The new bord in town

Freebording gives board sports a new spin

GONE 360: Charles Poirier Lacoste

by LINDSAY WOOD

Freebording is a new extreme sport and Fred Vitu is here to roll out the welcome mat.

A freebord (or freeboard—copyright issues forced the sport’s official website to change its spelling) consists of a board shaped like a skateboard deck but much longer and a few inches wider. It’s twin-tipped, meaning there is no front or back. It has two metal pieces on each top end, so your feet have something to brace against. On the bottom, there are six wheels in two sets of three. The third wheel is attached between and behind the two wheels on a t-shaped bearing and plate, allowing it to spin and rotate 360 degrees.

It sounds a lot more complicated than it looks. At first glance, you would think it was a longboard with wheels that were set up wrong and funny black metallic bits on the top. But when you turn it upside-down, it’s a whole new story. Let alone when you see someone riding these things.

Freebords look like snowboards on pavement. They ride, carve and stop like a snowboard. The stopping part is a bonus, because when you can reach up to 100 km/hr, you want to be sure you have a way to slow down.

Freebords are slowly gaining popularity thanks to YouTube videos being shared all over Facebook, and to people like Fred Vitu, 31, who is a big supporter of the sport and its community. He says there are about 120 active riders in Montreal, the oldest being 46 and the youngest around 11. Vitu’s company Asfalte is the first of its kind in Canada. He says he started it “for people that used to board [but stopped for safety reasons]—now they can ride again safely.”

Vitu has been freebording for the last three-and-a-half years. He found out about it on the web, and with a little research, he realized that there was no market, therefore no competition, for freebords in Canada. He founded his company—which also makes snowboards—in 2006 and hasn’t looked back since.

Asfalte also has connections abroad. Vitu has 200-plus decks made in Quebec a year, and ships them over to his reps in Europe as needed.

SNOWBOARD MEETS LONGBOARD
MEETS EXTRA WHEELS: Freebord

“Most of the people who buy my boards are from different places,” he says. “When I first started, I had to get my boards from the States.”

He doesn’t have his own shop yet; the only place to get the boards is online. But buyers can either pick up their boards or have them delivered. Plus, they get a short lesson and try-out before they buy them. (It takes Vitu anywhere from five minutes to a half-hour to teach someone to freebord.)

There is a freebord ride going down at Mount Tremblant on Saturday, Oct. 10, before the snow hits the ground. If you are interested in giving your inner thrill seeker something to snack on, you can always hit the Taz (8931 Papineau) skatepark, as they have a few boards donated by Fred.

See asfalte.com and freebord.com for more info.