Curb skating equipment 101
Here is our ESSENTIAL and EXTENSIVELY RESEARCHED guide to getting the gear you need to ride curbs. If you are just starting to slappy and are experimenting with a few tentative grinds and slides, you're probably thinking your regular 8" vanilla popsicle is gonna be fine. Ha. That won't last. Before long, thoughts of rails will permeate every moment of your waking hours, you will your resign yourself to giving up kickflips and you'll be Googling frantically for 'curb skating boards'. That's why you're here, we all know it, so let's begin.
Skateboard Rails for curb skating
Ok so lets get the dirtiest element of the curb skater's kit out of the way first. Much maligned, the skateboard rail all but disappeared in the early 90s and didn't make a comeback for a couple of decades. Still painfully uncool in most circles, the rail has staged a comeback and earned its place on the setups of some of the very best curb skaters in the world. We'll let you in on a little secret...it's all much easier with rails!
Set your rails up well away from the edge of your board, towards the middle. If you put them near the edge like vert skaters do, you'll have a super stable slide and they'll be perfect for grabbing method airs, but you won't be able to do that sweet cheating rock slide to feeble to hurricane thing that all the best curb skaters do.
Get some skateboard rails from us online and we'll ship them in discreet plain paper packaging. You don't have to ask for them in public, and you can set your board up and sneak it down to your local free-standing curb in secret. Enjoy lengthy feeble grinds and combos but don't tell anyone you got the rails from us, ok?
Curb Skating Wheels
We recommend curb skaters go for smaller wheels with a soft radius on the outside. The larger the radius, the easier it is to ride into a slappy grind. When you get used to slappying hard, you might want to get a wheel with a harder inner radius to help you lock into the grinds more easily. Spitfire make a wheel just for you, called the Lock-in, which has a smooth radius on the outside and a tight one inside giving you the best of both worlds, but you lose the option to reverse your wheels.
What do we mean by a soft/smooth radius? Check the Spitfire Classic wheels - they have a large radius on both sides. For a tight/sharp radius wheel check out the Spitfire Conicals or Orbs Specters.
The hardness of the wheels is another area where we've done some testing! Our favourite curb wheels right now are the Spitfire 97D formula. This slightly softer formula still slides great and makes riding on tarmac a pleasure. Smoother and faster than 99s or 101s, but still very respectable in the skatepark!
Curb Skating Trucks
Personal preference plays a big part here, but most curb skaters are going to benefit from good turning performance and a recessed or 'inverted' kingpin!
Top Budget Truck - Royal!
Royal trucks come with inverted kingpin as standard and they are our top choice for budget-conscious curb skater!
Best Curb Trucks - Indies with inverted kingpin kit!
If you want the best performance and money is no object, you can buy Independent trucks and an Independent inverted kingpin baseplate kit! You can go for the Titanium Indies if you want, but bear in mind that the kingpin is titanium and is VERY hard. If you ride smaller/softer bushings it sticks out and will catch on certain grinds...approach with caution loose trucks riders!
Loose and carvey choice!
Ace trucks are another great choice for curb skating, they have a loose and carvy feel, a nice grind, a well recessed kingpin and the clever rethreading bolt to sort out your mangled axle threads.
Curb Skating Decks
Everyone's favourite bit of kit (except for bearing fetishists...we'll come onto that later) the deck is the standout bit of equipment used to build every skateboard. The 'egg' shape has become incredibly popular with carp park dwelling skateboarders, and there are some good reasons why. The egg shape features a tapered nose and tail and a bulging mid-section which gives the deck it's namesake egg shape. The shape of this deck allows you to keep your heels and toes over the rails so you can rock back and forth from rail to rail, unlocking those oh so important feeble to board to feeble variations!
Top Curb Skating decks
Heroin skateboards have pretty much cornered the market here, with a variety of egg-shaped decks and wild and wacky variations to choose from. With great graphics and prices we think you should definitely take a look at some of our Heroin deck range for yournext slappy setup!
Polar shaped decks
If you need a bit more tail area or you want a deck with a more traditional shape, we are big fans of the shaped Polar decks. There's enough width on all of them to enable you to set your rails in a bit from the edge to get that little rocker going on, and they have great wood, graphics and concaves.
New wave of curb skating companies!
For the more progressive curb skater, there are plenty of newer companies like There and Quasi who are pushing out shaped deck that have a bit more thought going into them than some of the 'Old Skool' reissues which don't always ride as good as they look!
Curb Skating Bearings
Come on now, really? You're probably gonna be skating at low speed, in dusty and quite possibly puddle-filled carparks so skateboard bearings aren't really a priority. I know, I know, we're a skate shop so we should be pushing Bones Ceramics and telling you how they're gonna last a lifetime...but for most people you're better off getting some basic bearings. Get Swiss if you want to go all in, by all means. In fact if you're determined to spend big bucks we would say go for the Bones Super Swiss 6 Ball, which can't really be bettered for performance, or the basic Bones Big Balls which will feel exactly the same and only cost a fraction of what the Swiss do!
Wax, Rub Bricks, Lacquer and filler?
You know it's really got you good when you start looking for products to preserve and protect that curbs you love so dearly. We sell the best skateboard wax, Ganj Wax, as well as various other choices which can be judged by the size of the block. Big block for cheap is always good.
We don't sell rub bricks or lacquer, but these are easily available at Amazon or other online retailers. The basic curb preservation/improvement technique is: find a curb, rub brick it smooth, apply a couple of coats of clear-coat lacquer, wax it to hell. Follow these steps and you can turn virtually any concrete edge into grind heaven!
