Dirtheads and Good Air Days

Between skateboarding, snowboarding, wakeboarding and mountain biking, it seems Thomas Gibson would have a hard time squeezing in another sport. But this summer the 20-year-old construction worker from Valencia fell for the mountainboard--an overgrown skateboard with big, nubby tires he uses to careen down dusty, rock-infested slopes.

Gibson’s face is encrusted in dirt from repeated runs down Kratka Ridge in the Angeles National Forest. “This has got to be [the] funnest thing,” he says, smiling and squinting into the sun. Tanned, tattooed and wearing a blue BMX helmet with a Black Flys sticker, Gibson is one of tens of thousands of American fans of the sport--many of whom believe mountainboarding is poised to become the Next Big Thing, or, at the very least, the next extreme sport to go mainstream.

Judging from the scene at Kratka on a recent Sunday afternoon, however, mountainboarding still has a long way to go. Compared with snowboarding, which can draw thousands to a ski resort in a single weekend, only a dozen mountainboarders showed up to speed down the hill, carve turns, catch air, ride high on the hay-bale berms and kick up plumes of dust onto spectators.

Mountainboarding isn’t for the faint of heart. While the feel of the ride is similar to that of a snowboard, there is no icy powder to cushion the fall, just dirt and rocks.

The scene is “pretty hard-core,” said Spencer Emmons, a 30-year-old artist from Los Feliz. An avid surfer and snowboarder, he started mountainboarding in the spring as off-season training but has gotten so “turned on” by it that he hasn’t been to the ocean all summer.

“That’s a big deal for me,” says Emmons, who, like many other of the sport’s enthusiasts, was attracted by the speed, the turns, the nature. “I was born a surfer. To keep me away from the ocean in the dirt, that’s crazy. This has got to be a fun sport.”

Still, mountainboarding remains largely unknown outside its core participants. The boards, which have bindings and are similar in size to snowboards, also have pneumatic (or inflated) wheels, like mountain bikes. Most have four wheels, though some have three. Mountainboarding--also known as dirt boarding, off-road boarding and all-terrain boarding--is more popular in other countries, notably Japan, England and Australia. Worldwide, there could be as many as half a million riders, based on industry estimates. It has something going for it that many other sports don’t: It can be done almost anywhere, and it’s not bound to any one season.

Plenty of companies see potential in it. The boards, first manufactured in the mid-’90s, are now manufactured by nearly 20 companies. Ski resorts across the country have begun offering the boards for rent during the summer season.

“It takes awhile for a sport to get off the ground,” says Mike May, spokesman for the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Assn. in North Palm Beach, Fla. Mountainboarding is “on the radar,” he said, but still too young to chart. As a sport, though, it is hoping to follow in the high-flying tracks of snowboarding.

A Summer Twist for a Winter Resort

On the boarding trail at Kratka Ridge, it is not snow but gravel that’s in the air.

“Mountainboarding is not a contact sport. It’s a contact-with-the-ground sport,” says Chuck Ojala, director of mountain operations at Kratka, which in winter months is a destination for snowboarders and skiers.

Kratka is home to one of the area’s only--and, some say, best--mountainboard tracks. Ojala’s 22-year-old son, Tyler, helped build it last summer before the sport’s world championship was held there. Tyler had been mountainboarding for only two weeks when he decided to enter the contest. He won the amateur division’s big-air competition--the winner being “whoever throws up the cleanest, nicest, most technical” jumps.

A lot of the people using the mountainboard tracks are the same people who snowboard there in winter. They may have started mountainboarding as off-season training but grew to appreciate the sport for its own merits. Although some ski resorts operate their lifts for mountainboarders in the summer, Kratka is among those that don’t.

The lack of uphill transportation isn’t stopping the sport’s fans this weekend.

“You remember the runs more because you have to hike for it,” says a sweaty and glistening Emmons, dragging his board behind him in the dirt as he made the climb for yet another trek down the course. “You don’t take it for granted.”

The climb is tough, not just because the sun is beating down, but because the gear is heavy. Most riders wear a helmet, hockey pants, butt pads, wrist guards, elbow pads, knee pads and gloves.

Emmons learned the value of protective gear the hard way. “I drew blood before I put on pads,” says the slightly sunburned Emmons.

Frank Curtis, a 56-year-old who picked up the sport so he could spend more time with his 10-year-old son, wraps his elbows in bubble pack and duct tape. He ripped open his right elbow five times before coming up with this unique routine.

“I have to go to work on Monday,” says Curtis, a Pacific Bell service technician who lives in South Pasadena and heads to Kratka every weekend to mountainboard. “I can’t afford to be all banged up.”

Mara Rieden, a slender, blond 24-year-old, wore hockey pants for her few runs down the hill. “I looked like a big football player,” she says. Rieden, a student at San Francisco State, is at Kratka for the weekend with her boyfriend, Ron Eakle.

Perched on a hay bale just around the track’s first corner, she snaps pictures while Eakle races by. With all the dust, it isn’t an easy shot. “You’ve got to like dirt to be here,” says Rieden, fanning away a cloud of it with her hand.

“It’s that fine layer of dust that scrubs your teeth clean,” says Eakle, as he hikes back up the course, hugging his board. Eakle rides an XT--a type of mountainboard that is most like a skateboard. With hard, polyurethane wheels and a smaller deck to stand on, the XT is a far bumpier ride than other mountainboards with the larger, inflated wheels.

It’s the year-round accessibility that is attractive to mountainboarders, many of whom are enthusiasts of other, seasonal board sports.

“There’s very few places that have snow, but dirt is just everywhere,” says Don Baker, co-founder of the aptly named Dirtheads, a San Jose group formed to promote the sport.

The group has only 50 members but is the largest mountainboarding organization in the U.S. It was founded primarily to bring riders together “to session.” The Dirt-heads, like other extreme riders, seek out hills. Others use whatever’s nearby--streets, parks, their own backyards. But, when it comes to public spaces, they all face the same constraints as other users. “Often we have to be careful about how we advertise and where we ride,” Baker says.

Park rangers in the Santa Cruz Mountains have repeatedly warned him to stay off the trails and have even ticketed him, Baker says. His offense: reckless use of the park.

“It’s such a generic ordinance. Even without seeing us ride, they categorize us as being reckless,” he says. “Usually we obey the speed laws on the trails much closer than the mountain bikers.”

Popular Runs on Southland Slopes

Two destinations used by both bikers and boarders are Mt. Waterman and nearby Kratka Ridge, about 35 miles northeast of La Canada Flintridge on Highway 2. Waterman is one of the L.A. area’s only resorts that operates its lift during the summer and also offers mountainboards for rent, though so far there have been no takers. The lifts and trails are used mainly by mountain bikers. The few mountainboarders who use the facility bring their own gear. Most mountainboards are sold in mom-and-pop skate and surf shops. They are just beginning to appear in general sporting goods stores.

Boards are priced from $150 to $500. Protective clothing can run hundreds of dollars extra. For the lower age range of the target market, 14-to 35-year-old males, the cost of getting started can be a little steep.

That’s presuming the target market has even heard of the sport. Many of them have not.

While many mountainboarders are enthusiasts of some other board sport, magazines devoted to those activities--and read by young men--do not give their new off-road cousin any ink. And though some national magazines and newspapers have run product reviews and articles on the sport, that information has not filtered down to most teenagers, whose acceptance is necessary if mountainboarding is going to grow.

“It doesn’t seem as though television and other forms of media are really taking it seriously,” says Brian Bishop, editor of Off-Road Boarding magazine.

That may change if mountainboarding makes it to the nationally televised X Games or Gravity Games, the best-known extreme sports events.

“Mountainboarding is kind of an underground, extreme thing,” says Bishop, who started his magazine in December in Littleton, Colo. It is the first periodical devoted entirely to the sport. “Until the industry makes some sort of a larger splash ... the media may not pick up on it.”

That splash includes advertising--something Bishop’s magazine is noticeably lacking amid its numerous pictorials and rider profiles. Many of the mountainboard manufacturers coming up over the last several years--Mountainboard Sports, Outback and Earthboard are some of the better-known brands--are still struggling to make a profit and don’t have advertising budgets. To get the word out, they try to piggyback with other products and events. Mountainboarders are turning up in current Nissan and Ford commercials.

If the old adage “first to market wins” holds true, then Mountainboard Sports has an advantage. It first came on the market in 1993 and is believed to be the leader in the emerging industry. Mountainboard Sports also enjoys the benefit of having become the term the sport uses to define itself. It is the Kleenex, so to speak, of the sport.

The mountainboard evolved out of the skateboard, which, in turn, evolved out of steel-wheeled roller skates mounted on plywood. Exactly who invented the mountainboard is in dispute, especially among its numerous manufacturers.

“I don’t think anybody should take credit for inventing it,” says Bishop. “Whoever made the first skateboard basically made the first mountainboard.”

While it has a strong core of support, mountainboarding faces an uphill battle to establish itself in a market with many choices. “It’s a sport that ... takes a little bit of athleticism and balance and courage, and if you have those attributes and you try it and you like it, then you’re probably hooked,” says May of the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Assn. “That’s the case with most extreme sports. It’s a matter of how easy it is to try.”

May thinks mountainboarding has the potential to reach the same level as snowboarding, but it could take years for it to really take hold. In 1990, there were 2.1 million snowboarders in the United States; by 2000, there were 7.2 million.

As with other extreme sports, safety is an issue. Mountainboarding’s perceived danger is enough to keep some potential riders away. “Right now people are worried they’re going to get hurt,” said Bishop, who recommends beginning riders start on small, grassy slopes.

“It’s no more dangerous than walking out your front door and getting in your car, and no less dangerous than Rollerblading, skateboarding or any of those other sports,” said Hugh Jeffreys, founder and CEO of Earthboard in Costa Mesa.

There is little formalized instruction. Some manufacturers include videotapes, but it is largely a self-or peer-taught sport. That may change as more ski resorts begin offering instruction along with board rentals.

The sport also needs leaders--riders from whom others can take their cues. Tyler Ojala, only into the sport for a year and a half, is already considered a pro. He’s not making any money on the sport, but his expenses are covered. Of all the gear he’s wearing, the only thing he’s paid for is a pair of leather garden gloves from Home Depot, which cost him $1.50. The rest he gets courtesy of Outback Mountainboards, Bombshell (a protective padding maker), Flesh Gear (outerwear) and Vigor (helmets).

Still, Ojala says snowboarding is his first love. But Emmons, whom Ojala befriended on the slopes during the winter, is falling hard for mountainboarding.

“It’s pulling me in,” says Emmons. “The better I get at it, the more I think about it all the time, and that’s when I know: When I’m sitting at work, thinking, ‘Oh. I could be mountainboarding.’ ”