Author Topic: How long were wheelbases on 90's/00's skinny boards?  (Read 2225 times)

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Hypnotoad

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How long were wheelbases on 90's/00's skinny boards?
« on: June 21, 2018, 11:27:40 PM »
Sup Y'all. 
Despite being a long time poster and observer of skate culture, I haven't been on the board very much over the last several years.  I'm 34 now and skating hard for the first time in quite some time.
My prime years were in the early 00's and I never paid attention to anything but deck width in my heyday.  7.6-7.75 was the jam, and I remember that flip tricks got harder if a board seemed long but never bothered measuring anything.   The last few months my boards keep getting wider, and 14.25 seems to be the max wheelbase for flip tricks to remain possible.

Was anyone paying attention to wheelbase back in the day?  If I had a 7.75 Habitat Janoski in  2003, was that shit 14.00, 14.25, or were boards crazy short with sub 14 wheelbases?  I honestly have no idea, but my foot positioning is still locked into ancient muscle memory and I know long boards don't work for me.  Currently looking at a Doomsayers 8.4 "shorty" shape that's 31.5 with a 14" wheelbase, but am wondering if it will feel stupid short.  If you ever cared to measure back then, my aching old bones would be down for some info.

spanyard

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Re: How long were wheelbases on 90's/00's skinny boards?
« Reply #1 on: June 21, 2018, 11:56:05 PM »
Sup Y'all. 
Despite being a long time poster and observer of skate culture, I haven't been on the board very much over the last several years.  I'm 34 now and skating hard for the first time in quite some time.
My prime years were in the early 00's and I never paid attention to anything but deck width in my heyday.  7.6-7.75 was the jam, and I remember that flip tricks got harder if a board seemed long but never bothered measuring anything.   The last few months my boards keep getting wider, and 14.25 seems to be the max wheelbase for flip tricks to remain possible.

Was anyone paying attention to wheelbase back in the day?  If I had a 7.75 Habitat Janoski in  2003, was that shit 14.00, 14.25, or were boards crazy short with sub 14 wheelbases?  I honestly have no idea, but my foot positioning is still locked into ancient muscle memory and I know long boards don't work for me.  Currently looking at a Doomsayers 8.4 "shorty" shape that's 31.5 with a 14" wheelbase, but am wondering if it will feel stupid short.  If you ever cared to measure back then, my aching old bones would be down for some info.

Great question, I think about this same dimension/time period frequently as I returned to skating during that era after dropping it for college. I've got a couple aws, real gonz and a perfect girl Mariano deck in the garage I can measure tmrw and get back to you.

Skate_lurker_Rob

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Re: How long were wheelbases on 90's/00's skinny boards?
« Reply #2 on: June 22, 2018, 04:49:53 AM »
not sure of the wheelbase as well but there was a time and period I got mad at my skating and the culture during the early 2000's and was bummed and threw my board under a freight train, it was a SE3K deck with some indys and spitfires. I remember boards were very narrow and had a small medium and large which was exponentially smaller then your average  deck these days. It almost felt like skating a toothpick at one point 7.3" 7.5" 8.0" and then no one wanted to fuck with the bigger boards as we all assumed vert was kooky or at least my crew did during those days. We all wanted to be MJ at one point but the dimensions on those decks were way skewed and ridiculous sizes to now. I am not telling you what to do however I am suggesting that you find a similar size to what you use to skate and eventually upgrade if not switch between the two to see which feels more stable for yourself. I skate an 8.25 to 8.38" sometimes 8.5" if I am out of the others. I met a young man whom had the same dilemma but his size was 8.1" I skated that after fucking with bigger boards and it is a hugggggggggge difference but eventually you will sort it out. 
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FrozenIndustries

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Re: How long were wheelbases on 90's/00's skinny boards?
« Reply #3 on: June 22, 2018, 07:23:26 AM »
In the late 90s and early 00s, most of the AWS boards had a 14" WB. If you ever happen upon old AWS (and later DNA catalogs) they list the wheelbase. Same with most of the stuff in the early 2000s, though some were 14.125" and I remember John Drake posted one of his old boards on Insta with a 14.24". Next time I visit my folks I'll see if I have any old catalogs that I can use to confirm/scan

I'm a similar age to you and recently started skating a lot of switch. I set up an old Habitat that I had in storage with a 14" WB and immediately noticed an improved pop on my switch stuff...which is funny, because I'm pretty tall and for years swore that the longer the WB, the better.

Edit: there were definitely companies who did sub-14" WB, but I don't know enough about that to comment.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2018, 08:58:59 AM by FrozenIndustries »