Teck Decks – a Childs Toy or Growing Sport & Proffession?

Go to any store with a toy section and travel down to the tech decks.  To the common eye, these are kids for boys ages 8-13.  Little known is that these tech decks have a whole community behind them, called fingerboarder’s.  Fingerboarding has grown from being an unknown practice, to a world-wide hobby, sport, and profession.  ‘ ages range from elementary school, to even adults with children.  Instead of using tech decks, fingerboarder’s use fingerboards made out of wood, specifically veneer.  These boards are hand made out of pressing layers of veneer together, just like making a real skateboard.  This is where the profession comes in, many people in the united states and other countries have dropped their day jobs and started their own fingerboard companies where they make and distribute fingerboards to the community.  One of the most famous companies in the united states is Flatface  Fingerboards, owned by Mike Schneider, only a high school senior.  This company generates thousands of dollars in profit. 

Over the last couple years, fingerboarding has sky-rocketed.  “Meet ups” or events are held throughout the United States, and the most well known “Rendezvous” held by Flatface brings hundreds of kids and adults to Andover, MA twice a year to bring the community together, and to give people the change to use professionally made parks and ramps. Though the hobby is mainly dominated by boys, there are the occasional girls in the practice, including me. 

Some spend hundred, even thousands on the sport to buy the most high end products, decks range in price from 20-50 dollars, wheels go for 20-65 dollars, and you can even buy trucks, which cost around $80.  As you can tell, it can be quite costly.  This is not including ramps, which from BlackRiver-ramps, a single ramp can cost over $100, and if you really want to go professional grade, you can buy full parks, which can run you over $1,000.

The fingerboard community has been a family to be for almost two years.  I will continue to have fun with it, and will never forget it even when I am older.  I encourage other to check out the sport and community and maybe try it our for yourself.  All you need to get started is a tech deck.