Jibe Longboards – Saving the Environment One Longboard at a Time

Background

I recently got the chance to interview Alexander Bengtsen, the founder of Jibe Longboards, which is a longboarding company based in Denmark. I stumbled upon Jibe Longboards’ website awhile back and spent some time to learn more about them, as well as the longboards they offer.

What really stood out for me when learning about the brand was the fact that they extremely are environmentally friendly. The foundation of the business was built upon one simple premise:

We believe that alternative transport devices are the future instead of gasoline driven engines. Having fun at the same time is epic.

With cars on the road increasing at an alarming rate, I truly believe in public transportation an alternative modes of travelling, such as longboarding.

Another thing I really like about Jibes Longboard is the fact that they’re working with the organization “Trees for the Future” to give back to the environment. For every longboard they sell, they are working with the organization to plant 3 or 4 trees. How many companies out there actually have similar sustainability/environmentally-friendly mindsets? Not a whole lot from what I’ve seen! Kudos to Alexander and his team for this!

Not only that, they also actually rent out their longboards – something super for those of you who want to test out how riding a longboard feels like.

Interview Alexander, the founder of Jibe Longboards

Without further ado, here’s my interview I had with Alexander from Jibe Longboards. Enjoy!

What is the background of Jibe Longboards? How and why did you decide to start it?

I started Jibe in early 2012, after returning from a long surf trip around the world. Couldn’t surf in my town, Copenhagen, but I found out that concrete surfing in Copanhagen was second best to, what just have become my new favourite activity – riding boards! I decided to stop travel for a while and start creating something for my self, so I created Jibe, the first longboard brand in Denmark.

I really like the longboards that are being offered by Jibe Longboards. Did you design each of these? Are longboards made to order and manufactured “in-house”?

I design or make the shapes with help from my longboard hombres. The graphical design is always made by someone else – I suck in this! And the designs are always done by a young crispy urban artist representing values in line with mine/Jibe’s. So far, artist from Denmark, Germany and Switzerland have laid hands on a Jibe board.

Production-wise, the boards are manufactured in China by a good long-term partner.

Can you go over some of the longboards that Jibe Longboards offer? Which is your favorites?

The City Surfer

? I like the Urban freerider for going to/from work and whenever I go for longer rider (in the lunch break, hahah), I pull out my Chillax or Double H.

I absolutely love the Trees for the Future collaboration you have. I think a lot more companies need to be more like Jibe Longboards and promote a greener environment. What made you decide to work with Trees for the Future?

I guess we can agree that the human being is not essentially a good thing for mother earth. At least not our current society! So yea, we companies (and individuals! But that’s another story) have a responsibility to give back something to the environment. I chose to plant tress, since this is one of the biggest problems our current society has – “killing” forests and all the problems that contributes to.

I’m a part of this, using trees for my longboards, so the least I can do is to plant new tress when I take some. I can proudly say that Jibe has today planted total 7.500 trees. Wup Wup!

What would you say is different about Jibe Longboards versus other longboards in the market today?

With so many brands out there, it’s hard to stand out for the consumers. Jibe is about having fun with no boundaries, no matter who you are. In that sense, we don’t make products to hit a certain trend in the market. We/I do this because it’s fun! Jibe is not trying to be the best (because we’re not) or the cheapest (we’re definitely not). Jibe Longboards is a humble longboard brand with quality products for reasonable prices, which we enjoy to ride ourselves, and hopefully, others are keen on doing the same!

I see that Jibe Longboards rents out longboards (good job!). This is certainly not common in other countries. Aside from being more sustainable, is there a reason for this?

If you don’t have a longboard and no friends have one either, and you’re not born with a golden spoon up you ass, how would you get the chance to ride?

By renting out boards, I try to give the opportunity to people to ride on their own, have fun and get a taste of the amazing life of longboarding. If they feel like buying a board afterwards, all rental costs are refunded.

And also for tourists – sightseeing on a longboard is almost 9569 % more exiting than on a roof-top bus!

Relating to the last question, has Jibe Longboards seen more people renting longboards or buying longboards?

Renting can be complicated, since it’s a bad business, we only do this from our own office. No shops have time to do this, but we think it’s exciting.

But to answer your question, we have found that most people rather buy than rent longboards.

If people want to find out more about Jibe Longboards or have questions, where will be the best place for people to contact you guys?

Jibe Longboards 🙂

I hope you guys enjoyed learning about Jibe Longboards and what they’re all about. I personally really like the fact that they are giving back to the environment with any longboards they sell. It was also a pleasure to interview Alexander.

Leave in the comments below what you guys think about this article or if you have any questions for Alexander!

As Alexander says:

Adios longboard-amigozzz !