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How Do Surfskate Trucks Work?

by | Dec 15, 2020 | Surfskating Basics, Trucks

What sets surfskates apart from skateboards and longboards is their special front truck, which creates the feel of surfing on land.

It was the summer of 1996. Two surfers from Venice, California, Neil and Greg, were bored from flat days.

When the waves didn’t come, they sought concrete waves on their skateboards. But this didn’t deliver the surfing feel they were looking for.

So they started imagining what a “surf skateboard” would feel like, and how it would work.

After experimenting with many designs and dozens of prototypes, they made their first production run of their completed surfskate truck.

Neil Stratton and Greg Falk pioneered the first surfskate trucks and built Carver Skateboards, the biggest and most popular surfskate brand on the market.

Today, there are more than fifty surfskate brands and types of surfskate trucks around the world.

How Surfskate Trucks are Built

 

On standard skateboard and longboard trucks, there is just one dimension of tilt and turn: the kingpin axis. This allows the rider to turn the board.

Surfskate trucks add another dimension of movement.

A “surf adapter” is mounted onto the front trucks of a surfskate. The surf adapter allows for a much wider range of motion. This gives riders much tighter, smoother turns. It’s also what allows riders to pump surfskate from side to side and propel them forward without pushing on the ground with their foot.

The Most Common Surfskate Trucks

 

Since Neil Stratton and Greg Falk designed the first surfskate trucks, many different surfskate trucks and brands have flooded the market.

Today there are more than twenty surfskate companies around the world. Some of them have their own unique surfskate truck system. Others build surfskate decks and add other companies’ surfskate trucks.

The most common surfskate trucks include the following:

 

  • Carver CX and C7
  • YOW Meraki
  • Smoothstar Thruster
  • Waterborne Surf Adapter
  • SwellTech Surfskate System
  • Slide V3

You can see detailed descriptions of each of these popular surfskate trucks here.

To see which surfskate truck system is best for you, get my free Surfskate Selector app now.