What the hell?

Not the long boarding you can see people doing in London, Barcelona or teh LA beachfront. No, we’re talking about our old pal Biker Sherlock here.

In the late 90’s, the X Games trialled competitive longboarding as a sport.  Given that the same leather-clad nutcase was behind it, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the sport wasn’t too dissimilar to Street Luge mentioned above.

“Looking like a meatier John Frusciante, Biker Sherlock was the dominant name in the sport”

The premise was simple; find an incredibly steep hill, line up with a bunch of other thrill seekers, and hurl yourself down it in the fastest time possible.

Did anyone actually do it?

Although there are still longboard races going on today, during the sport’s golden age, there was only one name making headlines: Yes, our boy Biker Sherlock.

Why it deserved to die…

A combination of high risk of serious injury of those taking part, and the fact that spectators didn’t really care about it meant that competitive long boarding was always doomed, It was the briefest of our action sport fads.