Both longboards and cruisers can be used for daily commutes such as going to the train station, the bus stop, or your office. The easiest way to understand the difference between the two types is to start from the definition.
According to the explanation at a famous skateboarding website named SkateAdvisors, longboards are often the largest type of skateboard and are popularly used for traveling over far distances, bombing big hills, and going for a high-speed ride. Cruisers are well known as shorter and more lightweight skateboards which are specially designed for riding in narrow arrears.
However, these definitions are quite general and hard to understand; therefore, I want to explain more in today’s post to help skaters, especially newbies, get the big picture of these kinds of skateboards.
THE CONFUSING TERMS
From the definitions, “longboard” is the terminology referring to a bigger skateboard with the ability to provide extra stability and comfort for riders. On the other hand, “cruiser” is suitable to call any skateboard that is optimized for the best cruising experience.
Sometimes, people can understand cruisers and mini longboards or mini cruisers. Now, you can somehow realize that longboards refer to something bigger than cruisers. However, to differentiate the two kinds more specifically, we need to consider the construction of the deck, trucks, and wheels in the following sections.
DECK’S SHAPE
Typically, cruisers have a surfboard-like shape and they come with an asymmetrical shape with a kick tail and a pointy-ish nose. With these constructions, skateboarders can even do some soft tricks like kick turns, hopping curbs, and kickflips besides cruising.
>>> Check out some more longboard and skateboard related articles by author Robert Parker.
However, performing tricks is not the main purpose of cruisers so the kick tails are mainly designed for better navigating in urban areas. If you come across some products like the Loaded Poke, you may see that the boards are more suitable for freestyling than cruising but these are just additional integrated features.
If you take a look at several articles at SkateAdvisors about the constructions of longboards, you can easily conclude that the pintail shaped and symmetrical cutout shaped longboards are the most common. Similar to cruisers, some longboards have kick tails for dancing tricks or freestyle but you won’t be able to perform tricks as easily as on a cruiser.
When comparing cruisers and longboards, you may notice that a cruiser has a significantly narrower nose and wheel flares than a longboard. This special design is to avoid the wheel rub and have better wheel clearance for fast turning.
In terms of wheel clearances, longboards have various types with both top-mount and drop-through boards. In general, longboards are primarily used for distance pushing, carving, and pumping.
TRUCKS
If longboards are equipped with reverse kingpin trucks (RKP), mini-cruisers are normally found with traditional kingpin (TKP) with better response to the smallest movement at low speeds. Therefore, a mini-cruiser can turn dramatically when skaters only apply a gentle force to change the direction.
On the other hand, RKP provides better stability but skaters have to sacrifice the ease of pushing. Also, turning on longboards is not as easy as it is with a cruiser since RKP is less responsive and deeper; therefore, it can reduce the risk of getting speed wobbles like with the TKP.
WHEELS
Smaller wheels in the range of 55 to 65 mm are more common with cruisers than longboards to match the humble size of the deck. Since the trucks, decks, and wheels of a cruiser are smaller than that of a longboard, cruisers are much more lightweight.
On the contrary, the typical diameter of longboard wheels starts from 70mm and can rise to 85mm. Bigger wheels are integrated with a full-size longboard so that the board can run faster and accelerate to insane speed. If you want to know which size of skateboard wheels is suitable for your wish, visit SkateAdvisors for more informative threads.
Both longboards and cruisers prefer soft wheels for the best grip and better cushioning on different terrains. Occasionally, skaters can travel on hard wheels which don’t have the durometer in-between 78A and 82A on flat and smooth surfaces. However, don’t do that if friction is important to you or you can not maintain your balance well on slippery surfaces.
CONCLUSIONS
By understanding the technical specifications of the decks, trucks, and wheels for each type, I believe that every skater now can distinguish between a longboard and a cruiser. Although they have different purposes and features, both can be used for free skating and doing some easy tricks like dancing or stepping tricks.