Besides walking, taking the bus and biking to class, a new means of transportation has become popular on campus: longboarding. Paul Michalowski, president of the University’s Illini Longboarding Club, recalls the sport’s popularity since last year. When Michalowski founded the club last fall with treasurer Michael Ashida, the club’s e-mail list had nearly 70 people. After this fall’s Quad Day, the club roster now includes about 230 people.

Besides walking, taking the bus and biking to class, a new means of transportation has become popular on campus: longboarding. Paul Michalowski, president of the University’s Illini Longboarding Club, recalls the sport’s popularity since last year. When Michalowski founded the club last fall with treasurer Michael Ashida, the club’s e-mail list had nearly 70 people. After this fall’s Quad Day, the club roster now includes about 230 people.

“The club is basically just a group of a lot of people who are interested in or enjoy longboarding. We’re all very easygoing and helpful to each other,” said member Thomas Sanner, a junior in LAS.

Besides being an “easygoing” group, the Illini Longboarding Club has finally put a long-term goal of theirs into action: a marathon event.

Ashida, a senior in Engineering, said that he and Michalowski were not sure what they wanted to do with the group at first, besides gathering people to ride around campus with.

“But after we got club discounts with popular longboarding companies, we came up with the idea of getting as many longboarders as we could support and longboarding for 12 miles,” Ashida said. “It just started as an idea in the back of our heads, but as the year went on it became more and more realistic.”

After talking to numerous skating sponsors and registering longboarders for the race, their idea has become reality. The event, titled Cruise for Cancer, is a 12-mile route including two circuit loops around the campus as well as some streets in Champaign, Michalowski said.

Two police cars will escort the riders and the entire route should take about an hour and a half to two hours total. About 90 people have registered to ride in the race.

The event will take place on Sunday, Sept. 19 at 1 p.m. and begins at Foellinger Auditorium. If it rains, the event will be pushed back to the following Sunday, Sept. 26.

All of the riders have donated $15 to register and numerous sponsors have donated money, as well as over $1,500 worth of merchandise for raffle. Most of the proceeds will be donated to the American Cancer Society.

The club has two meetings per week, one for beginners learning the basics of longboarding and one for more advanced students who want to hone their skills and learn new tricks.

Sanner said that the bi-weekly meetings include going out to a parking lot and showing one another new tricks. Riders are able to both help each other out and challenge each other, while also having fun.

Ultimately, the riders enjoy longboarding simply as a relaxing hobby.

“Longboarding is really free and it’s also a really good way to just kind of space out and relieve stress from the day,” Sanner said. “And it’s extremely exciting to be able to go out and complete a trick you’ve been working on for weeks.”

Anyone interested in contacting the club about the event can send an e-mail to [email protected].