Question: Does Cold Weather Make Skateboards Break Easily?

A skater named Matt wrote in, "I usually go through a deck every 6 to seven months. But recently within 2 months I've already snapped 2 decks and my third is already cracking. This has all happened since October and here in Korea it gets really cold. Does cold weather affect your skateboard, does it make your board snap easily?"

This is a good question - sometimes in winter, it's not raining or wet out, it's just cold.

Should you avoid skateboarding when it's cold outside? And does the cold make your skateboard more likely to break?

Answer: Unfortunately, extreme hot or cold will make your skateboard perform strangely. Here's the simple answer:

• If it's really really hot out, your board will be weaker.
• If it's really cold out, your board will be less flexible and snap easier.
• If it's really humid out, your board might warp.

Not the best news, I know. It's really up to you to decide if it's too cold out to skate - if you are only skating for a little while, it shouldn't be a problem. The main problem comes when people leave their skateboards outside in this kind of weather. That's a terrible idea. I've lived in Japan for a few years, and I know that winters there are both freezing cold AND humid. In that kind of place, I would say you can still skate, but either keep your sessions short and your board inside when you aren't using it, or get used to buying more replacement decks...
Here's all the science behind this info:

When a tree is cut down, the wood is full of moisture (a little less than half of its weight is moisture). The wood is left to "season", which means it is laying around drying out. It loses water trapped in and on the wood cells, which counts for half it's weight. This makes the wood stronger and more usable by us to build stuff. Like skateboards!

But the wood will still absorb moisture from the air, if you have it somewhere especially humid or wet. That's one reason that skateboarding in the rain is a bad idea - the board will soak up some of the water. Then, when you take it back inside or when the weather gets warms again, this water leaves the wood and warps it.

Temperature also does funny stuff to wood. The hotter it gets, the weaker wood becomes. The colder it gets, the stronger the wood is, but it also becomes less flexible. For skateboards, this is bad news either way. A short time in either extreme shouldn't have long term effects, but things like leaving your skateboard outside in the sun on an extremely hot day, or leaving it outside when it's super cold out, are both bad ideas.