The rides look like skateboards, and the riders look like skateboarders.
But when Freeborders carve and spin down steep pavement, the comparison quickly fades.
“It’s like riding pow,” says Jake Dunkle, a three-year Freebord rider who organizes regular rallies of his side-slipping brothers in Golden and up the freshly paved Guanella Pass.
Freebords have four wheels on axles, or trucks, just like skateboards. But a set of pivoting wheels in the center of the board serve as an effective uphill edge, allowing riders to lift downhill wheels off the ground and slide laterally down pavement, using the uphill wheels as a sort of brake. Riders can spin 360s at high speed, heelslide or toeslide around hairpin turns and generally maneuver much more nimbly than their four-wheeled colleagues. The roughly 10-year-old design — born on the steeps of San Francisco — is harvesting disciples among snowboarders who find the floating ride much like their winter pursuit.
“It keeps you snowboarding all year round,” says 21-year-old Adam Samokishyn of Littleton, as he nurses a Red Bull between descents of a smooth hill in a neighborhood near Lookout Mountain. “You get that feel all year long.”
The downside of the edge-like rotating wheels under the board is the same as the downside of snowboarding. The downhill edge is just waiting to catch and hurl riders to the ground. On snow, that’s pretty funny to watch. On pavement, it’s gruesome.
“When you see it happen, it’s so gnarly,” Dunkle said.
The community of Freeborders is growing internationally, with the most popular riders posting videos online and fostering growth through award contests based on those videos.
In Colorado, about a dozen riders gather for an every-so-often rendezvous, where they warm up on a neighborhood road and then drive to bigger hills, like the freshly laid, 26-mile stretch of pavement on Guanella Pass above Georgetown. The crew shares tips, tuneups and tales. Every rider recounts those first falls when the downhill wheels unexpectedly grab pavement. Scars are compared and stories shared. Things like sewer caps and large pebbles take starring roles in the annals of carnage.
“I knocked myself out,” Zane Schaefer said. “I always wear a helmet. They’re not really optional for Freebording.”
Still, the demand for perfect edge control translates onto snow each winter.
“It gets you primed for snowboarding. You get really good with your edges,” Schaefer said. “And look, you don’t need a $100 lift ticket.”
Learn more:
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com
