One thing new skateboarders often struggle with is choosing the right deck out of the sea of possible shapes. You might feel lost in selecting and comparing electric skateboard decks. In fact, an e-skate deck is basically just a skateboard deck. It’s helpful to understand the features of a board deck so that you know what you’re looking at. Basic deck shapes include top mount, drop-through and drop-down. It can be difficult to figure out which one you need. Once you understand the purpose of each shape, though, picking just one becomes much simpler. Here we’re going to take a look at the drop through shape and reverse kingpin truck as most drop through skateboards apply reverse kingpin trucks.

Drop Through

Drop through boards have a cut out where the base plate sit on top of the board with rest of the trucks coming through underneath. Drop-through decks achieve their lower platform by placing the base plate above the deck. The purpose of dropped platform of drop through boards is to get the rider closer to the pavement. With a lower center of gravity, the board becomes much more stable. This helps smooth out the ride at faster speeds, and virtually eliminates the dreaded speed wobbles that can happen on top-mount boards. Being closer to the ground, the rider also has a closer reach when pushing. The lower centre of gravity makes the board feel more stable and easier to push and foot break.

The riders weight is dispersed over just the nuts on the bolts. However, the drop through skateboard trucks will be less reactive to your input. They are quite a bit harder to get sideways but the tradeoff is that they have better traction in corners. A drop through is easy to slide. It shines as a commuter because of the shortened reach to the pavement when pushing. To prevent the wheels from biting, drop-through decks almost always have large cutaways above the trucks. The rider is able to lean as far possible on the trucks without fear of wheel bite.

Drop through boards make great cruising and carving boards. Beginners often carry too much speed into curves — especially when learning to ride downhill — and they also tend to kick out too hard on slides. The superior carving ability and naturally better traction make drop-through the safest bet for new skateboarders. It’s recommended to beginners wanting to learn how to slide and others looking for comfortable cruisers.

To sum it up, the features of drop through boards are as follows:

• Very stable at speed
• Easy to push and slide
• Comfortable
• Least response from drop through trucks
• Don’t carve that well
• Typically found on large boards

Reverse

The two most common styles of truck are "reverse" and "standard". These are easily told apart by looking at the position of the kingpin. Both designs offer different characteristics that change the feel of a board. With the way they are mounted, trucks act differently and should be set up accordingly. The conventional way to mount trucks is with the kingpins facing inward. This orientation maximizes the turning radius of the truck and makes sharp turns easier. Another way to mount trucks is with the kingpins facing outward (which is called reverse-kingpin trucks mount). Like a higher pivot angle, the reverse-facing kingpins stabilize the truck, especially at higher speeds. 

In a reverse kingpin (RKP) set up, the kingpin is on the opposite side of the axle, and so the kingpin points in a different direction. For this reason, if you are riding reverse kingpin trucks, your kingpins will be facing away from each other. Reverse kingpin trucks are usually used for downhill riding, carving, cruising, freeride, and freestyle. Reverse kingpin trucks sit lower and are more stable than standard trucks. They can fit on drop through or top mount decks. Because of their shape, reverse kingpins turn more and are taller than traditional trucks, which make carving and turning a breeze. Of course, base plate angle also really affects how much turn and lean you get with your RKP. You can offset the turn and lean you will get with reverse kingpins by changing the base plate angle.

As reverse kingpin truck results in lower center of gravity, the electric skateboard will be close to the ground. If the roads are pretty rough and you may hit your board bottom now and then when landing. Besides, the battery underneath the board is also more likely to be scrapped or hit by obstacles on the road. If your board is stiff and the streets you ride on are fairly smooth, it shouldn’t be an issue. Just watch out for driveways and ramps that have a taller lip. If your battery case doesn’t hit ground when you jump on your deck or do hard turns, you should be ready to go.

To sum it up, the features of reverse-kingpin truck boards are as follows:

• Very stable at higher speeds
• Easy and smooth to turn
• Great maneuverability
• Lessresponsive
• More susceptible to wheel bite.