Advice Section
Being skaters ourselves we can give you the best advice on any aspect of your set-up, or even tricks you are having trouble with.
If your problem isn't listest here you can always E-Mail us or call us on (023) 8071 0528.
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"These decks all look the same!" is something we hear a lot from parents and beginners , but there are big differences in skateboard decks, the main things are the Width, Concave, Nose/ Tail length and steepness.
Most decks are between 7.5 and 8.25 inches wide, the general rule is that thinner decks are easier to do flip tricks on and are good for smaller skaters, and wider decks are good for ramps/pools and larger skaters, having said that it is very much personal preference, and people such as Reskue team rider Greg Nowik skates pretty much just ramps, but skates a thin board. You will get a feel as to what is right for you after you have had a few decks but a good recommended starter size is about 7.75 for an average sized person.
The concave is designed to give better grip on the deck, and amounts of concave have varied greatly over the years and again it is personal preference, a highly concave deck would be quite grippy but is harder to get clearance from when doing flip tricks, so a lot of more technical skaters actually have quite flat boards. Beginners often think a concave deck is easier to flip, but this is more to do with poor technique of sliding your foot straight off the side of the board, rather than angled towards the nose.
While your deck is the "main" part of your set up, in terms of riding difference it is equally as important to have good trucks, we only sell good quality decks no matter the price, so buying a pro deck while getting cheap trucks is really a bad move, as your trucks really affect your ride as a whole, and with UK pro models from the likes of Death, Heroin and A Third Foot for £39.99, as well as bigger US brands sale models at the same price, you can pick up a really good deck and have money left for good trucks rather than getting a £50 deck and cheaper trucks. It is understandable that you may want the latest deck from your favourite pro but sacrificing good trucks in order to get it is definitely not the way to go! Maybe take a look at the truck advice to understand more the importance of good trucks.
We get asked a lot questions like "Which is the best deck?" or "Which deck has the most pop?" but in fairness these questions don’t make much sense. All decks, no matter which company are made of Canadian maple, this wood has been established as the best wood for skateboards as it grows quite quickly, is strong yet light, and it flexes just the right amount to provide pop, yet not be so stiff as to become brittle. When you first get a deck it will be stiffer than when you skate it for a while, and therefore have slightly more pop. But extra stiffness means it can break slightly easier if you jump down big gaps or stairs straight away, whereas after you skate a deck for a while it will soften up and have less pop but can just bend if you land badly on the tail, ask any skater that has been skating a long time and they will have had a deck that snapped quickly and one that seemed to last forever, this is not so much to do with the company but how you use it! If you always land your tricks over the bolts you shouldn’t ever snap a deck.
One factor that does affect the quality of a deck is the numbers in which they are made, decks are made by gluing seven thin plies together then placing them in a stack and pressing them in a pressure mould, they are then left while the glue hardens and they are then cut into shape.
Quality skateboards are made in stacks of up to 5 decks so they are all of high quality, if decks are made in numbers larger than this the pressure of the press would not be as great on the central decks of the stack, meaning the plies wouldn’t be bonded as well and the decks can be soggy and have little pop or are more likely to break, equally if they are allowed long enough to dry they will have less pop and a soggy feel, this is mostly a problem with mass produced or blank boards. Companies such as 5Boro press their decks one at a time so that you always get a real high quality deck.
For many years most decks were made in the USA or Canada, and the workers had many years experience in making decks, but with skateboarding getting so popular factories have been opened in China which mass produce decks in larger numbers, this can mean you are getting a poor quality deck if you don’t know what to look for.
Most decks have the country of origin stamped on the top saying either made in the USA or PRC (Peoples Republic of China) so you can make a decision as to where you want your deck to have been made.
In recent years some of the biggest names in skateboarding have opened factories in China but have trained workers correctly and so the quality of Chinese decks isn’t as bad as it was once considered, however all Reskue shop decks are still USA made, as well as companies we support such as Death, Heroin, Plan B, Crimson, 5Boro, Listen!, Consolidated, Alien workshop and Habitat.
All Zero, Mystery and Slave decks are made in Mexico with USA precision.
Companies such as Flip, Black Label and Birdhouse have decks made in the US and in China so that you have a choice, often the price point decks are the Chinese ones.
A Third Foot are the only British made skateboard decks, made in stacks of just three you are always going to get a quality deck with them, they are also the decks that our Skater Owned Shop boards are printed on!
The size of decks is not determined when they are pressed but after pressing when they are trimmed down to the correct size, some companies will use the same press for a thin board as they would for a wider board but all the Deluxe companies (Real, Anti Hero, Krooked) have different moulds for different size decks meaning the shapes are more consistent and a wider board is a genuinely scaled up version of a thinner one, and vice versa.
Unlike other products some of the money from deck sales goes directly to the pro, so if you like a particular skater it’s always good to support them and buy their board, rather than getting a blank or shop deck from a shop that doesn’t support skaters. When you buy a pro board it means they will have more opportunities to travel, film and progress skateboarding, for that reason we don’t sell blank decks as it’s a complete guess as to the quality of the board and it doesn’t support skateboarding, if everyone bought blank decks there would be no pro skaters and therefore no magazines and no videos to watch, so think about who you want to support next time you get a deck. |
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We here at Reskue like to offer all the different brands we can so you can make your own choice in what you want to ride, however the three best selling and most well established truck brands are Venture, Independent and Thunder. Most other trucks are simply poor copies of these, taking certain aspects of the designs that have been used by these companies for years. If you look at the teams of these three companies they often go into the hundreds, whereas other truck companies often only have a handful of skaters, this is because a lot of pros would rather receive free trucks from one of these companies than get paid to skate for one of the other smaller brands.
Ventures
Venture are the lightest, lowest and most responsive of the three and at a slightly lower price are the best selling truck for a starter board, boards with Ventures are really easy to learn new tricks on and are often the choice of a more technical, low impact skater. The venture team is huge and includes, PJ Ladd, Stevie Williams, Ryan Gallant and Stefan Janoski.
Venture come in both low and high but the lows are sold as standard and all of the pro colourways are lows.
Independent
Independent are the most well established of truck brands having been around since 1978, Indys are the strongest, best turning and best grinding truck available but they are also the heaviest, Indy are now on stage 9 of their evolution however and they have been getting lighter at every stage until now, where there is very little difference between Indy’s and the others. The Indy team has close to 200 pro riders including Danny Way, Geoff Rowley, Eric Koston, Andrew Reynolds and Chris Haslam.
Independent come quite high as standard which means you can skate bigger wheels and make tighter turns without wheelbite, great for the more burly hardcore skater but this seemed to put off tech skaters that would skate smaller wheels (the traditional Venture skater) with the recent introduction of the first low Indy however, the Koston signature truck, more and more people now ride Indy’s. They also come in a variety of widths to suit your board, 129’s for boards up to 7.75, 139’s for boards from 7.75 to 8.25 and 149’s for larger, most vert skaters ride Indy’s and they are also the only company to make a huge 215 truck which all the mega ramp skaters use, no matter which company they supposedly ride for!
Thunder
Thunders are considered a midway truck between an Indy and a Venture and have a slightly wider turning circle than Indy’s meaning they are slightly more stable, and therefore favoured by the manual lovers out there. Thunders come in a huge variety of pro colourways of different widths and heights, with the high and wide versions being a good alternative to Indys for people that skate wider boards. The team, like the others, is again huge with skaters like, Chris Cole, John Rattray, Marc Johnson and Mark Appleyard.
Other trucks that you might like to try are:
Ace
a new company that has been started by the old Independent team manager, based on an older Indy design that was believed by many to be the best, it has been slimmed down to make a good contender to the Indy crown.
Reflex
Reflex are predominantly a bearing and tool company but have recently released a good mid priced truck that is great for a starter board or those on a budget. |
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Your wheels are one of the most important parts of your set up, and difference in wheels can seriously effect the way your board skates. Skateboard wheels are not simply some plastic or cheap rubber whacked in a mould, they are made of urethane, which is a rubber with various chemical formulas added to make them wear, slide and grip differently, these formulas have been specifically developed with skateboarding in mind.
The main choice in skateboard wheels is the size, larger wheels will roll slightly smoother than small ones, but will be heavier. Technical skateboarders often have wheels between 49 and 54mm, more high impact street skaters have wheels from 54 to around 58mm, and vert, pool or park skaters 58mm plus.
The average size wheel sold world wide is 54mm, this is a good mid size for all types of skating, and is the size we recommend for a starter board.
As well as the size the width has a bearing on the ride of the board, a wider wheel will grip slightly better, but again be heavier due to the extra materials, so smaller wheels for more technical skating tend to be thin, and larger wheels that need grip in faster situations, like vert riding, tend to be wider.
Another important aspect of your wheels is the durometer, which is the hardness of the wheels, going up numerically and starting at around 70a for really soft wheels.
Wheels used to come quite soft for a nice smooth ride, but with most skaters progressing to doing tricks that slide on your wheels the average hardness for skating is now 99a, some wheels come slightly harder at around 101a, which makes them slightly less grippy and even more prone to slide. This makes tricks like tail/nose slides, bluntslides and lipslides slide easier, but rolling grip is slightly lost, you basically trade one off against the other.
While most wheels are the same hardness throughout, cored or dual durometer wheels are also available. In the case of dual durometer wheels it means a softer compound can be used for the outer riding surface, giving better grip, and a harder compound is used for the core, meaning less rebound through the wheel, so in theory you have the advantages of both a softer and hard wheel
Cored wheels work in a same way but also save weight, as they can have air or spoked cores. They often use the same hardness of urethane as standard wheels, but as the wheel can only compress to the core they appear harder, and can slide better.
Colours and graphics can effect peoples choice in buying wheels, but the graphics come off quite quickly after skating, and lot of skaters prefer their wheels clean, so ride them backwards without any graphics showing. Most wheels come in an off white natural colour, but many colour options are available, it was believed that adding colour pigment to wheels affected the hardness, so not many skaters used to use coloured wheels. But formulas have been constantly improving and colour doesn’t seem to have a noticeable effect anymore.
The three main problems you can get with wheels are flat spots, coning, and discolouration.
Flatspots occur when your wheels slide without rolling and therefore wear at one point in the wheel, rather than equally over the wheel , this leaves a flat spot that creates a noisy and uncomfortable ride, especially on smooth surfaces. Unfortunately flat spots are created by the way in which you skate the wheels and not through any sort of manufacturer fault. Some companies claim their wheels have a no flatspot guarantee but this really is impossible to achieve.
Coning occurs due to turning which wears out one side quicker than the other, making your wheels look like cones, this can easily be remedied by swapping your wheels to opposite corners now and again. So bottom right to top left etc.
Discolouration happens over time and can’t be helped, your wheels can turn a nasty yellow colour and don’t look very nice, getting your wheels wet can make discolouration happen far quicker though, and can also soften your wheels slightly so stay out of the rain! |
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A common question we are asked at Reskue is about ABEC ratings, put simply these do not apply to skateboarding, to understand why click HERE
By far the best bearings available for skateboarding are Bones Swiss at £44.99 they do seem pricey, but they could save you money in the long term: I have had a set of swiss for around four years without any problems, whereas i used to buy a set of standard price bearings around every three months, with this in mind riding swiss actually saved me spending about £120 that i would have spent on standard bearings over time.
As a cheaper alternative to Swiss, Bones also produce Reds, made to the same spec as Swiss but in China instead of Switzerland, making them around a third of the price of Swiss. Reds are probably our best selling bearing.
Powell also offer a Mini Logo bearing as a budget alternative to Bones which is built specifically for skateboarding and is a good bearing for a starter board.
We get asked a lot about Bones Ceramics, at well over £100 ceramic bearings are well outside most peoples price range, the advantage of having ceramic bearings is basically two things, ceramic parts do not heat up as quickly as metal which can happen after a long period of time at a fast rotation, these speeds are only really reached by professional downhill racers, and regular trick based skateboarders are not likely to notice any difference to regular Swiss. The second difference is that ceramic parts do not rust, but you shouldn't skate in the wet anyway is it can damage your deck.
Put simply ceramics just aren't worth it for high impact trick based skateboarding, and in fact there have been reports that they break quicker than regular Swiss in high impact situations, so... racing = yes, regular skating = no!
get some new wheels instead if you want to feel faster! |
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