How to Buy Your First Skateboard

Buying your first skateboard can be overwhelming, here we break down all the parts of a board, and what you need to check for to make sure you're getting good quality.

[chrisxshock]

I bought my first board in 94 at the best local shop at the time, I remember the experience to this day! I got back into skating at 36 because my kids are really into it, I can't be the dad watching at the skate park! I felt like a complete newbie again when it came to getting a board set up, after skating for almost 20 years and taking a decade hiatus. Hey, I'm older, slower, ... bigger. So, we went down to the local shop and it was so much fun! My 3 kids had so much fun, they got us all set up. I spent a fuck ton, but, hey support your local shop! No, in all seriousness that's my own fault for upgrading everything for my own board... don't tell mom. 🤐🤣😅

[antoniodal]

I started skating in the late 80s and every pro had a particular shape, so every board was a whole different deal, but we really were more into graphics, like the santa cruz corey o'brien (the skeleton with the fireball) was a dream board, also very popular was rob roskopp's decomposing face deck. For the first board i was 12 y.o. i went with my father to this skate shop in my city naples (italy) called crazy surf and i got a powell peralta steve saiz (it looked pretty little so more 'manageable' to me), indy trucks and powell bright green bones wheels that were HUGE but didn't felt inappropriate at the time, and yellow rails, there was in the shop all the squad of sponsored guys i idolized at the time (then like an year later i skated regularly with them and had a shop sponsoring me too), and my father when i had to pay started to say out loud 'try to get a discount! Try to get a discount!' I was in a storm of shame, all the cool sponsored guys there hearing and i was there like a moron with my dad wanting to look cool it was pretty painful. At the time i remember i thinked that if you were sponsored by a shop you could take all the stuff you wanted for free, even clothes, then when i got sponsored my deal was that i had a free board at the beginning and then only a discount on board trucks wheels and stuff, then it ended after like a year because I wasn't really promoting the shop and taking people to buy stuff there. The deck i loved the most among all the boards i had was a blind henry sanchez two girls heads, idk why i think because it felt so 'new era' to me at the time

[bootkillerrr]

Y’all have 768 videos with 76.8k subs, love when numbers line up like that and great content

[d_trick]

Poor Andy got the short end of the stick for the meme on target boards, even though his video was about not buying target boards lol.

[ImageMaven]

Great info here. Every skate club in the country needs to share it with their members. I started with a “custom” complete and slowly upgraded it as my needs and skills changed. Now I like a fresh deck every year because it’s fun to skate new deck designs. I usually ride my trucks for 2-3 years though.

[skflip]

I’m 40 and probably bought and built 100 completes since I was 12 but I still enjoyed this.

[jimizxztheorginal]

R/newskaters needed this video desperately

[DTC]

@1:17 you misspelled RAD

Happy New Year, Levi!

[NYRAD]

Awesome vid as always, hardest thing is truck sizes 🤣😂 Much Love ❤️🛹🤘🏻🇿🇦

[dadboard]

Back in the nineteen hundred and nineties we would have to go on a vision quest in the woods as adolescents. After days of fasting and being driven to the edge of madness through ritual plant medicine as well as sleep deprivation, we would be shown to a tree which then had to be cut down using a bone saw with a handle made of iguana skin and fox hide. There we would fashion our perfect shape. Fine tuning the wheelbase and concave in accordance with the ways of our ancestors. After 7 days we would emerge from the forest with a sick new complete.

[Aluenvey]

What kind would I need for not quite cruising or skate?

Ive been thinking about blending surf and freestyle.

[Skatewolf-]

Cool video very informative and we always shop local

[peruredaemonicus]

Bronx wheels, a german brand, not really tested by myself but so far so good... 😎

[SolarDNA]

I've been shopping my local since 1996. I've never bought boards or shoes from anywhere else. Shoutout to Cheapskates.

[icantollie]

Why are deck widths measured in inches while wheel diameters measured in mm?
Also why are street truck widths measured in inches while longboard truck widths are measured in mm 🤔

[deviantlife]

Damn man… this is a legit great/helpfull vid. All bidness. I feel bad doing this but Levi wearing a “hockey” hat is exactly what nobody asked for. Except for Canadians. Oh wait….. whoops

[jaded]

Popical boards are not all the same both ends.
Yes you can get popical boards that are but most have a nose and a tail end and the nose is longer, not by much but it is on most decks and the degree the tail end is to the nose is diffent too.

He failed to say anything about the pressing number too.
They press decks in stacks of 5 and where your deck is will determine whether it is a shallow concave or not.
The pressing orders are genrally stamped in near your nose end, just above the hardwear holes for your trucks.

If you have trouble telling your nose from your tail, locate the stamp befor you put your grip tape on and an old trick is to put a slap of paint on one of the bolts or put a diffent colour bolt or a phillips head bolt if the rest are hex bolts in at your nose end so you are skating your board the right way round at a glance and you can set up your trucks to have the nose and the tail at diffent tighnesses to your preference.

Oh and 1 inch hardwear is more for if you have riser plates and genrally to long and with bearings, dont bother spending much on them as the ABEC is compleatly over rated.
Its only relevent when using them in machines and the difference between a ABEC3 ( that tony halk genrally uses ) and a ABEC 7 is less that a hair in intolarent.
As a beginner, just get cheap sealed units so you dont have to manitance them if you get a bit of dirt or water on them.
They can last you 12 months easy without pulling them apart all the time to clean and re lube them and they are so cheap that tossing them in the bin when they are dead is way easier, cost eficant and labour saving than spending the money on over hyped products being pushed on channels like this.
The only time you should spend good money on bearings is if your deicated to doing the matinace and that can be every second time you go for a spin depending on the environment.
Even the bones swiss and Bronson ceramics get crap in them that make them crunchy quick that can be disheartening after thinking you have bought a quality product yet they can and will fail if your getting water or rubish in them .

Its a shame when information aimed at beginners is incorrect or aimed at a gullible audiance as when a skater progresses this information matters and the wrong information can make progression slower and harder making new skaters lose interest because one minute there skating right side round and the next they are skating nolly and the board will feel diffent but they wont know why or they might get some sand in their bearings and think its the quality of the bearings not the conditions they put them though and next day spending good money for more of the same.

Lets not dumb it down unless this is aimed at 10 yos.
Give credit where credit is due and not fill peoples heads with crap from the get go .

As just one example that dosent get kick backs for name dropping.

[ghostpopper]

universal language and 100% understandable - people that haven't started yet will have a clear idea, Thank*You, G!

[eliberdinner]

I'm a relatively big guy (6'1" 250lb) and have never really ridden a skateboard before. Would you recommend going for a 9-10" board for just getting used to cruising around the neighborhood?

[ZurgeOnVR]

I bought a skate board from Walmart and it barely rolled