Visayan Odyssey: An Epic Longboard Trilogy

HIGH SPEEDS, GOOD TIMES AND THE OPEN ROAD: OVER 30 LONGBOARDERS HAVE THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES TRAVELING THROUGH BACOLOD, DUMAGUETE AND CEBU

Article by Jukka Holopainen

“Be ready for the ride of your life!”

More than 30 longboarders from all over the country came together for the first longboarding expedition, spanning 9 days of exploration and traveling through Bacolod, Dumaguete and finally Cebu. The expedition promised to be an adventure: days of free style longboarding, downhill and carving, videos and photography shoots, lunches and siestas, healthy hemp foods and drinks, travel and even more skateboarding. We were set to lead the first documentary expedition to see the country like it had never been seen before.

Longboarding is a unique way of transportation where one basically gets on a longer and wider skateboard. In fact, it’s been used for many years as an acceptable means of transportation and commuting. Though you can do similar tricks on any skateboard, the longboard is all about the “stoke” of the ride, being part of it. You don’t need to be a trickboarder to enjoy it; some people in the expedition had never been on a skateboard before in their lives and by the end were pushing 70 kilometers a day. Since the decks and accessories like trucks and wheels are bigger than the regular skateboard, a longboard provides an easier platform for balance. With one push, you are off, and as long as you can ride and feel the stoke of riding a moving platform, longboarding will have you hooked and cross-stepping and carving in no time.

Skateboarding is something that Filipinos can be world class in. It doesn’t depend on size but rather more on spirit, agility, balance and core strength.

We began riding the perfect concrete wave in Don Salvador, led by Juan Duazo of Driftwood, a pioneer in adventure racing. This is Siargao for the concrete longboarder—with kilometers of kilometers of downhill road beckoning. Like all sports that feed on speed, it’s inherently dangerous so we made sure we were all wearing proper equipment and attire. All of us had already witnessed horrible accidents before and we knew the risks taking on these mountain roads. We always had spotters for the vehicles and always made sure to be alert for whatever situation happened. Some of the roads that we were going down were so steep that some of us had to luge some of the portions.

At night we all trooped back to camp dusty and dirty but really happy with stories to tell. Our hosts for one evening were from the local army camp who served as wonderful hosts by providing us with shelter in their multipurpose hall. We planned to show footage of our expedition in the evening but since it was our first stop and had shot little footage at the time, we entertained the camp by showing a film that we produced called “Children of the Mountains,” which was a story of the Agta, highlighting issues of deforestation, and indigenous people’s rights. Later, asleep in our hammocks, we were awakened to a bit of commotion as rocks were being thrown at the army camp. This died down as soon as the army came out on patrol again—so began another day of skateboarding in the hills of Don Salvador.

For the full article, check out the July ’09 issue of UNO featuring Cindy Kurleto on the cover.