Standard Board Size Changing

[RottenToTheCore]

Is the current standard slowly becoming 8.5?

Have been noticing most people where I live are riding 8.38-8.75 nowadays, pretty cool cause I’ve always felt like 8.25 was too small

[toe_knee]

I’ve been riding an 8.3 for years now, most of my friends ride 8.5, there is a kid that skates with us that rides an 8.25 but we’ve been on the bigger side for awhile, interesting observation though, wonder if they aren’t putting out as many 8.25, I’ve been thinking about slimming up my kit but iono, I have bigger feet and big feet small bird always bothered me in footage

[RottenToTheCore]

I’ve been riding an 8.3 for years now, most of my friends ride 8.5, there is a kid that skates with us that rides an 8.25 but we’ve been on the bigger side for awhile, interesting observation though, wonder if they aren’t putting out as many 8.25, I’ve been thinking about slimming up my kit but iono, I have bigger feet and big feet small bird always bothered me in footage

It might just be where I’m from. We’ve got a lot of transition parks and people are mostly atvs

[JimGeko]

im seeing the opposite at my local indoor. Most were riding 8.25 - 8.38 but recently I see a lot of 8.18 being ridden.

[MaXX_I-D]

I’ve been downsizing.

[Lukabrazi]

Im one of the only skaters at my local with an 8” board . My roommate when from 8.3-8.5 down to 7.75 and no one else is skating anything smaller than a 8.25. Even all the young kids that are like 12-16 are on 8.5-9”

 I live in a small ski town in CO , with a pretty big skate scene of at least 50-75 kids who skate locally 

[toe_knee]

This is interesting to me now, I understand that people’s setups change regionally because of what they skate, I kinda keep to the ledge section of our park hence why my setup is smaller than most of the other people at the park. But geko said his indoor ( smaller park I assume) people are riding 8s and 8.1s, wonder if that has anything to do with it, I’m sure it’s number of things imitation, region, what park you skate, how you skate …hmmmm interesting topic of discussion

[coldbrew]

I don’t skate much transition at all and am very much a ledge rail flat ground skater and I’ve been skating between an 8.38 to an 8.6 for damn near 10 years now. I’m also a size 11 shoe so anything 8.25 or lower just looks silly.

[manysnakes]

My sense is that, if anything, the era of the ~8.5" board as the standard is changing, and more skaters I know are going narrower, down to the 8-8.25" range

[disclosed]

i still see a lot of people sizing up where i live. tons of 8.75'' to 9.5'' around now but the avarage is probably 8.25'' to 8.5''
most of the parks here are transition based, or atleast the transition parts are more populair. and curb skating is slowly becomming a thing here too.

[Eric Dolphy]

My sense is that, if anything, the era of the ~8.5" board as the standard is changing, and more skaters I know are going narrower, down to the 8-8.25" range

Samesies. I feel like when Polar first blew up around here and everyone started wearing highwater pants and doing no- complys, 8.5-8.8 was kinda standard. When DC revival era kicked off everyone started sizing down again. My crew are all on 8-8.3, mostly 8.25. I'm sticking to 8.5, I'm too old to size down. I need real estate and a slower, easier to control flip.

[IUTSM]

I live in a small city/area with a pretty good scene and I'm seeing bigger boards and bigger wheels as the standard. that is in the far northern part of California. When I was back east last spring I was talking to a homie who has a shop and he said the bigger boards are the best sellers.

it's funny seeing the little kids riding 8.5+. I've been riding 8.5 for as long as I can remember and kids would be saying "idk how you can ride a board so big." Now, just from what I'm seeing, I feel like 8.5 is the standard or even the lower end of the standard.

[augustmoon]

I downsized to an 8 and am loving it.  Tried an 8.5 and it felt like a log with wheels

[Woodshop]

From a shop perspective 8.25 is still the best seller overall everywhere, but around the 8.5 is almost the most commonly sold board size for people I skate with.

Kids are definitely sizing up now though, as beginner boards used to be under 8, but now many are going straight for 8+ as their first board.

There are a lot more older / bigger guys getting big wide boards too, which could bring the overall size up somewhat as well.

[Chakra Lord]

I’m size 8.5 shoe and been riding 8.25 since my feet stopped growing.

[theoriginalgoon]

7.75 is the answer

[big_kev_215]

Having sized up, down, and back up in my days of skating as an adult I feel like 8.25” is the perfect deck width for most things.  I’d rather go back up to 8.38” than down closer to 8.00” though.   

 

[Ok]

I don’t skate.
But from what I’ve witnessed, the big/huge board trend seems to have slowed, and I’m seeing more 8-8.25.
There are more options, and less of the narrow window of my youth, when everyone was skating 7.75, unless you were trying to be the big board guy, as an identity.
Trends to seem to be less encompassing rn.

[90sDamiano]

8.0

[mattchew]

I floated between 8.18-8.38 for years, depending on the wheelbase, but this past year I’ve been all in on the Girl Loveseat 9” shape. On my second in a row and have four on ice lol My 8.25 popsicle set up looks wildly unappealing now.

[Fhk]

7.75 is the answer

Yessir..I always come back to the 7.75

[Ok]

Expand Quote

7.75 is the answer

[close]

Yessir..I always come back to the 7.75

What trucks tho?
I think I like 8” trucks better than 7.6”. Gonna set up a 7.75 on 5.0s soon. Will report back

[baustin]

I’m short and have size 9 feet, I’ve never been able to comfortably skate anything bigger than 8.25 without losing flip trick/flatground consistency. My favorite setups have usually been 8.125s on 8” trucks. I think the very slight magic carpet creates the ultimate flip trick machine somehow

[ok boomer]

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Expand Quote

7.75 is the answer

[close]

Yessir..I always come back to the 7.75

[close]

What trucks tho?
I think I like 8” trucks better than 7.6”. Gonna set up a 7.75 on 5.0s soon. Will report back

7.75 on 5.0 is good bruv

[Frontside Slappy]

Coming from a shop aspect, I've seen a lot more people gravitate towards more 8.25s than anything. It's still the most consistent seller for our shop in particular, with 8.5 being a close second. 8.1 and below tends to sit on the wall for a while unless it's a younger kid stepping up from his first board.

[FrozenIndustries]

I don't think we will ever see a change in standard size like the move from 7.75" to 8.25" ever again. There is enough a demand for, and awareness of, different kinds of shapes that industry can sustain a lot of different preferences. 8.25" popsicles will remain the "standard" but will make up less of the overall market, and there will be smaller trends that bubble up from time to time which will stick around to some degree.

Sub-8" boards are going to have a boom in the near future. They won't go back to being the standard but there will be enough of a demand that brands will keep them in rotation with more frequency than what we see now.

[animalflesh]

Trend is smaller boards in New York currently… but up out of the city in Albany it’s wider boards and bigger wheels

I honestly think people who actually skate often just buy whatever setup works for their terrain for the most part

Park kids will keep buying 8.5-9

City/ street kids I’m actually seeing a lot of 8 lately

[manysnakes]

Sub-8" boards are going to have a boom in the near future. They won't go back to being the standard but there will be enough of a demand that brands will keep them in rotation with more frequency than what we see now.

Been saying this. The pendulum swung all the way over to 9 and 10” popsicles, it’s gotta trend back toward 7.75-8”. Don’t think it’ll go any narrower, but it would be interesting to see a true old school revival, with 92 7” decks and 40mm wheels.

[Brandon]

agreed that some collective nostalgia for the millennium/early-aughts is going to push more people into sub-8 territory. i just impulse-bought a 7.75 theories deck and some venture 5.0s the other day and i'm sure rewatching all my favorite old videos for the past few months had something to do with it.

i'm also skating more flatground and ledges than anything else these days, so i'm stoked to see how a more compact setup feels after skating 8.25 pretty much exclusively for the past 15 years. i don't understand how kids are flipping around 8.5+ boards at all... tried skating an 8.6 anti-hero some years back and it felt awful for anything other than cruising.

[ok boomer]

Expand Quote

7.75 is the answer

[close]

Yessir..I always come back to the 7.75

GANG !