Heroin

Heroin Skateboards started in Mark “Fos” Foster’s head in 1998, while he was laid up with a broken wrist after going down at BaySixty6 (then Playstation Park). On the ambulance ride out he caught himself scanning the streets for spots through the window, realised he was addicted to skating, and had the name. Fos is straight edge, and the tagline leaves no room for confusion: “Fuck drugs, let’s skate”. He couldn’t afford full screen printing, so the first boards were spray-painted in his backyard. Almost thirty years on, he still owns the company and still art-directs the whole thing.

History

Heroin came out of the late-’90s UK scene and has never really stopped filming since its earliest days, a video legacy that’s part of the brand’s DNA. Baker Boys Distribution picked up the brand in 2011 and rooted it in the US, where Fos now lives, which finally cemented it on the American market. The name cost them for years: mail-order giant CCS refused to stock Heroin boards for twelve years. And yet, per Jenkem, 2025 was the best sales year in the brand’s history, twenty-seven years in, credited with “reinventing the old guy skater” through shaped boards and a roster that leans into aging pros.

The team

The current squad is every bit as odd as the boards. Dead Dave leads it, and his video parts are genuine brand landmarks. Dalton Dern basically turned himself pro through sheer video output; Swampy actually rides the 14” Eggzilla; UK mainstays Craig “Questions” Scott and Chris Pulman hold it down, alongside Canada’s Lee Yankou. Heroin has also signed older skaters on purpose, like Ira “Curbkiller” Ingram and Tim Olson, and carries veterans Chet Childress and Daniel Shimizu. On the historic side sits Gou Miyagi, whose part contained zero ollies and was filmed entirely in his hometown of Okinawa before Thrasher canonised it, plus the masked Deer Man of Dark Woods and his recurring Halloween parts.

The Egg and the quiver

The one thing everyone knows about Heroin is the Egg: a symmetrical egg-shaped deck that became the brand’s signature and a touchstone for the entire shaped-board movement. Cardiff SC dates the Egg to 2016, and Fos says he’s ridden a 9.5” symmetrical egg himself since 2018. The Eggzilla stretched it to a ridiculous 14” wide, there are shovel shapes too, and it all sits under a “quiver” idea: different shapes for different terrain, like picking golf clubs. Wheelbases get worked out by feel, not spec sheet. He couldn’t land a bluntslide on a 15.5” wheelbase and made it first try on 14.25”, so most Heroin shapes land between 14.125” and 14.3”. The decks are pressed at BBS Manufacturing, the same factories a lot of competitors use; the difference is shape and art, not some hidden construction trick. Fos’s scratchy hand-drawn graphics carry the whole aesthetic, and he pointedly avoids portraits and drawings of skateboards on boards. Guest graphics have come from Todd Bratrud, Funeral French and Charles Forsman, éS built the egg-themed “Eggcel” shoe, and sister brand Snot Wheels showed up during the pandemic simply because Dead Dave had no wheel sponsor.

Why it stands out

If you want a shaped deck with real personality, DIY-punk graphics and a company that never once tried to play the mainstream game, Heroin is about as solid as it gets. To see where it sits among its neighbours, check our guide to European skate brands.