I just started skating at 36 this year and videos like this really helps! Thank you for taking the time to make this video. I know how much works it takes to make these videos so I appreciate your time and effort! I’m a commercial banker by day and it was always my goal to learn how to skateboard! So hard and rewarding!
best rule about your old skate gear is once you're done with it give it to someone who needs it theres always that one dude at the park with his deck chipped and waterlogged to hell with no nose and tail trucks ground the axel and dude not even got wheels he just got bearing covers i just give my old shit to who ever looks like they'd need it my old gear is wasted sitting in my room when theres other less fortunate skaters who'd actually get some use out of our old stuff we think isn't good enough for us
He just said that boards mellow out over time. We all need to give up the madness shit. He’s right, just ride the stuff you like and know works and stick with it for as long as you can
@@stevensepic. I don’t think one should take my comment as being anything more than a nice use of the word ’madness’ on Ben’s own raised topic of his truck madness.
I’m about the same. 2 months is what they usually last me until this Monarch Project that I’ve been riding. I set it up in October! And it’s still in good shape. What I do with my old boards and wheels is that I donate them to a friend that has an organization in which she takes complete skateboards to kids in developing countries. She keeps good track of everything so you know where your boards went to. Pretty cool stuff
Few things for me! It’s so awesome being an old skater now to appreciate the things you spoke of. Having new Boards is a huge luxury, my inner child Rejoices. Absolutely right about changing your board when it affects your skating, I didn’t wanna change my board because there wasn’t much time left in the season last year and so I wanted to save my fresh one for this spring. Well I hung up on a box with that soggy board and hurt my ribs for that last month of the season. Haha wouldn’t have happened with fresh wood! Me too tho having the option to change boards when I was younger wasn’t a thing, it was whenever you got gifted one or something. Boards just destroyed, I literally wouldn’t be able to nail tricks because my board held me back haha. Can’t wait to setup a fresh one soon! Cheers
Definitely with you on just skating what you love and not feeling the need to skate the AF1s/Lurpiv’s etc. Like don’t get me wrong I really enjoyed the reviews and hearing your thoughts on all the little details with every part of a skateboard, but it for sure brought in unwanted madness that you yourself don’t need & madness that I never used to have before watching you 😂 slowly trying to get out of it and just skate what I already have instead of being too eager to try something new
I know what you mean about getting new boards. I got back into skating @ 48 after a long brake (20 years) . Ended up with a vert 9 inch and a 8.5 flight for street. Going to put together a classic reissue Cab for pushing around as my rehab (recovering from broken ankle). Having some disposable income is dangerous in the local skate shop. I enjoy your videos. keep up the good work.
I have been skating emoji impact light and Powell flight decks for couple years now. The carbon fiber layer helped them retain their shape and pop for years. I noticed when I would skate a maple board even after sitting in my garage for 6 months it would lose its pop. I don’t break board and only skate at my manual pad, handrail, and mini ramp. So I didn’t want replace my deck every 6 months when they looked brand new, but felt soggy. So even though those decks are more expensive, I can skate them for years and in turn save money and enjoy skating more. Thanks for the vid Ben!
Damn Ben. You keep me motivated to keep skating even in my mid 30s working 50-60 hours a week. It’s hard to find time to skate but man when I do I make the best of it.
Dude your videos continue to educate me even though I’ve been skating for over 20 years. You seem to think of and cover it all. Now that I’m 38 years old I’m not thrashing boards like I used to but definitely noticed the soggy/flatness after switching out a not so thrashed deck for an identical one the other day. I could immediately feel the steepness. And yes my tricks had more pop and were cleaner/easier. Keep the videos coming!
Yes! i have always wanted a video on this topic. I love skating my board till it snaps but i know the back of my head that i would probably enjoy riding a fresh deck!
Those 1010s look great on you Ben! I have a three month plan where I’ll ride a board for three months before getting a new one. Four boards a year in an attempt to save money
love your videos. you' re so inspiring. I left skateboarding when i was about 17yo because I thought i was also to old cus´ all my friends stopped skateboarding. Then one day I pick up my board again at 27yo and i´ve never stop skating since. I´m 37 btw
Yo mate been watching thru your videos past wee while as ive got back into skating, finding allot of your explanations very helpful. Would love to see a part 2 for ollies about putting them into practice, jumping onto and off of stuff. Cheers from Scotland
If you think about how much a quarter inch (6mm) of flattening of the kicks makes, it's actually enormous. Imagine how big of a difference there is in pop feel between a 55mm truck and a 52mm truck. Now double that. Or 48mm wheels and 60mm wheels.
Excellent conclusions 🤗 I'm so glad I was never good enough to ever really be affected by 'the madness'. These days I'm so old and rubbish a deck will happily last me a few years, and this is something that I am so comfortable with..! BTW, thanks for the point about where decks sit in their stack in the press; I'd been trying to remember which way round it goes, like 'steep kicks at the top or bottom of the pile..?' 👍
Perfect timing , my board is an about the same condition as yours but my tail feels soggy. I was on the fence about setting up a new deck since my current deck is in good shape from skating smooth parks this past few months. I think I will go ahead and swap to a new deck.
Teenage me would also be super stoked at my current setups. I've probably got 7 completes of all shapes and sizes now. No decks in reserve (which always worries me) but I'm definitely in a good place considering I used to skate a deck until it was in two pieces.
I've always had the same problem , just ride it till the board basically won't get pop off the ground . And then I will just skate transition till I get my hands on a board lol 😆
For me, it's usually every 2-3 months, I tend to actually run my board as long as possible through November - whenever winter ends lol. Fortunate enough that I can afford boards and buy them so frequently whenever I feel like I need to switch it out
Only noticed this bc I worked at a shop & spent too much time staring at stacks of new boards: the quarter inch gap you're seeing at 3:40 is largely bc the bottom board is shrink-wrapped. it you try it after unwrapping it you'll notice it much less. PS Thanks for explaining the 1-4 scale on dlx boards! I had no idea that was a thing and I'm all excited to go pick out a 4 now 😂
For me, I try to skate my boards until I wear through about 3 plies. Then I give them away on Craigslist or at the skatepark. I find 3 plies is a good compromise between when it starts negatively affecting my skating but still has plenty of life for a beginner.
That’s a little too soon I know not everyone can do this comfortably but I skate my board until I’m through 5 plies then swap the trucks around and skate the nose until I’m through 5 plies of that. I can’t justify spending 40-70 bucks every 2 weeks on a new deck lol P.s. I also sand the tail down flat to remove the sharpness a few times. It gets a little smaller but I learned to work with it
When i was a teenager i had the worst board in the skatepark, it got so bad i had to ride trucks from different brands for a while. As soon as i was 18, i got a job and first thing i did was buy a complete lol. Now more than 25 years later, i have a pile of new boards waiting to be skated, i still skate them for at least 3 months, but at the end of 3 months they are still usable and in good shape, so good that i would have loved to skate one of those anytime when i was teenager. So i give away my boards to a couple of kids at the park, but these kids wont set them up!!! They rather skate their shitty boards until they break for some reason, id tell them, "dont worry dude, i have more boards, just set it up if you break it come and see me ill give you another one" and yet they still refuse to use those decks. In the last year i also gave away trucks, shoes, knee pads, hardware, wheels, i advise everyone to check decks at your local park and support kids with shitty boards. Most of them have parents like mine, they hated skateboarding, but if only they knew skateboarding saved my life and got the best life lessons from it they would have changed their mind.
If the weather is dry. I skate at least 5 times a week for maybe 2 hours a day. I normally swap out a deck after around 2 months. Just to try out something different like Shape, size etc..... but also if the board starts to feel soggy. Same for shoes 2 to 3 months.
Almost has super sap boards which are made with recycled glue. they also do single deck pressing. i love the 8 ply impact boards because i skate tech and curbs all day so they last forever and stay really stiff.
Been thinking about the wasteful side of things too lately, been thinking I could try having two set ups? Fresh board for tech stuff, and then when it’s gone soggy, swap it over to a transition set up. Hopefully by that time, your old transition board is absolutely smashed. It’s more money up front but I think it’d make everything last longer over time 🤷♀️
I’m trying the same thing with shoes, at the start of the year I grab a heap of them on sale, and now I alternate between them all instead of having just one pair that gets all the abuse. See how I go, it’s only the start of the year.
I started riding 2 setups, an 8.5 for street with smaller wheels, and a 8.75 for gnarly transition with bigger wheels. Right now I'm thinking about just riding a 8.5 because I'm now maintaining 2 setups and it's twice as expensive. I'm 44 so I can afford it but it's getting old every 2 months buying new decks and whatever else I need. Like right now I need 2 sets of wheels, 1 board and new bearings. When I could swap between the two and just get new wheels and a board and have one fresh setup. I have several pairs of ground down trucks and old bones swiss bearing I could just clean and have a garbage deck setup but I like fresh setups. I always also like to buy new wheels with a new board. I flatspot my wheels like crazy any brand too. I'm babbling but I will go back to 2 setups in a few months. Just because I love 159s for transition skating.But like a smaller board for flip tricks and tech skating. It's a trade off really. I grew up in 80s vert skating then went through the 90s into street skating some I'm a little of both.
@@AndySo2000 yeh man, I been skating a 8:5 custom deck i made for a while now, it's still got a lot of life in it but I'm thinking I might got back to a 8:25 to see if my knee/ankle doesn't hurt so much for flicking, hence two set ups. Plus I just get bored with the same board sometimes haha I don't go through wheel and trucks very fast, just bearings for some reason (humidity maybe?) See how I go I guess
You should give your old boards that are in good shape to young skaters. theirs a bin of old skate decks at my local skatepark for kids who's decks are falling apart
Last year when I started skateboarding again at 43 years old I jumped on my 12 year old setup lol. I actually rode it for 3 weeks intil I said maybe I need a new setup🤣 once I had the new stuff I said omg what was I thinking. If I skate every morning for a hour before work a month seems to be the limit for a deck. I also love deluxe boards
This video actually explains why you should give up the setup madness. Especially how at a certain skill level you really need to be used to your setup. What kinda threw me off though was the fact that you were riding Thunders in this video lol. Btw your bag of tricks is sick.
When I skated as a kid it got to the point I would get a new board every week after skating for like 7 years. In those early years I wore my boards out. I skated from 87-97. Then I started skating again over 2 years ago and I notice that I don't particularly love deluxe boards. The wood seems different, and they get weak pretty fast. I started skating madness decks like a year ago and really like their steeper kicks and dwindle boards are actually different in that every board is the same and not the 1-5 lottery. I also really like quasi decks but I'm not sure how ps stix is making his decks nowadays, but its been one of my favorite decks. I skate 8.5" and 8.75" on transition, so I'm on the bigger board end. Don't get me wrong I want to love anti hero and real, and I love krooked. but I've never been that impressed with the quality. I also prefer bones over spitfire, which I don't get why spitfire are considered the best. I've bought a few sets and I can't stand how slick 101a is with spitfires I really notice they slip out more than bones. I want to hate dwindle for other reasons like how they wont retire blind or 101.
Back in the day I remember H-STRRET had the steepest tails and noses and there little sister Planet Earth had well really flat boards. Did they just cut and label the flater ones of the press for Planet Earth and keep the steep ones for H-Street? That would makes sense. Anyone known.
Hey Ben, love your content and it definitely got me back into skating. But I was wondering, wouldn't two number 1 decks not lay on top of each other perfectly? Instead would a 1 match up perfectly with a 2 and so on? Since they are pressed on top of each other?
Hi ben, I was just wondering, is this your personal court you are skating on, and is it in Vancouver? I am going back in August, and it seems like a great place to skate
Hey Ben, what should I do if my kingpin nuts are constantly grinding against coping/ledge/flat rail? I've got these thunder 139s and I've only had them for like 5 months but I can feel the kingpin nut scraping every time I do a 50-50. I've definitely broke them in and I've tightened them as much as I feel comfortable. Are Thunder trucks just like that? I had the hollow ones before those which I really liked but the same thing started happening to them only it was after about 10 months. Should I just try a different truck?
Hey all, I instantly clicked this video, because this is a question I ask myself a lot. I'm in my late 30s, work a lot and have 3 small kids. So I want to have the most fun on my board for the limited time I have. But at the same time I don't want to be wasteful. I'm a trained app developer and tend to overanalyse things sometimes, but most of the time I set up a new deck I love the feeling and the sessions usually are more fun than the last one with the soggy board. I often thought about writing an app to find the best possible timing for a new board but I'm not sure what the parameters for changing the board would be. Did anyone of you guys ever do a list or some research about this topic? The only thing I do is I take a picture of my boards when I change them and as a general rule I land at about 2 - 3 months per deck
Scary how fast the kicks are droping with Real deck. That's why I find it hard to switch from Enjoy - I can skate that longer and that particular deck will be in my memory as something special.Just measured the rise of Thaynan pro deck kicks and after 2 months it was still 20 degrees. They are harder to land stuff but if I do, it looks way better. I prefer their happy graphics too. Throwback is that they are way heavyer in my opinion. Like 130 grams heavyer than Element. I was suprised to step on my friends Element-Thunder setup. But if I manage to land anything on a steep kick heavyer deck, it will look way better than on lighter setups. I still kind of plan to put something lighter ready as well, but it somehow has to be Enjoy, probably drop from 8,5 to 8 or something.
One can also donate their used supplies to places like Nations Skate Youth (see their Instagram), Vancouver Queer Skate, and even Antisocial Skateshop in Vancouver.
I change my board twice a year, mostly because even though I skate a lot I'm not that good and cant justify spending the money on a fresh deck that often
I set up a new deck when it breaks. Some last me a couple hours, some several months. Unlike a bunch of people, a razor tailed, well broken in deck doesn't affect me as much. If you have your techniques on lock, the condition of a deck shouldn't be a dealbreaker.
Hey Ben, have you gotten a hold of the rubberized grip tape? It’s by “DKL Skateboarding”.. curious if it’s the same stuff as snowskates, because Ollie’s are much harder on a snowskate. I just saw it on Instagram and thought “I wonder what Ben Degros’ would have to say about this.”
Personally I ride my decks until it feels like i’m struggling to pop onto the main ledge at my park. Then take my old deck and use it on a beater cruiser setup. I ride it to work 6 months out of the year (rain or shine) so once the wood is waterlogged I change it out. If I have any extras I also like to give them away to the homies
hey that is maybe a dumb question but do you think shock pads can add a little "soggyness" feeling about my boards ? been riding whit shock pads since like 6 or 7 boards now and can't remember what it felt like before. i'm guessing it takes out a little bit of a "snap" effect but 'im not sure at all ...
Always love your content. Although at 4 min when you're talking the difference in the decks, I don't think it's really fair because you still have the plastic wrap around the new deck. That is going to lift the old deck when the new one in plastic is on the bottom.
Is there a charity where the used decks can be donated in Vancouver area? I saw Santa Cruz sends their decks to an charity that provides boards to kids so they can skate after school. For me the usable decks I’m done with I’ll leave at the skate park so a kid can use it.
😂 I'm pretty sure I'm still deeply in the red. It's going to take more than riding my boards a little longer to solve this! But I do care and try to make choices that help where I can.
i know this isn't pertinent to the video, but im curious what you use to cut metal coping for your boxes? do you just take an angle grinder to it? thank you :)
Of course when you have a board that you want to change out and you don't want to be wasteful you can give the old one away to someone that needs it. I've got a stack of old decks in my garage I need to give away come to think of it. Yes, I am a skater in his 40s with a good job and the luxury of being able to afford new stuff more often than my teenage self could have. A shame the knees aren't as up to it as back then though! One problem though, is that if I leave a stack of old decks at the local park I want to know it's going to someone that needs it and not an opportunist who will grab the stack and then sell them.
