Longboard Protective Gear

Some styles of longboarding require more safety gear than others, but all longboarders need basic protective gear. Of course, you will feel cooler without it, but one bad crash and you won’t be feeling very cool anymore. The professionals all wear safety gear and they are all pretty bad-ass looking, so just do it. You won’t be able to learn as fast or learn advanced riding skills without it.

What Safety Gear is Used By Longboarders?

• Helmet
• Knee, wrist, and elbow pads
• Slide gloves
• Flat soled skate shoes
• Skate Tool
• Grip Tape

You will feel much more confident trying new skills if you are wearing protective gear, and you’ll be more likely to be out practicing on your longboard rather than home injured.

Helmets for Longboarding

Most longboarders just need a regular skate helmet, but those going at high speeds such as in downhill, freeride or racing need a full-face helmet.

Helmets are the most important safety gear for longboarders to wear. It only takes one time hitting your head on the pavement to cause permanent brain damage.

Luckily, culturally we have come a long way the past twenty years and it is no longer seen as cool to not wear a helmet and no longer seen as not-cool to wear one. So if you still have that nagging fear that you won’t look cool if you wear a helmet, get out of the 1990s and into the 2020s.

A basic quality longboard helmet looks like this one made by Triple Eight, but you can spend as much or little as you want.

If you want to start experimenting with downhill riding, Ventura Trifecta is an affordable entry-level helmet, and Demon United is a midrange one.

Knee, Wrist and Elbow Pads

Knee pads and elbow pads usually come in a set like these really good ones built especially for extreme sports called 187 killer pads. You can start with some cheapo ones but eventually, you’ll need some hardcore pads built for withstanding sliding across the pavement at high speeds.

Wrist Guards – you can get strap on ones like these 187 Killer Wrist pads (best ones on the market) or you can get the kind that slides on like these.

Slide Gloves

Slide gloves are used by downhill, freeride, racing and other longboarders doing tricks to protect their hands while they put their hand down on the pavement to slide while skating at high speed. They have a plastic puck built into the glove that makes contact with the ground and slides across the pavement. Triple eight makes some good ones and so does Loaded Boards.

Flat Soled Skate Shoes

You possibly didn’t realize that there was actually a reason skateboarders in highschool wore flat rubber-soled skater shoes but there are many reasons these are the right shoes for skateboarding and longboarding.

Skate shoes are flat so that your foot sits flat on the board and distributes your weight evenly for maximum stability, and also because when you stop on a longboard you use your foot to slow down by sliding it along the pavement.

They are made out of grippy rubber that can grab the grip tape on your board so your foot doesn’t slide off your longboard. Skate shoes are made of durable rubber meant to withstand sliding on the pavement, at least for quite a while.

Try some shoes by Vans, DC, Etnies, Nike, Adidas and see what you like.

If you’ve never bought a skate shoe and just want a basic good one…

Guys Skate Shoes for longboarding

• The DC Anvil skate shoe
• The Motley skate shoe by Globe
• Or these sexy Nike SJ canvas skate shoes.

One of those three skate shoes will work for almost anyone.

Girls Skate Shoes for longboarding

• DC Chelsea Skate Shoe
• Etnies Jameson Vulc Skate shoe
• DC Dani Skate shoe
• Or these very sexy leather DC Trase skate shoes

Skate Tool

Skate tools are an essential and handy little gadget someone invented that combines all the tools you need to adjust your longboard into one tool that you can carry with you. Though you don’t have to carry it with you all the time, it’s important to have one around so you can keep your longboard adjusted for comfortable riding and safety.

They are really cheap, usually under $10 so just get one so you don’t have the headache of trying to find the right tools in your garage.

This is the cheapest one on amazon; it comes in about a hundred color options and a couple thousand people have happily bought it.

This one is a different style and it’s the one I have. Some people think it’s easier to tighten with because of the Y-shaped design, but it’s also harder to carry in your pocket than the T-shaped ones.

Both are fine, it doesn’t really matter, just get one so you can adjust your longboard trucks if they are too tight or too loose.

Grip Tape

Grip tape is the sandpaper-like stuff on a skateboard or longboard that keeps your feet from sliding off. Some boards have it on them when you buy them and some do not, for example, if you are putting your board together yourself and you order your skate deck, trucks, wheels, and everything separate for a custom longboard. If your new board came without grip tape, this one is easy to put on your board in about five minutes.

Additional gear to consider:

Padded shorts protect hips and spine and are used by downhill skaters and others who want to slide, and also just by those worried about injuring their hips. These ones get high ratings and are affordable.

Spine Guards are used by some skater to protect their spines at high speeds, but this is certainly not safety gear used by everyday people on their longboards.

Get some basic longboarding safety gear so you can be confident when you are out riding your board. You’ll progress faster and be able to take try new skills with less chance of getting hurt.

Happy Longboarding!

-MJ