WTF is Razor Tail and How Do I Avoid It?

JUMP TO: WHAT CAUSES RAZOR TAIL  |  HOW DOES RAZOR TAIL AFFECT MY SKATEBOARD  |  HOW DO I AVOID RAZOR TAIL  |  CAN I FIX RAZOR TAIL  |  DIFFERENT WAYS TO STOP

Author: John Nichols | Updated: Nov 5, 2023
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Whether you’re new to skating or have been at it for a while, you will probably find yourself dealing with a skateboard razor tail sooner or later.

Put simply, razor tail is when the nice, rounded edge of your skateboard’s tail gets shaved into an angle. In its worst stages, your tail will lose a lot of length and become squared off as well. Your skateboard ends up with a kicktail that is a sharp, straight line—hence, “razor tail”.

Don’t worry though, you can put away the shaving cream, cause this kind of razor doesn’t actually have much cutting power. Some folks think that this can cause you greater injury on bailed tricks than a rounded, new tail, but in our opinion a shinner is a shinner. That said, a razor tail still has some serious consequences for your board’s performance and longevity.

In this article, we’ll cover what causes razor tail, how it affects your skateboard, and what you can do to avoid it.

WHAT CAUSES RAZOR TAIL?

Far and away the most common cause of razor tail is using your tail to stop. Just like how it’s not ideal for you to stop by flying off your board and dragging your skin across the skatepark, it’s not necessarily ideal for your board to stop by having the tail ground into the pavement. Do that too much, and boom, you have razor tail.

Depending on how long you skate a board before breaking it in some manner or replacing it, there are other things that can wear the tail enough to cause razor tail as well. The next biggest culprits are dragging your tail on failed manuals or via running hops onto the board.

HOW DOES RAZOR TAIL AFFECT MY SKATEBOARD?

There’s no hard and fast line for when general tail wear ends and razor tail begins. We find that you’re going to start noticing your board losing pop when you wear to about middle ply at the tip of your tail. At this point, your tail is also much thinner than when it was all bright and shiny in the new-board cellophane, and is very likely to start to chip, which will only make your board’s pop worse.

As your deck slowly disintegrates from the tail inwards, you’ll have to do more than just pop harder. The shorter the tail gets, the more you will have to tweak the timing of your movements for tricks. Some scoop tricks (tre flips, pop shuv-its, impossibles) might become incredibly difficult or even… ahem… impossible.

Skateboarding puns aside, usually a deck will say its sweet goodnight before hitting a critical level of razor tail. Even a moderate level of it can be bothersome and throw off your tricks, though.

HOW DO I AVOID RAZOR TAIL?

Unless you already have a solid level of board control or shred so hard that you get a new board every couple of weeks, you’re likely going to get at least light razor tail from scooping tricks and dragging your manuals.

Riding mindfully and avoiding any unnecessary tail dragging is the best place to start minimizing razor tail. We think it’s best to just pick one bad habit to focus on eliminating until avoiding it is second nature. After that, you can move on to another one while keeping skating fun and not worrying too hard about the “right” way to do things.

Manuals will take a good amount of effort to really nail down, but daily practice goes a long way to improvement. Dragging during a running start should go away as you feel more comfortable jumping onto your board—try some stationary cavemans and watch how a few pros do it to start feeling it out. 

Stopping though, now that’s a different beast. Hopping on a skateboard and realizing they don’t know how to stop is many a would-be skater’s first slam. Check a little further on for our guide on different ways to slow your roll without sacrificing your body or precious plank of freedom.

CAN I FIX RAZOR TAIL?

Sadly, there is really no feasible way to fix razor tail. Some folks recommend sanding away the tail until you get a rounded edge again, but we find that anything more than a cursory smoothing of the tail is an unnecessary removal of material. Same goes for cutting it off entirely with a bandsaw.

Unfortunately, cutting and sanding doesn’t solve the issue of your board getting shorter and the altered physics that come along with that. It can also damage the epoxy holding the plies of your board together and dull your pop even further.

DIFFERENT WAYS TO STOP TO AVOID RAZOR TAIL

Avoiding tail drag — pressing the tail of your skateboard against the ground to slow you down — is the best way to minimize razor tail. Play around with these stopping techniques instead.

RUN-OFF: At low to medium speeds, the run-off is a classic way to bail. Of course, it helps that it doesn’t take much to learn how to do it safely. If you’ve lost control of the board and have a safe runout, or just don’t have any other way to stop yet, step forward with your back foot and get ready to hit the ground running! As a bonus, this motion will naturally kick the board behind you so it should stay out of your way.

FOOT BRAKE: The foot brake is another one for low to medium speeds. The body position for this is almost the exact same as when you are standing with one foot on the board and one off. To do it, you essentially brace your body on your front leg and drag the sole of your back shoe flat against the ground next to the board.

TOE DRAG: If you’re looking for something less drastic than both running off and braking with your foot, dragging your rear toe off the side of the board is a good way so make a smaller adjustment to your speed while staying in a bit more stable of a position.

For this one you brace on your front leg like you are foot braking, but instead of taking your whole rear foot off the board you brace your heel on the edge and dip your toe. The wear on your shoe will be a lot more focused than foot braking, but it’s in a spot that doesn’t get worn much by other things. In our experience, by the time it becomes a problem your shoe is likely falling apart in other places as well.

POWERSLIDE: The powerslide is easily the most fun braking method, but it takes the most coordination and practice. It fell out of style in the 2000s before coming back due to the madmen in GX1000, but it’s always been a blast and should be in your arsenal. Without getting too much into the finer points of technique (which you’ll have to feel out for yourself), powersliding is pushing your board sideways out in front of you to let the friction of your wheels slow you down.

Powersliding has some downsides though. You’ll have to have enough speed to initiate and hold a slide, so it can be a painful learning curve. It also won’t bring you to a fast stop, and if you hold it for distance you can flatspot your wheels. It really is best for style points or checking your speed when you’re going too fast to safely bail or slow down in any other way.

MORE INFORMATION

Razor tail too far gone? Twice as hard to get good pop as it used to be? Chipping at the tail? Check out our take on the best skateboard decks to get you rolling again.

Or if you’re looking for more information on skateboarding or longboarding, be sure to drop into some of our other content:

Or check out our entire Gear Reviews Page, our Knowledge Base Articles, or Destination Guides for more skateboarding and outdoors related content.