POCATELLO — One size does not fit all in the boarding circuit. They come in shortboards, longboards, drop decks, cruisers, pintails, freeride drop-throughs, slalomboards.

    As “D’Beau” Darin  Black, the owner of Deckadence Board shop in Old Town Pocatello and a lifelong skateboarding enthusiast, says, “Skateboarding is currently in its prime. Where we are at right now as an industry, there’s a board for everybody.”

    One of the biggest skateboarding trends in recent years, especially in the Pocatello area, is the growth in popularity of longboards. Longboards are skateboards with a much longer deck and fatter wheels, allowing the user much more stability.

    Pocatello residents Casey Winfree, a snowboard instructor at Pebble Creek, and Jasmin Muir, a full-time mom studying to be a licensed register nurse (LRN) at Idaho State University, have been avid longboard enthusiasts for almost five years.

    “It’s a much mellower ride than the traditional shortboards,” Winfree says, adding that it is great exercise and much cheaper than using an automobile to get around town.

    Black has seen the popularity of longboards increase in recent years.

    “The longboards are becoming the new core skateboard,” he said. “Because they are easier to master, there’s more mass appeal for these kind of boards. You might not be able to do a kickflip or other tricks that you can do on a shortboard, but they are great for cruising, especially on long hills.”

    The rise in popularity of longboards, however, has led to a splinter among skateboarding groups, according to Black.

    “Right now, some hardcore traditional short-board skaters think that longboards are bad, that longboarding isn’t ‘real’ skating,” he said, adding that he has alienated some members of the local skateboarding community solely because his shop sells longboards. “Personally, I think it is great because now we are able to introduce boarding to a whole group of new people who would not be otherwise be boarding.”

    Skateboarding has come a long way since the sport’s early days in the 1960s and 1970s. The trend started when Southern California surfboarders added roller skate wheels to maple wood scooters to create the now-primitive skateboards that served as the forerunner for all the varying board styles available today.

    Skateboarding is currently a multi-billion dollar industry with a culture and image all its own, with its impact seen in clothing, video games, documentaries, magazines, and music devoted to the boarding lifestyle. Like all cultures, it even has its own vocabulary, with terms like ‘gleaming the cube’ or ‘bombing a hill’ often heard in skater circles.

    Skateboarding culture in general has always had an anti-establishment and rebellious undertone.

    “When I was younger, skateboarding was essentially illegal in many places,” said Black, “but we were young kids and if you told us we couldn’t do something, we would want to do it even more.”

    Black added that with skateboarding becoming more and more mainstream in recent years he feels that the core spirit of boarding has been lost.

    “The essence of skateboarding has always been about individual expression and being yourself,” he said. “Yet, I think a lot of kids have gotten into skateboarding and while they want to be unique and express themselves as individuals they’ve gravitated towards a neutral, accepted image and a jock-like mentality.”

    Sometimes this rebellious spirit can run afoul of business owners and law enforcement. Many cities, like Chicago, San Francisco, and Philadelphia, have passed laws and ordinances in attempts to curtail the use of skateboards in public areas. In Pocatello, skateboarders have the same rights and duties as a regular pedestrian, as indicated in City Ordinance 10.04.070.

    According to the ordinance, skateboarders can only go on a roadway when crossing the street on a designated crosswalk. Winfree and Muir have said they have friends who were hit by cars and injured while skateboarding and then were cited for violating this ordinance.

    Skating on private property can also lead to citations or even possible arrests for trespassing.

    “There are a lot of reasons business owners do not want skateboarders trespassing on their property,” said Captain Steve Stone of the Pocatello Police Department. “I assume the reasons include the injury liability risks involved, as well as the fear of damage to their own property.”

    Even though longboards are considered more stable than traditional shortboards, the possibility of serious injury is always prevalent, even among the most experienced skateboarders, many of whom wear their scars as badges of honor.

    “You have to have thick skin to be a skateboarder,” says Black. “Even with longboards, there is always the potential for it to be an ‘extreme’ sport, due to a high risk of getting hurt.”

    Black also recommends that inexperienced boarders should always wear protective equipment.

    Black, Winfree, and Muir would like the city of Pocatello to invest in a modern skate park. Ross Park is one of the few skate parks in the immediate area, but they believe it is too small and too outdated. Black believes that a top-notch skate park will provide an economic boast to the area, as many professional skateboard teams often travel the country looking for new and unique parks to try out, and a state-of-the-art park would encourage them to stop here.

    Winfree and Muir believe that building a new skate park would provide local teenagers with a healthy outlet.

    “There’s really not much here in Pocatello to do if you are a young kid,” said Winfree. “Skateboarding provides a vital outlet that kids need, and it’ll keep them from doing drugs and staying out of trouble.”