23rd March 2006

Which End Is The Nose, Which End Is The Tail?

Jay asks…

“How do you tell which end of a deck is the front and back? Are the rear trucks mounted closer to the kick tail or is it the front trucks that are mounted closer to the kicktail? All the decks I have looked at have one set of the truck mounting holes closer to the kicktail than the other set. Thanks”

I’ll assume you’re talking about a standard street skateboard, otherwise known as a “popsicle” board. As you’ve noticed, one end is often steeper and/or longer than the other, which gives the illusion that the trucks are mounted closer to the short end.

The longer, steeper end is the nose of the skateboard. This is designed to provide more pop off the nose because skaters typically lack popping power when doing nollie tricks.

Ultimately though, it’s all going to be down to personal preference. I had no clue about that whole nollie thing until I asked Tony Gale about it, but I’ve always used the steeper kicktail as the nose because there is more there to catch with your foot for flip tricks (except when you’re in nollie, of course, but I’m no nollie expert anyway).

The other types of board differ considerably (again, courtesy of Tony)…

  • The pool board (otherwise known as a pig or fishtail). This is the sort that you often find really poor examples of in Argos (Walmart?). They were used mostly through the 80’s but are making a bit of a resurgence now. They come a wide range of shapes, which is always nice, but often have a “snub nose”, or no nose at all, as they’re not really needed.
  • The modern freestyle board (otherwise known as a “hybrid”). Often looks like a squared-off popsicle and is more likely to have mellower kicktails and a nose and tail that are perfectly identical, meaning it can be ridden either way round.
  • The classic single kick freestyle board. These have a flat nose that is fractionally shorter than the tail as the fact it doesn’t angle upwards makes it seem longer than it actually is.
Your Comments

Heh, I like the fact you make that sound like a definitive list of board types. Of course, it’s not. You can get more types of board than you could ever imagine – even “longboards” have multiple different types I’m not even going to get into. And then you’ve got slalom boards, downhill boards, the first ever sidewalk surfers, 8-wheelers (with two trucks next to each other at either end), and countless other ones I’ve forgotten…

Posted by Tony on 23rd of March 2006

Yeah yeah…

Posted by Adam on 23rd of March 2006

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