One rider's ledger: everything good about fingerboarding right now, and everything that isn't

The poster describes themselves as an older guy and a fairly new fingerboarder: about three years in, roughly a year and a half of that semi-serious. They say they spend time at ASI, the Berlin fingerboard shop whose crew has organised events for the city's scene since 2006, around more established riders, and that they are reading and watching more fingerboarding media than they used to.

Then the ledger.

The bad column, in their words, runs to "Ripoff companies that take money and don't deliver," people trying to "muscle into the hobby/industry," and "prices being high! but that is true for literally everything in last few years." There is the perennial one too: "The drama, like (famous/influential) person or company ABC not liking XYZ and vica versa." The list also reaches into harder territory about individual riders' behavior and personal problems, which is not something we are going to relay secondhand. The post names one organization directly in the muscling-in complaint; Kingpin hasn't verified that characterization and hasn't sought a response, so we're leaving the name to the thread.

The good column is longer, and the poster says so explicitly — all of the above is "quite minor in comparison."

• "So many small companies and webshops/drops, all the obstacles, 100s of people making boards"
• "actually having choice now in not a few but really rather many good long lasting wheels and even Trucks, is crazy!"
• "The many events, competitions and meetups" — the post's next words are about Europe, and the text available to us cuts off mid-sentence there.

Strip the drama line out and what's left is a claim about supply. Not hype about the scene's vibe — a claim that a rider today can choose between multiple wheel formulas that hold up, multiple truck options, and hundreds of people cutting decks, and that obstacles and drops are plentiful enough that choosing is the problem rather than finding.

That is testable. It is also the thing a newer rider notices first and a ten-year veteran stops noticing at all, which is why the observation lands harder coming from somebody eighteen months into taking it seriously.

The counterweight in the same post is equally concrete: preorders that never ship, and prices that keep climbing. Those two live in the same sentence as the abundance, and any honest scene report has to hold both. A market with a low barrier to starting a brand is a market where a lot of people make good boards and a few take money and disappear.

Plenty, and the poster would probably agree — they asked for thoughts rather than offering a verdict.

• Whether prices have actually risen relative to a few years ago, or whether the mix has shifted toward premium decks, CNC trucks and bearing wheels while budget options still exist.
• Whether the event calendar is genuinely fuller. The post gestures at Europe before the excerpt cuts off. Counting confirmed meetups and comps year over year would answer it; a feeling won't.
• Whether "hundreds of people making boards" is a health signal or a saturation one. More makers means more choice and also more brands that fold with orders outstanding.
• How much of this is a Berlin view. The poster rides around ASI's regulars, with a real shop, sessions and a core crew close by. Most fingerboarders don't have that.

None of that is a knock on the post. It is a rider thinking out loud in the right place, which is how this scene has always worked out what it thinks.

The full thread is on r/Fingerboards, and it is the kind of post that is only as good as the replies under it — veteran riders with a longer baseline, makers who know what their materials cost now versus in 2023, shop and park operators who know whether foot traffic is up.

If you have been riding long enough to compare eras, or you run a space or a brand and have numbers rather than vibes, that thread is where the answer gets built. Kingpin Magazine is reporting this one out; if you want to be part of that, the thread is the front door.