What Makes The Best Skateboard Shoes?

As described previously, beginners will spend a lot of time tugging their feet with skate shoes to practice new tricks.

You urge your initial skateboard shoes to be extensively resistant. This can render into many features relying on the type of skating ones do and the regularity of their drilling. But here are 5 primary things to look out for when choosing a new skateboard shoe.

Features of Best Skateboard Shoes

The following are primary features that one needs to ponder over while picking suitable skateboard shoes.

List:

Suede Material

Experts recommend suede as it is favored by almost every professional skateboarder. The material adds more durability to the shoe and is more comfortable than any other. Buying a usual shoe is easy. People usually consider things like durability, style, and comfort when buying a normal shoe but buying a skate shoe is a different bawl game.

Contrary to common sneakers, made in numerous materials, a good skate shoe is always made of suede. Most fabric and textile shoes won’t hold up long against grip tape. They can end up showing holes after only a session or two. Whereas suede material resists the best against harsh skateboard grip. Provides extended lifespan, which can certainly go up to 3 months or more.

Suede and leather are always the best excellent choices when it comes to a shoe upper. For skate shoes, those are the best materials which one can choose. They are flexible enough especially when double-stitching is added into the mix.

Extra Padding

The skate shoes have extra padding on the sides and the tongue to help protect the user’s foot when performing technical tricks. The thin classic style skateboarding shoes help improve how much the user feels the board while doing tricks, so you can pull off even more complex tricks.

The high-end skate shoes offer excellent grip and impact protection. It’s also comfortable and stylish so that it can be worn for any casual activity. None will teach you that skateboarding can be very hard on one’s foot. From hitting the nut of axles to rolling over feet, there are enormous ways skaters can hurt their toes and ankles. Hence, you will absolutely need a shoe that has extra padding to both protect the skater and extending the lifespan of the shoes. Look out for extra padding around the heel and toe areas at the very least.

Ventilation

Everyone knows it, no one loves it- sweaty feet. Especially when skating, a skater’s feet can get really sweaty. That’s why optimal ventilation is the key when it comes to the comfort and feeling of skate shoes.

Thanks to perforation and breathable upper materials, fresh air can be circulated and help prevent moisture. In addition, some manufacturers build perforated side panels and vent holes directly into the sides of the shoes or use tongues made of airy mesh materials.

Laces

There are shoelaces in countless colors, lengths, and shapes. Unless you prefer velcro straps on your shoes, laces are simply the ultimate feature. But here, too, there are a few differences between traditional street shoes and skate shoes.

Because not only do the upper materials and soles wear out quickly due to the grip tape but the shoelaces take a beating as well. Therefore, a waxed or leather shoelace is a very clever alternative. Metal or plastic eyelets, as well as special shoelace protectors, also increase the life of your laces enormously.

High-Elasticity

The top of the line skateboard shoes has extended high elasticity. The high elasticity EVA material is mainly prepared by mixing and foaming EVA, POE, EPDM, an odorless cross-linking agent, steric acid, active zinc oxide, and a foaming agent.

The most common materials for modern sneakers are made up of high-elastic materials. Depending on the skater’s design, each material will have a place in the skater’s sneaker. Skateboarding makes a skater’s feet stretch in all kinds of ways. The high stresses put upon the shoes wear out their form quicker than usual. Skaters want a shoe capable of keeping a consistent shape throughout its lifetime. Basically, skaters want them to rip before they become all loose.

Flat Sole

High-Tops are higher cut than other shoes. They usually end above the ankle. Thanks to the higher cut, high-tops offer more stability as well as additional padding and thus, more safety, protection, and cushioning in the area of ankles.

Mid-top shoes are slightly higher cut than low-cut shoes, and the laces typically fall just under or directly at any ankle. They are not as high as hi-top shoes, but they are higher than low-tops. As a result, they offer a higher degree of stability, dampening, and support as compared to low-cut sneakers. Additionally, most mid-tops are perfectly suitable as transitional shoes in the colder months of the year because they stay warm and dry.

Low-top shoes are the flat standard models in the world of skate shoes and sneakers. Thanks to their lower cut, these models are usually more lightweight. You lose the padding in your ankle area in favor of the lighter weight and material. But don’t worry, thanks to highly developed insoles, you don’t have to sacrifice cushioning and dampening.

The construction and texture of the sole are responsible for the comfort and feel of your shoe. Here you can find out more about the various kinds of soles and how they differ from each other.

Shoe Soles

The construction and texture of the sole are responsible for the comfort and feel of your shoe. Different soles are built in the same shoes to meet all the different requirements. Here you can read more extensively about various kinds of soles and how they differ from each other.

Outsole

The outsole is the most important component of a good skate shoe. It has to fulfill all your wishes for grip, stability, and flexibility and must also be resistant to abrasion. In order to optimally meet all these needs, air pads and other types of shock-absorbent cushioning are often integrated into the outsole.

Midsole

Between the outer and inner sole lies the middle sole. This is the main dampening component of the shoe and is made mostly of EVA (ethyl vinyl acetate) as well as phylon, a heat-resistant plastic. Almost all the major shoe labels have developed their own midsole constructions. The most well-known are the lunar footbed, the max air, and zoom technology from top-notch skate shoe manufacturers.

Insole

With insoles, it’s all about the individual needs of the wearer. This is why they are often removable or interchangeable in higher-priced shoe models. So once they are worn out, you can replace the insoles or if they are not as fresh as they once were, you can let them air out.

There are many models that offer diverse features. For extra cushioning, gel pillows are sewn into certain insoles. The curvature of an insole is also adapted to suit the needs of skaters. Depending on the brand and model, there are different types of skate shoe insoles.

The footbed is often made of EVA, a heat-resistant man-made material that’s both soft and elastic as well as durable. There is also the Ortholite Insole. It’s a breathable and antibacterial insole that cools and is particularly long-lasting and resilient. Some insoles rely on dual-density. They have varying degrees of firmness throughout the footbed and provide even more comfort when the user moves.

There are also shoe inserts that are specifically fabricated for skateboarders. These provide even more dampening, which helps protect against injuries and relieve your joints. That’s the reason why professional skateboarders rely on insoles.

Vulc Soles & Cup Soles

When it comes to skate shoes, a distinction is made between two different sole constructions: Cup Sole and Vulcanized sole. Cup soles are sewn into the shoes, making them more robust, but at the same time, also somewhat heavier and more inflexible. The shoe with a vulcanized sole offers a lot of agility and a great feel for your skateboard, but they are less robust than shoes with cup soles due to the fact that they don’t have the additional seams.

Here is the sole construction entail in detail:

Vulcanized sole

The greatest advantage of a vulcanized sole is the lower weight and the higher flexibility thanks to a thinner sole. Such a sole construction results in an incredible board feel. Because, in contrast to the cup sole, the individual rubber parts are only glued to each other in vulcanized soles and adhered to the upper by a narrow rubber strip. This means you can jump on your board as soon as you get your shoes, without having to break them in first. The downside of this manufacturing process is that vulcanized shoes wear through relatively quickly and are more prone to abrasion. They also don’t dampen as well as cup soles on account of the fact that they’re thinner and softer.

Cup Soles

List:

The cup sole consists of three main parts:

The outsole is additionally sewn into the shoe, while the insole is either glued in or simply inserted. Due to the thick polyurethane sole is either glued in or simply inserted. Due to the thick polyurethane sole and extra seam, a shoe with a cup sole is more stable and better at damping than a vulcanized sole, especially if you’re skating gaps and steps. Due to the thick soles, however, these shoes are also heavier and less flexible than vulcanized soles and therefore take longer to be broken in.

Profile Soles

Depending on the manufacturer, there are different shoe profiles that give both cup soles and vulcanized soles more flexibility, cushioning board feel, or grip. Among the best-known are the Herringbone profile and Waffle sole, which was exclusively developed for skateboarding by Vans. Nowadays, the free sole, which is perfect for both sneakers and after-skate shoes. Soles with thicker profiles are mainly used in winter and outdoor shoes to provide the necessary grip in snow and wet conditions.