, if you really have mastered ambidexterity in pumping. Another effect is that pumping the Logger will give you a great whole body workout (as you can see in the video below). 

But Hamboards also offers the possibility to customize the trucks by using the more stable and snappy gold spring or the less stable black spring from the Original S8 trucks. By using different springs in the setup it should also be possible to make pumping a bit easier. But to test this will be a future task for me.