Longboard Gear Guide

Longboarding can be as expensive or inexpensive as you want it to be.  A good quality, fully assembled longboard usually starts at around $150. You can buy your longboard as a “complete” or buy the pieces separately.  A complete is the entire assembly of a longboard, including the deck, trucks, wheels, bushings, risers, and bearings.  Many companies offer completes at very reasonable prices.  All completes come prebuilt, so no assembly is necessary.  This is usually good for a beginner who does not know how to assemble all of the pieces of a longboard properly.

Some skate shops also let you buy completes so you can choose the individual deck, trucks, wheels, risers, and bearings yourself.  Then the shop will assemble your longboard and ship it to you.  This is a great option because you can research the best longboard parts that will fit your boarding style, and then have the shop build your board for you.  Usually, if you order your longboard this way, you will get a discounted price as opposed to ordering the parts separately and putting the longboard together yourself.

Below is a list of some of the most well known longboard brands.  Some brands may not be mentioned below, but these are the ones I have found to be available at most longboard shops.

Best Longboard Deck Brands
Some of the most well known longboard deck brands are: Arbor, Bustin, Comet, Earthwing, Honey, Loaded, Landyachtz, Never Summer, Original, Sector9, and Rayne.

Best Longboard Truck Brands
Trucks come in several well known brands: Randal, Paris, Gullwing, and Independent.

Best Longboard Bearing Brands
The two most well know bearing brands are Bones and Abec.  Many longboard brands produce their own bearings.  I am a huge fan of Bones Reds because of their low price and great quality.  However, do your own research and find out what bearings work the best for you.

Best Longboard Wheel Brands
Here are some well know wheel brands: Abec11, Fireball, Orangatang, Sector9, Seismic, and Venom.  Abec11 and Orangatang seem to be the most popular.

Best Longboard Riser Brands
Khiro and Paris are the two most popular riser brands.

Best Longboard Bushing Brands
Array, Bones, Khiro, Orangatang, and Venom

It is good to invest in longboard safety gear as well.  A good helmet is a must.  Knee pads and elbow pads can help protect you from scrapes and hard collisions.  Wrist guards can also help protect your wrists from a fracture.

Best Longboard Safety Gear
You will run into these brands while shopping for safety gear: 187, Triple 8, and Giro.  Other good safety gear brands are out there but these three are the most popular.

Slide gloves are great for helping you get close to the ground to do slides.  They have a protective puck that absorbs all the friction from contact with the ground.  Here is a list of some well known slide gloves. 

Best Longboard Slide Gloves
Loaded, Sector9, and Triple 8

Some longboarders have successfully made their own longboarding gloves at home!

For more detailed information on each type of longboard gear, please look up our guides in this section of the site.