Mountainboarding the summer equivalent of snowboarding?

I read an issue of Whitelines magazine a couple of years ago. In it the authors compared various sports to snowboarding and somehow came out with the conclusion that mountain biking is the summer time alternative to snowboarding. Whilst I love mountain biking and think it is an amazing sport and wish I had more time to spend on a bike, the reality is that it does not really have all that much in common with snowboarding. The best I can see is that the trails in the alps make great mountain bike tracks in summer. The sports themselves really do not bear any resemblance in terms of the look or feel.

I have were to choose alternatives it would be longboarding or mountainboarding. Both involve going down slopes or hills using gravity to propel us. Longboarding bears less resemblance but it is widely available to most of us and has the strong carving element to it. On top of that, it makes little sense to keep trekking out to the mountain ranges at great expense when there is no snow unless you truly love the mountains in summer too. Alpine roads make for advanced level longboarding however.

Mountainboarding is easier to compare to snowboarding. The movements are very similar and your feet are still strapped in like with snowboarding. The carving sensation is slightly different due to having wheels instead of an edge but it is not a huge leap. Mountainboarding has now evolved to become a sport of its own and progressed to running a series of events in many different countries. The World Downhill Championships are currently run in France, and the World Freestyle Championships are run in the UK. The top riders such as Tom Kirkman are now doing pretty much the same moves as snowboarders however the amplitude is not at the same level. The lower resistance on snow allows snowboarders to travel much faster and therefore perform larger jumps.