Anyone who was a kid in the seventies or eighties will remember the plastic skateboard. Long before
there were different boards trucks and wheels for tricks,cruising,parks and racing we made do with
one board to do it all from transport to tricks.

Like various dodgy 70's and 80's bands the plastic skateboard has recently sneaked out of retirement
and is making a comeback. Todays kids are enjoying the plastic cruiser for the first time and nostalgic adults are stealing their kids boards for a quick skate down memory lane or a trip to casualty
after hitting the first pothole and discovering that humans don't bounce as well at 35 as they did
when they were 10 and skills don't last as long as memories.

My boyfriends son loves skateboarding and despite already owning a couple of skateboards and a longboard he really wanted to buy one of these plastic cruisers. After a search online we decided to
add to the money he had saved and buy the Stereo Vinyl board for him.

The Stereo Vinyl Cruiser comes in a huge range of bright colours for both the board and wheels and
arrives ready to ride in a transparent box which contains the board, stickers and a matching pair of
sunglasses. Although it's built up and supposedly ready to ride the wheels on ours hardly spun
which initially made us wonder if the bearings were rubbish but thankfully it turned out that the
nuts had been over tightened so loosening them off slightly solved the problem.

The trucks have soft bushings allowing the board to carve easily and the soft 59mm 78a wheels roll
smoothly allowing you to survive pavement cracks and small stones that would stop you dead on
a regular board with hard 99a polo wheels. The board itself has a circular raised pattern moulded
into the plastic to keep your feet from slipping instead of the grip tape found on most boards and
there's a small kick tail for wheelies and kerb hopping.

The Stereo Vinyl Cruiser measures roughly 22.5 x 6 inches which is a lot smaller than most standard
skateboards at around 30-32" long and between 7 and 8.5 inches wide so it's small enough to
to take with us on holiday without taking up too much room in a bag and also fits in Ryan's school
bag so he can to ride it to school then keep it with him.

Obviously wanting to relive the skateboards of our childhood my boyfriend and I couldn't resist
having a play with this when it arrived. The board a lot of fun to ride and perfect for cruising around
or carving down hills although it takes a bit of getting used to after riding longboards as the short wheelbase obviously isn't as stable so expect some speed wobbles. Although it isn't really designed
for tricks it can cope with small ollies and hopping off kerbs but it's primarily a cruiser board and
that's what it does best.

Ryan has owned this for around 4 months now and still loves it. The board seems pretty robust
although the plastic does get grubby quickly and there are a good few scuffs where it has hit
pavements or the tail has dragged none of these really affect the durability of the board and so
far there's been no need to replace the wheels or bearings.

The Stereo Vinyl Cruiser costs between £60-£75 and is available from skate shops and Ebay or
Amazon and a new set of wheels costs around £20. Overall I would recommend the Stereo Vinyl
Cruiser although I do think they are slightly expensive for what they are the Stereo version still
comes in at around £20 cheaper than the Penny brand version.