Going too fast? You're not the only one. Penny boards are small, but there size is also a big reason you can't easily slow down. Penny's don't give you any room for foot placement shifting, and if you get yourself in a pickle, needing to stop as quickly, the short story is you're gonna have a bad time. Scroll down to see our top tips for how to slow down on your penny board.
Hop Off
When it comes to slowing down on any board, you've got a couple options. First off, is just strait up just hop off your board and running off. Not the best option whatsoever, but it does work at slower speed. But as soon as you're really sending it, the risk of just going strait to your face increases incredibly then your board goes off somewhere and you're having a bad time.
Carve it Out.
Carving can be effective while air breaking and throwing your speed into some pretty steezy carves. Problem with this is it doesn't really shut down your speed all the way, but it can be fun if you have a big enough board to handle those deep carves. A Penny will definitely be very sketchy at doing this and won't be able to handle the amount of effort being put into it as much as a longboard can take once again having a bad time...A longboard on the other hand is made for those big fast carves and will grip your turns with ease and shave down your speed to a comfortable carve.
Foot Break.
The better way to shut down your speed is the classic foot break. This is basically just taking a foot off the board and while balancing you drag your foot on the ground to slow down. This is easiest way to slow down and everyone should learn. Problem is it can be super hard to keep that balance on a Penny board where space is very limited then trying to do that at faster speeds is asking for a bad time. A longboard is going to give you way more of that platform for your feet and makes it was more stable and easier to balance on to foot break and slow down.
Sliding.
Lastly the best way to shut down your speed going downhill is sliding! Also the most fun method, sliding your board out from under you whether that be glove down or standup, using the right technique and your board to slide out your speed in an epic drift has proven to be the most effective way to slow down your speed. That's how freeride style skating was born and how downhill has evolved into what it is today! However, a Penny board was not designed to be capable for such a maneuver and makes it nearly impossible to do so unless a ridiculous amounts of skill is .
In conclusion, if you're trying to slow down at high speeds on your Penny, you guessed it...gonna have a bad time. Get a longboard.