my wheelbase knowledge is pretty solid, but how does a longer/shorter nose or tail affect the way you skate?
a similar question, what's the appeal of twin tail boards? is there any significant difference that can be noticed skating them by an average person?
I guess I am so used to how boards feel that when I skate something that is not a normal board, eg approximately 7 inch nose and 6.6 inch tail things can often feel off for me, even though I prefer to do things like pop shov variations off the nose rather than the tail (mainly growing up trying to make the board last longer, but also a good way to start runs, first trick pop shov and then going forwards on a board the right way). Too long or too short can mess up that muscle memory of how I usually skate, but oddly enough on some cruisers that I know have a shorter nose, or one with a significantly longer nose as I drilled the wheelbase back, I got used to it easily enough.
Back when boards went from ramp setups to street setups (89 to 93), drilling the wheelbase down to lengthen the nose was what everyone did (and then they came factory double drilled for a while) but that really upped the switch game of being able to do a lot of things from both ends, as well as all the nose slide variations that came later.
When I had a skate on a few twins, the main thing I noticed was I always felt like the board was too short and I was skating the board backwards when I went to do nose tricks - of course this is how it would feel, being twin tails, but others really like the fact that they can skate a board either way and not have to turn it around. The twin nose board also felt weird for the fact that both noses were over 7" which threw out my timing on normal things.
Before twins, there was also the option as I did to use both ends differently, eg some tricks would be better off the nose, some off the tail, for both normal skating or switch skating, so with slightly different angles and lengths of kicks, it is funny to think how used to a normal board your body can get, as well as how weird a different board feels with a longer or shorter kick at either or both ends.
That said, most people can get used to it within a few sessions, as long as it is not so completely different to what you used to skate, same woodshop, concave, but just different shapes.
Totally different woodshops, way different concaves, angle of kicks and all of that is just too much all at once, for some boards I have skated, so either given them straight back to the owner, or taken them apart and either altered them or passed them on to others.