The extreme sports world can be pretty fickle. There true essence of the sport often appears to be long gone. Now it is all about fashion, and the concept of being “core”. Whilst skateboarding still remains pretty core, surfing and snowboarding are far from it. The sports consist of way more posers than core athletes. The so called posers are after all the ones paying the bills though and they are the reason some athletes can be paid top dollar to travel the world and compete and make movies for our enjoyment. The essence of being a core sport though comes down to the week in week out determination of its followers. Will they travel each weekend and through themselves at the sport rain or shine?

Mountainboarding has had a tough start in life. As with anything else which emulates another sport to start with it is an uphill struggle. Being seen as a summer alternative frustrated snowboarders or landlocked surfers makes it a tough sell. There have been so many other candidates for this role over the years that try to recreate that carving sensation. Mountainboarding whilst far from a glamorous affair does truly appeal to the core image of extreme sports. What could be more core than chucking yourself down a muddy slope? The UK and the US have the largest mountainboard scenes, however the UK being so much smaller geographically has a lot more of a pro active scene. Competitions are run regularly on both a national and european level with riders battling it out in two main disciplines: boardercross and freestyle. There is also a downhill competition.

The centres created to teach mountainboarding, create areas to ride, and host competitions are typically made up of a nursery slope for teaching, a boardercross track and a few different freestyle lines combining jumps and rails. These are similar in many ways to BMX tracks. 2010 will see mountainboarding develop it’s own identity further and being seen more widely as a core sport.

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