The second thing I would say is trucks matter more than you would ever think. There are so many different things that go into choosing the right trucks for instance: baseplate degree, color, and bushings (maybe the most important part). Depending on what sorts of riding you are going to be doing choose a BPD according to that. Mainly longboard racers have a much lower BPD than you average free ride cruiser. If it was only up to me then I would go with some 50 degree White/Gold 10” caliber II’s these trucks will basically do whatever you want them to. The white/gold is just my color preference. Don’t worry there are plenty of other colors and brands to choose from as well. Paris, Caliber, Gullwing, Randall, Buck, and Bear are all great trucks and you can’t really go wrong with any of them.
Last but certainly not least wheels may be the most important part of board. Height, Contact Patch, and durometer are all equal parts of choosing a wheel that suits you and all your needs. The height of your wheel is going to matter much more if you are riding a top mount deck rather than a free ride deck with wheel cutouts so you can ride larger wheels. For free ride 70mm is about the cut off for a top mount deck. Contact patch it how fat or skinny your wheel looks head on. Fatter wheels are generally used for racing or Downhill because while you can slide on super fat wheels you have to be going much faster than on skinny wheels. The last factor for wheels is durometer. Durometer is how hard or soft a wheel is. Harder wheels tend to slide much easier than softer wheels basically no matter what.
At first this blog was just a school assignment and then when I heard it could be about anything it perked up my interest and certainly got me more excited. The first time I got on a longboard it was immediately very fun for me so I began to try out other boards until I decided to finally get one of my own. My first board came from nordboards.com and it was a Sector 9 Free Mason deck with gullwing charger 10” silver trucks and Sector 9 Nine Ball wheels. The reason I tell you this is because it took me a while to tweak that board to where I finally liked it but all it would have taken is softer bushings.