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A pintail longboard is a longboard design that is quite popular with beginners. The pintail name is given to a board that sweeps toward a single ‘pin point’ at the tail. It is a classical longboard shape that has been around since the beginning of the sport.
What Are the Benefits of a Pintail Longboard
The pintail shape is popular with beginners for two main reasons: stability and cost. Their wheelbase is very long, and therefore very stable. For learning how to push and cruise, a pintail is optimal. Its potential beyond that is quite limited, but for people only wanting a board to commute on, it is a comfortable and suitable design.
Pintails are much cheaper designs to create due to their simplicity and commonality. Any design that is made en masse will be cheaper to produce from a cost-effectiveness perspective. A pintail does not contain any form of bell or whistle like other shapes of longboards might, and is therefore easy to make.
Other benefits include the complete immunity to wheelbite. Any set up will do with a pintail longboard, as the narrow end will not bite with any truck and wheel combination.
The Downsides of a Pintail Longboard
The longer wheelbase (distance between the trucks) on a pintail design will result in less ‘twitchiness’ and more stability. Freestyle tricks are much harder with a pintail design owing to the lack of kicks, and sliding is arguably more difficult too.
Pintails longboards are obviously not bi-directional. Any type of 180 degree maneuver, such as a coleman, will result in you riding the wrong way. Not all decks are bi-directional anyway, but a pintail certainly doesn’t disguise that its intended for riding one way only.
Pintail Longboard Recommendations
Motion Bigfish
Subsonic Dart
Fibreflex Pintail
Or whatever feels right to you. There’s not much fancy design work going on with pintails, so get whatever suits your stance/height/weight/preferences.
Conclusion
Pintails are superb beginner longboards due to their affordability and stability. You can save $100 buying a pintail design, and they will be forgiving while you learn the basics of skating. After you have that mastered, if you want to get a bit more dynamic with your longboarding you may need to buy a different board. Whilst exceedingly comfortable for cruising, most pintail longboards aren’t stiff enough for downhill, are too long to slide really well and difficult to trick. If you have no aspirations of doing any of the above, then a pintail longboard design comes recommended for beginners.
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Source by Lawrie Blood
