Nata Saslafski ’12 transferred to Cornell from Miami Dade College. Upon his arrival, Saslafski immediately fell in love with the slopes around Ithaca.

“Florida is all parking garages,” he said. “Now that I’m out here on hills, it’s a dreamland.”

Saslafski realized that he was not alone in his passion for longboarding — a type of skateboarding using a more elongated board designed for speed rather than trick performance — after meeting other transfer students who shared his interests. However, there was no formal organization to bring together their mutual love of the sport. Together, Saslafski and his friends went to Clubfest, posed as a club and collected NetID’s. Since then, the Cornell Longboarding Club has become officially recognized by the University. These students see longboarding not only as a form of recreation, but also as the best form of transportation on campus.

“You can’t really bring your bike into your classroom,” Saslafsky said.

The sight of students cruising down roads, across quads and concrete paths on longboards has become commonplace on Cornell’s campus as longboarding becomes an emerging trend on the East Coast.

In 2008, longboarding became the second-ranked skating activity in America, according to USA Today. This new trend toward longer boards and bigger wheels is just beginning to make its way to Ithaca and the Cornell campus.Get stoked: Nata Saslafsky ’12 shows off his skills on a longboard, taking advantage of the Ithaca terrain to quickly get around campus.

Brad Bartlett, a resident of topographically bland Seneca Falls, New York, was one of the first to recognize the untapped potential of Ithaca. Bartlett compared the hills of Ithaca to the hills of Southern California, where the sport originated. He expects to see sponsored longboarding events within the coming year. “As soon as we have a couple events, it’s gonna get huge,” he said.

This summer, Bartlett started the “Ithaca-Skate Sessions” thread on silverfishlongboarding.com — a website that connects boarders — and used the site to start Monday evening skate sessions. Though the numbers have gradually dwindled as the weather has cooled, at its peak, 25 to 30 skateboarders met at Cass Park, he said. They would talk, establish a consensus on what they wanted to do and carpool to the chosen run.

One of the hills that they particularly enjoyed was on Cornell’s campus. These longboard enthusiasts carpooled to the College of Veterinary Medicine and rode all the way down to the Commons; however, they stopped skating this route right after University resumed instruction in late August. “During the school year, they tend to kick us out quite a bit,” he said. “I’m glad Nata started this club up here, because now we have an excuse to skate on campus.”

Saslafski met Bartlett after connecting with him on silverfishlongboarding.com. Many longboarders, including Saslafski, credit the development of local East Coast skate scenes to this website. In one of their first meetings, Bartlett drove Jason Salfi ’92, founder of Comet Skateboards in Ithaca, and members of the longboarding club around the area, showing them the best roads to cruise down.

The Cornell Longboarding Club is now the only skateboarding club on campus, as the Cornell Skateboarding Club failed to register as a student organization this fall. While this may have just been a simple mistake, longboarding does have an advantage over skateboarding at Cornell. The University prohibits doing tricks on campus, which is the premise of the skateboarding club, while longboarding is all about moving from point A to point B, Saslafski said. “Longboards aren’t going to ruin stairs or anything,” said Sam Levy ’13, a member of the club.

The size of the wheels and decks make it harder to do traditional skateboard tricks, like kickflips, but easier to glide smoothly over pavement cracks and down hills. Longboarding comparable to a snowboard on wheels. One longboarder talked favorably of the ease of the TCAT bus system, comparing it to a chairlift at a ski resort.

Salfi supplies equipment for the Ithaca skaters as well as for skaters around the nation. As an alum, Salfi’s business is connected with the Cornell community. Besides offering discounts on skateboards to members of the Cornell Longboarding Club, Salfi also makes his boards from e2e Materials’ environmentally-friendly soy biocomposites. The company's technologies are based on the research of Prof. Ani Narayan Netravali, material science and engineering. In addition, the Cornell Store also carries his products.

In his factory on Cherry Street, Salfi and his employees press and shape the boards, sand them, print designs on them and spray them with a clear coat of protection. Upon the longboards’ completion, Salfi ships the boards to skate shops around the country. His primary market, however, is the East Coast, Salfi said. While the West Coast market is more saturated with longboards, the East Coast longboarding scenes are quickly growing. Longboards once took up five percent of the market for skateboards, and now make up 10 percent, Salfi said. “Longboarding is the fastest growing segment in skateboarding right now.”

Salfi employs a team of skaters in his shop every summer and says that they love skating in Ithaca. Salfi is looking to host a downhill race sometime this summer. He has the sponsors lined up, and is now looking for a permit to close a road, which is the most difficult part, he said.

For now, though, the Cornell longboarding club plans to continue its marketing strategy of skating around campus. People are often curious about exactly what the students are doing, Saslafsky said.

As members of the Longboarding Club skated around West Campus, students passing by asked what it was all about.

“What do you do when it snows?” one student asked.

“Wait till it doesn’t snow,” Saslafsky said.