Silverfish Longboarding.com was born in the year 2000 as an idea to create a community of skateboarders stoked on longboarding and the open, excited, friendly dynamic the early members created for each other. Instantly, Silverfish Longboarding became a place to share thoughts, ideas, session experiences, and a reservoir of information on the technical aspects of longboarding. As the team of administrators and moderators has developed over time, Silverfish pioneered an open-access product review format for skateboard websites, generated a vibrant forums community and helped chart the course of a re-developing sport via the internet.
Silverfish Longboarding has served to gather longboarders together both on the hills and online. Many skate crews have developed based on interaction with others on the ‘Fish. As we have grown, so have our members and our participating vendors. Several retailers and manufacturers openly rely upon the skateboard community at the ‘Fish for insights to products, trends and developments. The team at Silverfish Longboarding provides extensive support of grassroots events, racing and the Boarding for Breast Cancer Foundation. We search out and provide promotion and reportage for skateboard events in North American, Australia, Asia, Europe and Africa, bringing news and views to our readers and participants in the Forums.
Often approached by professional/organized racing groups, Silverfish is Media Partner with the International Gravity Sports Association, the Downhillbillies, La Costa Boys Racing, Gravity’s Slide Fest and Concrete Wave Magazine. The ‘Fish crew covers events, hosts a massive photo and video gallery system and have augmented our Reviews section to match the ’05, ’06 and '07 Buyers’ Guides from Concrete Wave.
Over the years, Silverfish Longboarding has migrated to new servers, as demand and traffic-loads require. In 2005, our community grew at an increasing rate, doubling our registered members to 5,000 by early 2006. In mid-2006, we moved our server from Virginia to California and embarked on a massive hardware & software upgrade designed to accommodate visitor traffic that exceeded 5,000 unique daily hits and 50,000 daily page views. Late in that summer, we added a second server and quintupled our bandwidth capacity.
We’re now well over 14,000 registered members, run on 4 servers and have software that enables us to virtually eliminate “spam bots” while improving the look and feel of the ‘Fish. What was once a small subculture of skaters on longboards has now become a full-blown revolution! Slalom skating, sliding and DH racing have found a new home among the carvers, cruiser & board-builders at Silverfish Longboarding. Our members stoke each other into trying new disciplines after reading each other’s reports and commentary, and we’re proud to tend the flame.
The ‘Fish represents “the walk back up the hill”: a time we all take to chat. On Silverfish, we can walk back up the hill with fellow skaters, retailers, and manufacturers that skate. If you’re reading this, we welcome you to our home and invite you to come on in! The concrete is smooth and the hills are sweet!