BILLINGS — “It’s like flying,” Pat Byrd says.

He’s talking about skateboarding.

“It’s unexplainable; it’s the best feeling in the world. We literally defy gravity.”

The 28-year-old recently went pro for Folio, a skateboard company owned by former Billings resident and skater Victor Hernandez of Missoula. Hernandez used to own Boanerges skateboard shop in downtown Billings.

A 1998 Senior High graduate, Byrd is part of the Folio team that consists of mostly Montana residents and one North Dakotan.

“We’ve got a really unique team,” Byrd said. “Everyone has their own styles. That’s just something you don’t see too much these days.”

Byrd started skateboarding in 1991, borrowing the board of a friend.

“On my way to basketball practice, I’d stop and mess around on his board,” he said. “I thought it was a cool sport — individual, no coaches telling you what to do.”

Then in his early teens, Byrd became a true aficionado.

“I just started skating basically every day,” he said. “Just started and couldn’t stop.”

Thanks to his unbreakable habit, Byrd will travel to Barcelona, Spain, on Tuesday, to film a video for Folio. He’s looking forward to the trip, because skaters have free run of the streets in Spain.

“It’s legal over there,” he said. “It’s the skateboard capital of the world.”

Hernandez has featured Byrd in films before, in projects called “Sons of Thunder” and “Project 1.” The two have been friends since high school.

Although he did win a competition in Missoula this past summer, Byrd doesn’t compete a lot.

“To each his own, I guess,” he said.

He keeps in shape by skating five to 25 hours a week. He’s not a big fan of the Billings skate park, describing skating there as “monotonous.”

“Think of golf,” he said. “It’s like golfing the same golf course every day and you get a ticket if you golf somewhere else.”

So Byrd hits the streets, mostly downtown and on the West End. Sometimes he skates alone, sometimes with friends, many of them buddies from his high school days.

“Basically, everyone that I skated with still does it,” he said. But not all of them take skateboarding quite as seriously as Byrd does.

“I don’t look at it as a hobby,” he said. “I look at it as my exercise. It’s what keeps a smile on my face. It helps me out mentally tremendously. If I didn’t skate, I’d probably be dead by now.

“It’s the hardest sport I’ve ever tried, and I’ve tried everything except for hockey,” he added. “People say football is hard. Try falling on pavement for 17 years.”

Byrd does have hobbies: He loves woodworking and painting, and being outdoors, backpacking, fly-fishing and hunting.

And although he’s gone pro as a skater, Byrd has kept his job at Mountain Mudd, where he works in fabrication.

“I fix the machines, build the kiosks, do all the maintenance,” he said. “You name it, I’ve done it.”

Byrd used to travel quite a bit for his job, which gave him the opportunity to take his board out on unfamiliar streets.

“I almost get depressed if I don’t do it,” he said. “If I don’t get on my board for a couple of days, I go kind of stir crazy. I just love it. It’s my second love in this world.”

His first love is his family: his fiancée, Dana, a 2-year-old daughter, Ava, and a baby on the way. His daughter is why he gave up traveling, for the most part.

“I remember specifically coming back one time and her hair had grown while I was gone, and I thought, ‘It’s not worth it,’ ” he said.

The 10 days in Spain won’t be as bad, Byrd thinks.

“It’ll go by so fast,” he said. “It’s going to be work, but it’s the best work in the world.”