Taking up skateboarding as your main sport and hobby brings about numerous advantages for your health and well-being in the long run, from offering the perfect stress relief, and keeping you social by meeting up with more skate enthusiasts like yourself, to helping you stay active, healthy, and on your way without spending too much time or money. As a beginner, you’re aware you ought to have the ideal gear to make the most of the experience.

What most beginner skaters know and focus on is the right deck for optimal support and wheels for optimal speed, tricks, and turns, in addition to the skater apparel, skater shoes, and safety bits and pieces in the likes of helmet, mouth, elbow, and wrist guards, and knee pads. While it’s true all of this is important, you’d be missing a crucial piece of the skateboarding puzzle if you leave out the trucks.

Even if you buy one of the complete skateboards that are equipped with these parts, it’s good to know a thing or two about them so that when you decide to build up your own in the future, you’d be ahead in what to look for and choose. This leads us to one crucial question you’re probably asking yourself:

Do Skate Trucks Make a Difference?

The answer is one big and resounding yes. They’re just as important as the deck and the wheels for your performance, especially if you consider they are the connection between you and the wheels, which makes them essential for transferring the movements you make to the deck and the wheels.

In short, they’re responsible for your board’s behaviour. When you get the right skate truck in the perfect size, style, and colour for your skateboard, you set yourself up for improved performance, elimination of bearing wobble, and a whole lot of fun with your tricks, turning, and landings.

Moreover, there are different types of trucks in various sizes, profiles, and widths, made from a range of materials, all with the intent to offer you something suitable for your skate needs, type of deck, and skateboarding style. Some of the popular names related to designing and manufacturing such top-notch parts are Independent, ACE, Tensor, Thunder (one of the favourites of pro-skaters), Silver, and Venture.

Steps to Choosing Your Ideal Trucks

As mentioned, the market is pretty abundant when it comes to brands and skate truck designs so you may end up feeling overwhelmed when trying to find the perfect model for your board. As long as you learn some basic info on the following four aspects, it shouldn’t be too difficult to decide:

1. Truck Size

It doesn’t matter if you’re buying the pair of trucks online or in-store, first and foremost you need to pay attention to the size it’s available in, especially the width. Since it’s imperative for your performance with the board, the truck width ought to fit the size of the deck for optimal support and stability. A truck that’s too narrow will provide you with a wobbly skating experience, whereas a wider one will result in the wheels hitting your shoes.

2. Truck Weight

You’d be surprised at how the skate truck weight could influence your performance, but it’s true, so you need to make your pick between heavy and light designs. What would help you decide between the two is the consideration of your weight since smaller-stature skaters benefit more from the lighter option, whereas heavier and stronger skaters do best with the heavier alternative. Your skating style also has a say, and if you plan on doing lots of tricks, you’re better off with the lighter.

3. Truck Profile

Again, skateboarding style has a huge role in the truck profile you end up with, so keep this in mind when you’re shopping for skateboard trucks next time. What you can choose from are:

• Low Trucks – These are the closest to the ground, and as such, they give more stability. They’re best suited for stunt and technical skateboarding, paired with smaller wheels.
• Mid Trucks – These aren’t that easy to find in most brands, as the usual option is between high and low. They’re suitable for street and park rides.
• High Trucks – These are considered the standard hence the more truck and wheel choices. They’re ideal for sharp turns where you require more board responsiveness. This makes them suitable for cruising as well as carving with cruisers and longboards, and they’re perfect for use with bigger wheels so you don’t get any unpleasant wheel bites.

4. Truck Components

Lastly, it’s helpful to learn a thing or two about the parts a skateboard truck is equipped with so you have an idea of their role in your skateboarding experience.

Kingpins

These are the parts that are mounted on the baseplate, extending through the bushings, keeping it all together – all of the other parts that the truck consists of. They’re also the parts that give you flexibility with board firmness and flexibility with turns. With a quick adjustment, you can easily loosen or tighten them which would give you quicker, sharper turns and more stable turns respectively. If you want even more customisation, along with the standard fit for street and park skating, you have the reverse kingpins made mainly for longboarding.

Axles

These are the parts that hold the wheels and the bearings and run through the hangers. Same as with hollow kingpins, getting hollow axles would give you lighter trucks, making a faster and lighter board altogether.

Bushings

Mounting on both sides of the hanger, on the kingpins, these are parts that offer the needed stability. They look like rings and are made from urethane plastic, fit for transferring the pressure from your feet. They’re available in both hard and soft options, the first being ideal for stunts, and the latter for sharp turns.

Hangers

These are the big T-shaped metal triangular parts the axles run through. Choose them from a well-known brand to guarantee you get the needed quality to stand up to all the tricks you plan on putting them through.

Baseplates

These are the parts that house the kingpins, and they’re mounted directly to the deck. They’re designed to be big enough for the weight distribution you need during your skateboarding, and they need to be placed centrally for the utmost stability.