2023 unpopular opinion thread

[OneMore]

I couldn't care less about wheel size. All the spots I frequent are kinda crusty and eat urethane like it's nothing. I buy 54mm F4's solely because the extra size makes them last longer and it's the biggest I can go without risers before wheelbite becomes a problem. I'll skate them until they're well below 45mm and don't really notice a difference during their lifespan.

What about wheel shape? You believe in wheel shape supremacy? Conical full or bust?

[switchfakie]

Board feel is never right. There's either too much or not enough. It can exist for fleeting periods of a shoe's life, but is mostly a way for us to justify our shoe selection.

I'd argue that the feel of the sidewall of the shoe matters more. For me something like a 440 has more board feel than a Vans, but the sidewall/upper aren't prone to getting as flexy and my foot feels better in them.

At least for boardfeel, I view it as a spectrum. Being able to feel aboard when it’s new is my barrier to entry for a shoe. I’m not willing to buy a shoe that I need to spend a few shesh’s just to feel my board after it’s broken in - this is no matter how much I like the design of the shoe

[Esquivel]

"board feel" concerning shoes, is overrated.

"Board feel" concerning shoes, is underrated.

"Board feel" concerning shoes, is properly rated.

Board feel is never right.

What even is "Board feel" concerning shoes these days?

[OneMore]

Boardfeel is an inside job and we all know it. We can get used to anything anyway.

[sle_epy]

Boardfeel is an inside job and we all know it. We can get used to anything anyway.

[manysnakes]

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"board feel" concerning shoes, is overrated.

[close]

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"Board feel" concerning shoes, is underrated.

[close]

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"Board feel" concerning shoes, is properly rated.

[close]

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Board feel is never right.

[close]

What even is "Board feel" concerning shoes these days?

[Esquivel]

^This guy lives and breathes board feel.

[IpathCats]

ty @manysnakes for being brave and posting this selfie

[SatanicPanic]

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"board feel" concerning shoes, is overrated.

[close]

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"Board feel" concerning shoes, is underrated.

[close]

Expand Quote

"Board feel" concerning shoes, is properly rated.

[close]

Expand Quote

Board feel is never right.

[close]

What even is "Board feel" concerning shoes these days?

[close]

I see enough David in his underpants in the lame instagram posts thread

[OneMore]

Erik Ellington is a more talented skateboarder than Andrew Reynolds.

[djoekr]

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I couldn't care less about wheel size. All the spots I frequent are kinda crusty and eat urethane like it's nothing. I buy 54mm F4's solely because the extra size makes them last longer and it's the biggest I can go without risers before wheelbite becomes a problem. I'll skate them until they're well below 45mm and don't really notice a difference during their lifespan.

[close]

What about wheel shape? You believe in wheel shape supremacy? Conical full or bust?

Yeah, I do prefer 99a conical fulls.

[Billy Bitchcakes]

Isn't board feel just some fake marketing bollocks made up by Nike or Vans or something as an excuse to sell shite quality thin shoes

[j....soy.....]

Board feel is a thing….but it doesn’t necessarily mean the shoe performs better…..

[SneakySecrets]

Isn't board feel just some fake marketing bollocks made up by Nike or Vans or something as an excuse to sell shite quality thin shoes

IM ALWAYS SUSPICIOUS WHENEVER LARGE GROUPS OF PEOPLE START USING NEW VOCAB. 

[SneakySecrets]

Whoops caps lock

[Heshrat]

"board feel" concerning shoes, is overrated.

Yeah! Like.. if you get a new pair of shoes and don’t feel it right away you’ll get used to it and your skating will be fine man

[Sila]

"great board feel" , "can be skated right out of the box!"...

Nightmares

[IpathCats]

Boardfeel matters more to some than others, it's all preference.

But if a shoe has great boardfeel right out of the box it's probably not going to have much impact protection or last very long.

Breaking shoes in is not that big of a deal, idk how people enjoy skating in brand new shoes. That shit hurts your feet, and for me personally  they make me skate worse.

"great board feel" , "can be skated right out of the box!"...

Nightmares

The gear equivalent of "a great guy, on and off the board"

[HeavyAndExpensive]

I very much dislike drop ins as tricks in parts. Its not that they aren't gnarly or difficult its just... something about have to climb a fence, awkwardly balancing while trying to get yourself in to position to drop in, half the time the board gets handed to them once in position...its just so unnatural/no flow to it.

[IpathCats]

I very much dislike drop ins as tricks in parts. Its not that they aren't gnarly or difficult its just... something about have to climb a fence, awkwardly balancing while trying to get yourself in to position to drop in, half the time the board gets handed to them once in position...its just so unnatural/no flow to it.

Like ride on grinds, they need to be special in order to remain legal.

If not, the user has a high chance of being REGULATED

[sle_epy]

Boardfeel matters more to some than others, it's all preference.

But if a shoe has great boardfeel right out of the box it's probably not going to have much impact protection or last very long.

Breaking shoes in is not that big of a deal, idk how people enjoy skating in brand new shoes. That shit hurts your feet, and for me personally  they make me skate worse.

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"great board feel" , "can be skated right out of the box!"...

Nightmares

[close]

The gear equivalent of "a great guy, on and off the board"

I wish I could skate a brand new pair like every two or three weeks. Once they're broken in I'm honestly ready to move onto the next pair. I can't stand when a shoe starts to get floppy.

[IpathCats]

Expand Quote

Boardfeel matters more to some than others, it's all preference.

But if a shoe has great boardfeel right out of the box it's probably not going to have much impact protection or last very long.

Breaking shoes in is not that big of a deal, idk how people enjoy skating in brand new shoes. That shit hurts your feet, and for me personally  they make me skate worse.

Expand Quote

"great board feel" , "can be skated right out of the box!"...

Nightmares

[close]

The gear equivalent of "a great guy, on and off the board"

[close]

I wish I could skate a brand new pair like every two or three weeks. Once they're broken in I'm honestly ready to move onto the next pair. I can't stand when a shoe starts to get floppy.

yea, it sucks when shoes bag out.

But a broken in cup feels way better than a new vulc IMO.

But thats a total preference thing.

[sle_epy]

Expand Quote

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Boardfeel matters more to some than others, it's all preference.

But if a shoe has great boardfeel right out of the box it's probably not going to have much impact protection or last very long.

Breaking shoes in is not that big of a deal, idk how people enjoy skating in brand new shoes. That shit hurts your feet, and for me personally  they make me skate worse.

Expand Quote

"great board feel" , "can be skated right out of the box!"...

Nightmares

[close]

The gear equivalent of "a great guy, on and off the board"

[close]

I wish I could skate a brand new pair like every two or three weeks. Once they're broken in I'm honestly ready to move onto the next pair. I can't stand when a shoe starts to get floppy.

[close]

yea, it sucks when shoes bag out.

But a broken in cup feels way better than a new vulc IMO.

But thats a total preference thing.

[rawbertson.]

dont wnat to dig up the sailor silverman thread again but i had the opinion before that trans m2f women should not enter the womens skate contests. was reminded this morning seeing vurtclubs post on instagram about how it should be allowed.

at first glance the obvious thing to everyone is men typically crush women in sports, so i suppose in theory, some man could come in pretending to be female and steal the show.

if you think about it practically though, the world actually looked like this;

there was a red bull contest and the rules definintely were that the person entering just chooses male or female on the form and that would be the contest they are skating. there are no "gender checks" and rules against men competing in womens. this isnt the olympics.

the girl who was defeated and who is super vocal about this loss is not a stylish, influencial skateboarder - as far as "do actual skateboarders care about anything this girl has ever done" the answer is a big big no. i never watched her footage but i have heard there is flat land involved somehow in a street contest run so i'll just leave it at that.

skateboarding is a judged sport (as far as actual paid contests - dew tour, sls, xgames, olympics/world stuff - berrics games of SKATE dont pay shit lol you probably earn more to SHOW UP to SLS than WIN any batb). so that means if someone WAS clearly trying to "cheat" by pretending to be a female - the judges would clown them and possibly not even be let enter. making money in skateboarding has a FUCK TON to do with having a really good image + being well known. I dont think any sponsor would fuck with someone like this (apparently don brown fucks with taylor S which is goofy af) so another L.

the reality is, Marbie isnt gonna come flip the contest game or anything. there is no need to get angry at trans people over skate contest. they already have a hard enough time as it is. 

a lot of skaters are actually not interested in contest skating either. i think they are mostly catered to non-skaters. i do watch them for kicks with my family but i am not overly excited by them like i am with seeing a cool video part with an awesome song. i think the contest sponsors are gonna choose who they believe are really marketable people to enter the contest at the end of the day and if they find a way to exploit trans people and make money off it they will definintely do it. its all about maximizing return on their investment.

[manysnakes]

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I very much dislike drop ins as tricks in parts. Its not that they aren't gnarly or difficult its just... something about have to climb a fence, awkwardly balancing while trying to get yourself in to position to drop in, half the time the board gets handed to them once in position...its just so unnatural/no flow to it.

[close]

Like ride on grinds, they need to be special in order to remain legal.

If not, the user has a high chance of being REGULATED

People complain here a lot about ride-on grinds, but most of the time I see them in big videos, they are being performed on a rail, hubba or other obstacle which would otherwise be completely impossible to skate. When I was young, we would see spots like that and say "it's too bad we can't skate that", because we knew that ride-on grinds weren't allowed. I'm glad that people don't think that way anymore, it makes skateboarding more interesting.

[IpathCats]

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I very much dislike drop ins as tricks in parts. Its not that they aren't gnarly or difficult its just... something about have to climb a fence, awkwardly balancing while trying to get yourself in to position to drop in, half the time the board gets handed to them once in position...its just so unnatural/no flow to it.

[close]

Like ride on grinds, they need to be special in order to remain legal.

If not, the user has a high chance of being REGULATED

[close]

People complain here a lot about ride-on grinds, but most of the time I see them in big videos, they are being performed on a rail, hubba or other obstacle which would otherwise be completely impossible to skate. When I was young, we would see spots like that and say "it's too bad we can't skate that", because we knew that ride-on grinds weren't allowed. I'm glad that people don't think that way anymore, it makes skateboarding more interesting.

I just want them to be interesting, or unique in some way.

[Wax Sniffer]

Expand Quote

I very much dislike drop ins as tricks in parts. Its not that they aren't gnarly or difficult its just... something about have to climb a fence, awkwardly balancing while trying to get yourself in to position to drop in, half the time the board gets handed to them once in position...its just so unnatural/no flow to it.

[close]

Like ride on grinds, they need to be special in order to remain legal.

If not, the user has a high chance of being REGULATED

The problem is there's no good way to start the clip; starting a clip standing still, perched balancing on something just seems awkward. I'm not calling for full criminalization, but agree they should be used more sparingly.

[Billy Bitchcakes]

dont wnat to dig up the sailor silverman thread again but i had the opinion before that trans m2f women should not enter the womens skate contests. was reminded this morning seeing vurtclubs post on instagram about how it should be allowed.

at first glance the obvious thing to everyone is men typically crush women in sports, so i suppose in theory, some man could come in pretending to be female and steal the show.

if you think about it practically though, the world actually looked like this;

there was a red bull contest and the rules definintely were that the person entering just chooses male or female on the form and that would be the contest they are skating. there are no "gender checks" and rules against men competing in womens. this isnt the olympics.

the girl who was defeated and who is super vocal about this loss is not a stylish, influencial skateboarder - as far as "do actual skateboarders care about anything this girl has ever done" the answer is a big big no. i never watched her footage but i have heard there is flat land involved somehow in a street contest run so i'll just leave it at that.

skateboarding is a judged sport (as far as actual paid contests - dew tour, sls, xgames, olympics/world stuff - berrics games of SKATE dont pay shit lol you probably earn more to SHOW UP to SLS than WIN any batb). so that means if someone WAS clearly trying to "cheat" by pretending to be a female - the judges would clown them and possibly not even be let enter. making money in skateboarding has a FUCK TON to do with having a really good image + being well known. I dont think any sponsor would fuck with someone like this (apparently don brown fucks with taylor S which is goofy af) so another L.

the reality is, Marbie isnt gonna come flip the contest game or anything. there is no need to get angry at trans people over skate contest. they already have a hard enough time as it is. 

a lot of skaters are actually not interested in contest skating either. i think they are mostly catered to non-skaters. i do watch them for kicks with my family but i am not overly excited by them like i am with seeing a cool video part with an awesome song. i think the contest sponsors are gonna choose who they believe are really marketable people to enter the contest at the end of the day and if they find a way to exploit trans people and make money off it they will definintely do it. its all about maximizing return on their investment.

That would work for something like BATB but things like Xgames and especially the olympics are heavily regulated with huge amounts of money around them. They're not going to decide who enters which category by leaving it to the judges to clown on people lol. I suppose in an ideal world we'll discover that the genetic differences between biological males and females isn't the reason for the disparity in sporting ability, perhaps it's all due to societal reasons holding women back from reaching elite male levels and we'll get past that to the point where gendered competition is unnecessary, but I don't know how likely that is. Until then it seems people on both sides of the argument seem to agree that there's still a need for separate male and female sport in most cases, which means some sort of solution needs to be found. Fucked if I know what that is though nor is it my business but it's interesting.

On a related note I'm super glad that Silverman woman seemingly fucked off out of the limelight after 15 minutes. She's a full on right wing grifter akin to someone like Matt Walsh or Kyle Rittenhouse and skateboarding should absolutely not be a place that someone like that can take advantage off. If she reappears I really hope she's shouted out of the community much louder than she was in the first place but I fear that too many skaters don't give a shit. Skateboarding is inclusive but nowhere near as inclusive as it claims to be IMO.

Edit - case in point someone posting Tucker Carlson videos to support their point in the time I was writing this lol

[IpathCats]

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I very much dislike drop ins as tricks in parts. Its not that they aren't gnarly or difficult its just... something about have to climb a fence, awkwardly balancing while trying to get yourself in to position to drop in, half the time the board gets handed to them once in position...its just so unnatural/no flow to it.

[close]

Like ride on grinds, they need to be special in order to remain legal.

If not, the user has a high chance of being REGULATED

[close]

The problem is there's no good way to start the clip; starting a clip standing still, perched balancing on something just seems awkward. I'm not calling for full criminalization, but agree they should be used more sparingly.

That's a fair assessment, never considered that before.

[Mean salto]

If you had stronger feet you could enjoy the board feel without worrying about if a shoe has 3mm of some magic foam in them for impact protection