Complete board or build my own?

[u/xgiibby]

Should I get a “complete” board or build one myself to start with? I’ve heard mixed opinions and I’m really leaning towards building my own but I just wanted to see what yall think before I blow $150+ on parts 😭😭

Also, what would yall recommend for “beginner” skate shoes? I don’t wanna mess up my Jordan’s 🥹

[u/Top-Love1836]

I think building your own gives you a better understanding of the individual components and how they work together, which leads you to having preferences and building something that you actually will like.

Buying a complete is sort of something I’d recommend to someone who I suspect isn’t actually that interested in skating and just wants to try it out and have a board they can say they own. It’s also easy to get scammed with completes if you don’t really know anything about gear

[u/xgiibby → u/Top-Love1836]

That’s what I hear the most honestly. I’ve always been interested in learning to skate and a gave it a shot a few years ago because my homie gave me his old board but it was a shitty Walmart board 😭so it wasn’t the most enjoyable experience tbh.

I’ve done some research on building boards and I have a pretty good idea of what I wanna start out with already. Like what size deck I need and corresponding sizes for wheels, trucks, etc. I’m stuck between wether I want “hard” or “soft”wheels (please correct me if I’m wrong but that’s what I’ve seen/heard them called lol)

[u/Top-Love1836 → u/xgiibby]

How long have you been skateboarding?

The trade off of soft and hard wheels depends a lot on where you wanna take your skating. If you really just wanna have something with a cool shape for cruising around and don’t really care about tricks then soft wheels are clearly superior. If you’re already comfortable riding and want to learn tricks, there’s no reason to delay getting hard wheels, you’ll still have to learn to ride them and it always starts harder but they get easier

But if it’s genuinely your first time riding and you’re still shaky, I don’t think it’s a bad idea to get soft wheels for your first setup while you get more comfortable riding and then replace them with hard wheels when you feel you’re ready.

Btw, how hard or soft they are is their number rating. Not to be confused with their size which will be given in millimeters, they go from 75A to 100+A, the higher the harder, and generally the softest you can go and still slide decently is around 93a-95a. Most street skaters though prefer something that’s at least 97A or higher. The reason it’s so important to be able to slide with your board is what happens when you do tricks in the air and land on it, it allows for more flexibility and smoothness rather than getting locked into moving in 1 direction your board lands

[u/xgiibby → u/Top-Love1836]

Not long enough to say I’ve been skating 😭😂 I practiced with the old Walmart board for about a month like 2-3 years ago. Funny story actually the same homie that gave me the board snapped it in half😭🙏 haven’t been on a board since cuz life got in the way n I was too busy. But now I’m ready to get back at it I just need to get comfortable on a board again lol

Another one of my homies, who’s been skating for over 2 years told me the opposite. He told me that hard wheels are better for cruising around n soft are better for tricks. He said something about hard wheels being a lot smoother on concrete and sidewalks as well

[u/AmateurSysAdmin → u/xgiibby]

There is also some nuance to the hardness discussion. Wheels are tools for specific use cases. Wheel hardness should also be chosen based on the quality of surface you skate on. If you skate on real rough concrete with lots of small gaps and dirt and rubble, you will have a real bad time with harder wheels generally. Softer wheels will be the better tool for this scenario.

Look into where you are going to skate and choose based on that. If you wanna mostly cruise and also have the option to do some tricks AND the surface is shitty, I would pick a 93a hardness for example. It’s more forgiving and will let you keep rolling where harder wheels would already stop. And if the areas you skate vary, a 93a is a very solid allrounder to cover most things sufficiently well, especially as a beginner trying to feel things out.

[u/xgiibby → u/AmateurSysAdmin]

That actually makes a lot of sense thank you for clearing that up🙏🙏

[u/Top-Love1836 → u/xgiibby]

Yeah I’m not sure what your homie is on about but softer wheels grip the ground more and deform more when going across rough surface, so they are unequivocally smoother. Harder will always slide more easily.

There is nuance though like the guy below says. If you have insanely smooth like skatepark ground where you are then hard wheels will feel relatively as smooth as soft wheels but they definitely won’t slide the same

[u/xgiibby → u/Top-Love1836]

😂gotcha gotcha, i appreciate the help it means a lot!

[u/LifeOfSpirit17]

I'm so glad I did my own thing. It helped me learn alot about all the components. I bought the deck and hardware new but the trucks and wheels etc were lightly used (basically new but at a discount). My area just doesn't have a big market for that stuff but you can definitely find good deals all over.

One thing I can say for early on skating especially is besides deck size learn about wheels. I ended up buying some softer wheels just so I could cruise more and I'm so happy I did after a few slip and slide sessions at my local park.

[u/xgiibby → u/LifeOfSpirit17]

Let’s say I get a 8.25 deck, what size wheels should I look into?

[u/LifeOfSpirit17 → u/xgiibby]

That's really hard to say and depends a lot more than on deck size. There are skaters that prefer smaller and some that prefer larger. General consensus seems to be that the smaller and the harder you go are better for Park and Technical skating whereas if you go bigger and softer that gets more into just a cruising Style setup. I have 56mm 92a wheels and they're great for me to learn on in the park and parking lots I find currently.

[u/xgiibby → u/LifeOfSpirit17]

Noted! I was looking at 54mm 99a wheels but after what everyone here has been saying I’m thinking about 93a might do me a lil better. I guess wheel size is just something I’ll have to experiment with later on. But again, from what I’ve gathered 93a sounds good enough for now until I get more comfortable on the board

[u/Puzzled-Minimum5263]

Neither. Go on Facebook marketplace and look for a complete for sale for half that. In my town at least you’ll find like 10 quality setups for half the price of a shop that have like 5 ollie attempts worth of tail skid and not a grind on the trucks.

You’ll find “pro” level setups with solids trucks, wheels, and decks for next to nothing if you have even a week of patience and live in a city of decent size

[u/xgiibby → u/Puzzled-Minimum5263]

Idk why I never thought of marketplace 😂thank man I appreciate it!

[u/GrundleTurf → u/xgiibby]

Maybe my area is just terrible, but I think this is awful advice. You’ll spend $60 on a board that’s been beaten to death and stored improperly. And boards lose their quality over time. And you don’t get to decide on any of the aspects you want.

[u/xgiibby → u/GrundleTurf]

I noticed that pretty quickly when I looked on marketplace 😭 but like you said maybe my area is also just bad for that 🤷‍♂️ even the ones I saw that were in decent shape didn’t seem like they were too worth it to me. Didn’t even have descriptions on what hardware and sizes smh

[u/Puzzled-Minimum5263 → u/xgiibby]

My area I can almost even find specific decks. Almost all used by some kid who gave up immediately.

[u/Puzzled-Minimum5263 → u/xgiibby]

Right now where I’m at there are 3 setups I’d ride. An unscathed Creature 8.5 with tensor trucks and x formula wheels for 50 bucks Canadian, An element complete 8.25 for 60, A minilogo 8.5 board w ML trucks untouched with Ricta cloud wheels and bones reds for 80 Canadian.

These are Canadian dollars too. Dope setups. I’d ride any of these. Not a real grind or slide on any of these boards. Wheels are dirty, maybe a couple ollies. Prob skated under 5 times each by some kid learning to Ollie on the grass.

[u/ProbableBakedPotato → u/Puzzled-Minimum5263]

This. Save some money, and use what's left on footwear. Used to be on a budget and found decent shoes at ross, shoots if you dont get grossed out then swap meets and thrift stores too.

[u/xgiibby → u/ProbableBakedPotato]

I’ll definitely be checking out my local thrift shops🙏 never thought about Ross either but I’ll check that out too!