I know nothing about skateboards apart from they are a board with wheels.

They appear to come in different sizes and obviously prices.

What and from where would be an OK board for him to learn on ?
amazon have some in the £25 mark

(& would I be able to ride it too)

Use the same approach as you would if you were buying him a bike. If he’s serious, don’t buy too cheap. If you’re not sure, get something cheap but be prepared to buy him a new one after 3 months. My first one as a kid was destroyed in under 8 weeks and then my folks had to shell out for something 10 times more expensive.

how longs a piece of string…

how much do you want to spend?

how serious do you think your kid will be, and is he likely to trash the thing or take care of it?

where will he skate?

what does he aspire to skate?

do his mates skate and what do they ride?

will you skate with him?

nope his mates don’t skate and it would be on the quiet tarmacced lane outside the house, at first at least – there is no park immediately close to us.

Will I skate with him – probably only so he has a laugh to watch me fall off.

His main hobby is biking (good lad), it’s just for a laugh really (well at initially anyway)

I certainly don’t want to spend £100 up front.

so I guess I want to know, will a £25 board from amazon be OK or is there a more specialised site and what size do I want (for him)

Thx.
Bill

Funny that… I was about to put my boards on ebay… I’ve got a generic skateboard from route 1 skate shop, cost me £40 new and its hardly used, I’ve also got a lovely long board, which is also practically brand new (I only used it 4-5 times before I broke my thumb/nose/jaw/head etc.)

The skate board is set up nice and soft, so young legs will be able to turn it, and the long board is great fun for us older kids (slightly more acceptable as well!) and if oyu’ve never ridden one its a bit like snowboarding on wheels, but its smal enough that you can carve up the skatepark as well.

Combined deal, £50 posted then you and your son can skate together and harmony will be returned to the world!

the difficulty is that for 25quid it will not buy you a lot of choice, you’ll pretty much be stuck with a generic street set-up (double kick and small hard wheels). sizewize at this price they are all much of a muchness (maybe 30 x 7.5 or so), avoid the very small ‘back-pack’ type ones.

general skate shops that i’ve used…

http://www.kateskates.co.uk
http://www.rollersnakes.co.uk
http://www.skatewarehouse.co.uk

pricing it up quickly on ebay, i reckon i could do a decentish basic street set up, that’d be better quality by far than the argos jobbie, for 50quid.

however around here, maybe because so many of them surf, kids are drifting away from street stuff and getting more into longboards and 70’s style boards. these are far more suited to riding around on having bigger/softer wheels and trucks that turn. for basic completes maybe 60quid up.

things like this are popular,and for a 9yr old good dimensions..

http://www.rawk.com/Shop/ShopProductDetail.asp?fdShopProductId=13847

or…

http://www.skateasylum.co.uk/acatalog/mindless-longboards-sb9600-energy-blue.html

for more specialized kit, especially slalom (which would be a good lad and dad thing)…

http://www.octanesport.co.uk
http://www.apollo11shop.co.uk

the latter having some decent cheap street completes for 27quid.