Chrimbo buying guide 🎁🌲🎅

This blog post is aimed at being a bit of a buyers guide for your skate groms and gromettes this Christmas, so mainly aimed at parents. We get asked a lot for advice on "What's the best..." or "Is this one any good..." etc, so hopefully this can be a one stop shop for the info.

Completes:

A popular choice for a first skateboard is the 'complete.' Everything you need in one package, and hassle free, right? The problem can often be quality. Some companies supply toy skateboards to big retailers, that are never meant to last or be used in a skatepark really. Other companies often scrimp on some of the components to have an attractive price to new skateboarders, and those components may need replacing after just a few uses.

Common issues include: Trucks that don't turn making balancing hard; wheels made of cheap plastic that offer no grip; bearings that make the board slow and wobbly etc etc

Best advice is to buy from a skater owned skateshop or skatepark (S.O.S). They won't sell junk, and stand on their reputation. Smyths, JD Sports etc just won't have a clue!

We've seen a fair few completes come and go at the skate school and can recommend Fracture, Enuff, Element, Santa Cruz brands. A whole skateboard for under £50 is not going to have a good enough overall quality so its also a good sign if the complete is over this price point.

Here's a few of ours:

Skateboard Decks:

Perhaps one of the quickest components to wear out and need replacing is the deck.

There are all sorts of sizes and shapes out there, but the most important measurement to any skater is the width. Measured in inches and ranging from 7.75" to 9 or 10" the width of the board can affect how it flips, spins and feels underfoot. Street techy skaters usually prefer a thinner lighter board, whilst big ramp skaters prefer a wider board for more stability and grip. Most popular sizes for teen riders would be 8" to 8.5" and it's quite easy to sneakily measure the width of your skaters current board to let Santa know what they ride 😉.

You can try and slyly ask what their favourite skate brand or pro skateboarder is, as this will help narrow things down a bit for you. Decks usually cost in the region of £40 - £60 with special shapes or limited editions going up to £90 each.

We stock a small selection of boards as well as making our own, all at an accessible price and include griptape (£25 - £35 inc Grip)

Stocking Fillers:

So that's some of the big things, but you might only be wanting to get some little stocking filler stuff, what then?

Well theres lots of smaller fun items perfect for a skateboarder. Heres some of ours:

Wax (£4), tech decks (£4.50), hand-boards (£10), bearings (from £9 up to £40) are all low cost and fun little gifts. Vouchers for nearby indoor skateparks (Campus £10), Canvas belts (usually £15-£25) and laces (£2/3) are also usually very welcomed.

Trucks:

Trucks usually last a long time, unless your skater is out grinding for miles or needs to upgrade their previous 'complete' branded ones.

As with boards, its all about the width and matching it to the deck. Unfortunately the skate industry hasn't got a universal way of measuring trucks yet, with some measuring the hangar (bit between the wheels), others including the axels, and some just using an arbitrary number that means nothing?! Helpful! They can also be wildly different prices with starter brands being £20 a pair, up to market leaders Independent trucks costing £70 per pair!

Below are some size guides that can be used to make sure you get the right width:

Wheels:

Lastly we come to the wheels. To keep things simple, theres really just two things to consider: The diameter, usually measured in millimeters (the Americans just can't decide imperial or metric!) and most common sizes are 50-56mm; the second thing to consider is how hard the polyurethane formula is, soft wheels have more grip and hard wheels are faster. If your skater likes indoor wooden parks they'd probably prefer a 97-99a, if outdoor concrete is their thing you can go higher, and if they want to hit long distances and super rough stuff its jelly soft 78a - 92a. Wheels can come in at a variety of price points but the average cost of some decent wheels is about £40, with market leaders Spitfires costing up to £60 per set.

Some wheel makers provide different shapes too. These have a number of pros and cons like helping to lock in to grinds better and this little guide from Spitfire helps explain the lingo

We hope this info has helped, and not just muddied the water! We're always open to give impartial advice, ask sneaky questions to your young people about fav brands, and help if we can so if you need a bit more info (or a bit less) email us: theboardingschoolsk8@gmail.com or pop into a session and say Hi!

If you've seen anything in our modest shop and want it posted or packaged discreetly, just let us know.

Many thanks and happy Christmas from everyone here at The Boarding School!