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We need to talk about your wheelbase

Wait, wheel base what?

When you’re looking for your next skateboard deck, there are a bunch of things most likely running through your mind.  You’re thinking about width, shape, concave, length of the nose and tail, and where the kick starts after the truck bolts… is it a signature deck of a pro you would like to support or a team deck? Where was the board pressed? Has it got a tech construction?

Depending on how cool you are pretending to be, graphics will either be right at the top of this list of priorities or way down towards the bottom, even though the truth is a good-looking graphic helps you skate better through the power of making you look better. Fact.

You might have a preferred top ply colour – I know people who love red top plies and others who think they are cursed. Is the construction of the ply too thick? Is the board going to come apart like Weetabix at the first sign of a collision?

Oh, wait! The biggy – how much is it? Price is important when you are younger and shredding 5 hours a day, going through a board a month, less so when you are older, skating on the weekends for 2 hours and then recovering in the bath and then “theragunning” your muscles back to life. Does it come with grip? If so, what brand?

A person using a massage gun

These are all valid questions but one that has been inexplicably overlooked until recently is wheelbase. This is insane because it is fundamental to how your board performs and we have all been ignoring it. I mean, completely paying it no mind at all.

When I’m buying boards for Supereight, it’s actually hard to find the information. Boards have always been listed in widths on order forms, with length the next most prevalent detail. However, according the Paul Schmitt, head honcho of Schmitt Stix (who manufacture great brands like Welcome, Quasi, Hockey, GX1000 and Toy Machine) length is just a by-product of your nose, tail and wheelbase dimensions. It’s the wheelbase that makes all the difference to your stability, flips, carves…the lot.

For an in-depth discussion on why your wheelbase is so important, check out Paul Schmitt’s recent Nine Club here:

YouTube video

Not having the right wheelbase for your size and what terrain you are skating is like wearing shoes 2 sizes too big or too small – it’s like…umm…well, I struggle for another suitable anology but I assure you that getting your wheelbase right will make a huge difference to your skating.

My light bulb moment

Allow me to elaborate on this with my recent epiphany. Once board shapes settled down in the mid-nineties, I settled into riding 7.75″ decks and didn’t change it for the next 20 years. This was dead average for the time and obviously, these boards were pretty small by today’s standards. I mainly stuck to Alien Workshop, Element, Plan B and the like. I was happily flipping my board and skating the local mini ramp for hours at a time.

Then came the great board widening of the 2010s. Boards have been getting wider and wider in recent years, to the point where 7.75″ decks are actually now hard to find outside of kids’ completes.

Starting to experiment with board sizes, I moved to 8″ and then 8.25″ deck widths. I was immediately aware of the extra wheelbase length, feeling like I had to hold my board up longer on pivot fakies and blunts to avoid the dreaded hang-up of doom. I also found flips harder. Nollie flips, switch heels, and fakie tres were all immediately harder and super frustrating. I blamed this on the board width and length but decided that if skateboards were all bigger now, I needed to adapt. This may not be such a problem when you are coming up in your early years but as an adult, your mind has stored these precise movements, angles, limb and muscle lengths into ancient parts of the brain for super quick responses and it is much harder to reprogram yourself.

I’ve tried loads of boards since starting Supereight with Sam nearly 10 years ago. It’s one of the perks of having 2000 boards in your warehouse. I’ve skated Powell Peralta Flight decks, Almost Decks, Santa Cruz VX, Creature VX, Zero skateboards made at DSM (single pressed) and  Zero boards made at HLC in Spain. They’ve all been great and I’ve ridden 4 Colin Provost Creature VX 8-inch decks in a row as they are amazing, keeping their pop well past its expiry date. However, flips especially remained elusive to me.

Recently, during one of our early morning skate sessions, Toby Batchelor mentioned he was riding a short wheelbase 8.5 wide Anti Hero deck and that he was really enjoying it. I’d just been watching the Sidewalk Distribution sales meeting where Louie Barletta was been talking about their short wheelbase “Jet Ski” Jacuzzi skateboard deck and how manoeuvrable and responsive they were. A skater of my age and mediocrity needs all the help they can get so I thought I would try it out. I called Steve at 1976 Distribution to see if he had any in stock yet. Not only did he have some but he sent me one to check out. Stoked!

The board was 8.5″ wide – way wider than I’m used to, 31.5 long with a 13.75 wheel base. For context, the average wheelbase is currently 14.25”, half an inch longer than the short wheelbase deck. That is the important bit as it turns out, not the width. Who knew? Not me that’s for sure. The difference was immediate. Instead of the heavy, lumbering feel I get from wide boards, this Jacuzzi deck was super poppy, turned quick, and was super easy to spin shuvits and flips on, but with the bonus of having more space to land on (width ways at least).

I could immediately do flips again after a 10-year absence. As far as I’m concerned, that is not far off being a miracle!

I’ve subsequently ridden a Daan Van Der Linden Anti Hero with an 8.5″ width, 13.75″ WB and 31.3″ long wheelbase and it’s amazing. These boards are the future for me and I’m now almost evangelical about getting my friends to try shorter wheelbase too.

Actually, let me qualify that. My friends who aren’t tall. I’m 5′ 9″ and sport some of the weakest ankles in the biz. The shorter wheelbase makes perfect sense for those of us under 5ft 10 or maybe 6ft, skating parks, curbs, mini ramps and street. Bigger guys are going to need long wheelbases like 14.25″ and 14.5″. As are big bowl and vert riders, who need that extra stability, travelling at super speed and dealing with big transitions.

If you want to dive into the world of wheelbases, Supereight lists wheelbases in the details on all decks on the site and plans to make it searchable as a filter the moment we get time. Deluxe brands including Anti Hero, Real and Krooked, do short wheelbase tru-fit decks, Jacuzzi do the Jet Ski range, Creature does ‘stubbies’ and Polar also sell shorter wheelbases and you’ll see more of these boards come available from Autumn this year.

Don’t forget your trucks!

Wait! Before you embark on your new short-wheelbase adventure, you need to bear something else in mind. Your trucks! Different truck brand’s axles will sit in different places relative to the bolt holes on the baseplate. This means that each brand will either increase or decrease your wheelbase on top of what you are doing with deck size. Annoying right? No-one tells you this.

In a nutshell, though, Ventures are going to make your wheelbase longer, Thunder and Slappy Trucks are middle of the road while Ace and Indy Trucks will give you the shortest wheelbase and therefore the tightest turn. Consider yourself enlightened.

By next year I’m pretty sure we are all going to be dorking out on wheelbase lengths, wondering how the hell we got to the 2020s without discussing this more. This is no doubt going to be so important for kid skaters and women too and will unlock tricks you’ve either lost or never been able to do. Trust me, it’s going to change your life!!!

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