Picking a skateboard
Source: Midnight Snack Skateboarding
Buying Your First Board
Buying your first skateboard can be overwhelming. There's so many decisions to make; wheel size, wheel hardness, trucks, bearings, deck size and shape and even grip tape.
As an absolute beginner, much of those things aren't going to matter at first. You can learn to balance, push, cruise, tictac and kickturn on pretty much anything (within reason!).
How to do it
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Go to a local skateshop or reputable online skate retailer. Avoid buying at supermarkets, toy stores or major online retailers like Amazon.
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Look for completes - These are prebuilt skateboards. These are fine to get you started, after a few months you can start to upgrade individual parts as you desire (eg you may decide want softer wheels if frequently riding rough ground) until eventually your board is completely different to the one you started with!
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Choose your deck size - This is the width of the board. As a general rule if you have big feet, get a wider deck (8.5+) Smaller feet go around 7.75-8.25. Childrens boards can be 7.5 or even less. Seek advice from your local skate shop or stand on some boards if unsure.
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Buy the board!
Common mistakes
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Don't buy too cheap (eg under £50). Cheap completes will ruin your experience, hinder your progress and are often unskateable. These are mostly found in supermarkets or toy shops. You should be OK buying anything between £50 and £100 at a reputable skate shop.
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Rather than buying a complete (prebuilt) board, many people reccomend choosing individual parts seperatly and building a custom board from scratch. This can be much more expensive and daunting if you don't know what you need, and the likelyhood is you will spend £300+ and still get it wrong! It's better to spend less on a complete and upgrade parts one at a time when ready.
Learn more here!
Video by Midnight Snack Skateboarding