Skateboard concave

In this article you will find out everything you need to know about skateboard deck concave . We cover the topic in great detail, for all beginners reading this: Please don't be discouraged, the differences in deck concaves are minimal. An experienced skater who develops certain preferences over time will feel the difference very well. For beginners, however, this is rather negligible.

The lengthwise curvature of the deck between nose and tail is called concave. Up until the 1980s, skateboard decks were mostly flat, until concave became more and more popular due to better control and maneuverability. Concave is not to be confused with nose and tail kick, i.e. how steeply the nose and tail are bent up, although these are usually related to the concave. Decks with a steeper concave usually have more nose and tail kick, but not always.

Some manufacturers also give the nose and tail a slight concave. Most of the time you can't see it with the naked eye, but this minimal camber makes the deck a little more responsive.

Concave can be even on the sides, on some decks it flattens out a bit in the middle and gets a little stronger towards the axes. This is the reason that this is where you are most likely to position your feet for flip tricks and where you need the most support from the bend.

So which deck with which concave should you buy?

Concaves are generally divided into 3 categories: mellow or low, medium and steep or deep. There are no exact angles or radii according to which concave is divided, the manufacturers usually name their shapes according to their own feeling and the transitions are fluent.

In the following picture, the different concave types are shown somewhat exaggerated in the cross section of the deck:

Advantages and disadvantages of the respective concaves:

Basically, a deck with less concave also reacts less strongly to flips etc. become soft faster. expend more energy. more stability. easier to control, more comfortable for landings feet. Although a deck with not quite as much concave requires a bit more energy to flip, technical street skaters tend to prefer a shallow to medium concave because the flips are more controlled and consistent.

The steeper the concave, the more stable and unbreakable the deck becomes.

Another thing to keep in mind: the wider the deck, the more you feel the concave. Due to the fact that the curve of the concave is continuous up to the lateral edges and does not flatten out, the concave gets deeper and deeper as the deck gets wider.

Although some companies now press their decks individually (single press), other manufacturers put up to 5 decks in the press at the same time. This results in minimal differences in the concave, which means that the decks in the middle are a little flatter than the decks that are at the top or bottom of the press. Here, too, the differences are tiny and hardly visible to the naked eye.

Don't worry about the concave. If you are still unsure which is the right concave for you, take a medium, you can't go wrong with it. Over time you can then try steeper or flatter ones to feel the difference.