Before buying a longboard, you will have to consider the type of longboarding you will do. If you are just looking to cruise around, just about any board will do. if you are looking to get into the extreme side of longboarding, then you will need something with a little more technology in it. Something like a deck from loaded longboards or a sector nine.
You may just want to go out and buy a longboard that’s already setup for you. This is called a complete longboard. The best advice that this guide can give you if you take the route of buying a complete longboard is this: don’t waste your money on a cheap board. Your experience will be infinitely better if you spend a good chunk of money on a good longboard. If you’d rather put a deck together, you will need to buy all the parts. We’ll explain wheels first.
Longboard wheels vary in size and hardness. Longboard wheels are typically very soft. Softer wheels grip the road more easily and give the rider a smoother riding experience. Softer wheels also work better when a person slides – they act more like a brake than harder wheels do. This is at the cost of the wheels, though. Softer wheels tend to not last as long as harder ones.
Next you need to purchase a longboard deck. For downhill skating, you will want to buy something from loaded longboards. There aren’t really many other companies to buy a longboard deck from anyway. Unless you want to buy a blank deck or something. Loaded longboards are great decks anyway; they’ve been specially designed to assist the user in doing various maneuvers at fast speeds and will usually last a long time
The last thing to pick is a good set of trucks. There are different sets of trucks out there and the best way to find out which ones work well for you is to try them. Most stores should have the trucks you’re looking at setup on another board and should be happy to let you try them out. If you can’t test them, though, just make sure that you buy yourself some wide trucks. They can always be replaced later.