Longboard Skateboard Buyer's Guide
Unlike a conventional street style skateboard where ollies, handrails, and harder durometer 54mm skateboard wheels are the name of the game, longboard skateboards are primarily used for cruising, hill bombing, and transportation purposes. Some longboards are considered "Hybrids" allowing the skater to perform street style skateboard maneuvers while maintaining the cruising and carving ability of the longboard skateboard. The typical longboard bearings skateboard measures around 42" to 46" in length and is assembled with a soft 70mm 78a longboard skateboard wheel and longboard specific trucks such as the Randal R2 180mm.
Your skateboard bearing choice is dependent on your budget and riding style. If you are just getting into longboarding, bearings such as Bones Reds or DBS Abec 7's are a good choice. Intermediate to advanced riders might prefer a more precision style bearing such as Bones Swiss or IDS Oust Abec 7's. These higher quality bearings will give your longboard a nice smooth glide on the flats and allow you to pick up more speed when traveling downhill.
The biggest question I get at our retail shop in Portland, Oregon is, what happens when I ride in the rain? Plain and simple, your bearings will rust and you will have to buy new bearings. Keep this in mind if you are using your longboard for transportation and have to ride in the rain. In this situation I would use my cheapest bearing in the rain and ride my nice Bones Swiss on the sunny days.
Longboard skateboards have become very popular over the last few years and everyone wants to make a buck. The easiest way for most of these companies to get into longboarding is to purchase pre-assembled completes and then resell them to you. Most of these longboarding completes use lower quality components. Many pre-assembled longboards ship with small 60mm to 65mm wheels and street style skateboard trucks that have been modified to turn better with an angled riser. Your carving ability will be decreased dramatically and many riders have experienced what is known as "speed wobble" on this style of longboard setup.
This tactic goes completely against everything we stand for at Daddies Board Shop. Our goal is to provide you, our customer, with the highest quality products for a reasonable price. We all ride longboards at Daddies Board Shop and when you choose your components you get a superior ride. Holding true to our company beliefs, we came up with a better plan. We let you choose your deck, trucks, wheels, and bearings and then we professionally assemble your unique longboard skateboard, carefully package it up, and ship it out to you. This way you get what you were shopping for the first time around. We went one step further and produced our own longboard skateboard wheels bearings so we can lower the price without sacrificing quality. You get a high quality longboard skateboard, for the best price on the Internet, from a family owned skateboard and snowboard shop that has been serving happy customers since 1995.
