Basic skateboarding gear

Once you have brought yourself a skateboard or perhaps burrowed a friends and your looking to hit the skate park, but are not quite sure what to do next then the first thing you should do is get a pair of skate shoes. You can pretty much skate alright in regular shoes, but it will be a lot more of a challenge to do so and can even turn out to be dangerous. Skate shoes are basically built with a large flat bottom, witha large surface area in order to grip the board better. they also often have other features such as extra reinforcement in areas of the shoes where you are most likely to wear them down a lot. You should also seriously think about getting a helmet. You will no doubt come across skaters who may not wear helmets and this in turn will make you worry that wearing one will make you look like a wimp, but not to worry. It is a common thing now for many skate parks to require the use of helmets and that they are to be worn, which is the case especially when you first start out skateboarding. Remember it is also always better to be safe then sorry. There are other protective pads you can benefit from too, but this all depends on a degree to what you are doing. If you are trying to do tricks in your driveway, then all you really need are elbow pads, but on the other hand you really only need knee pads if you are skating on say a ramp, or trying some quite crazy tricks. Wrist braces are yet another useful protective piece of kit, but do remember to be careful not to use your hands to mutch to catch your fall, as you do not want to get used to it.