I had a couple of shaped decks (the first Polar P1's) many years ago that I was nervous to give a try for the same reasons as yours pretty much, it did turn out to feel funny and weird seeing what looked like a different object under my feet after all those years of skating traditional popsicles but not in a bad way, and it certainly didn't affect my tricks. Those modern shaped boards are just that, shaped, the outline is different but the nose and tail are equally functional. As other people already brought up, the extra surface might actually help you for tricks that require a scoop. This local kid here who always has to look fancy to try and pathetically fail at reigning as our no-name skatepark hero has been skating nothing but Santa Cruz reissues for a few decks now, and somehow he's actually gotten better on those than on regular street decks although I'm pretty sure those are actually less functional than modern shaped decks, it's just that now everything he does looks like it's Bart Simpson who's doing it (which is fine because Bart has better style than him).
I enjoyed the experience for a few months but then I did also enjoy going back to popsicles after that and never going back.
Topic: The Set-up Thread (Read 4884268 times)