Slappy

Slappy doesn’t make decks: it makes trucks, and everything it makes revolves around one obsession — kingpin clearance. It was started by Mike Sinclair, a career team manager, and Thrasher announced it on 14 November 2022. If you came here looking for a board, this is the aluminium department.

History

Sinclair had spent twenty years as a team manager for big brands and had never owned a company. Lockdown gave him time to chew on the idea. He laid it out plainly in Jenkem in December 2022: he ruled out decks (“everybody uses two or three different wood sources, so no matter what, everybody’s got the same board”) and wheels (“there’s like two top-secret formulas and ain’t nobody getting them”), and went for the hardest option. “I did it because I was bored out of my mind and I started messing around with my trucks.”

There’s no distributor behind it. “Slappy is not part of anything. It’s out of my garage,” he told the same interview. He went knocking on distros himself, and Steve Douglas opened the European doors. Three years later, in September 2025, Jenkem asked him what share of the truck market Slappy holds: “Oh, I don’t know. I’m just lucky to be here. Two percent?”

The team

The first person on the team was Nick Kirch, a kid from North Carolina who got an early pair and set about trying to destroy them. Since then Ryan Hamburg, Christian Hall, Abner Pietro, Aaron Pike, Cordano Russell and Georgia Martin have come in. The loudest signing is Arisa Trew, who put down a switch 540 for the brand in 2024. Videos land regularly: “Have Fun With Us” (2023), “Never Heard of ‘Em” (2024), “Spicy” (2025) and “May I Have This Dance?” (2026).

The trucks

It’s all one line, the ST1, and the difference between models is essentially how much kingpin they get out of your way.

• Classic: forged baseplate, solid kingpin. The basic one.
• Hollow and Hollow Light: hollow kingpin and axle to cut weight without losing strength.
• Low Profile: 4 mm lower, same geometry. Sinclair insists it isn’t a typical low profile because it keeps the clearance.
• Hollow Inverted “Curb Killer II”: a recessed kingpin and serious clearance.
• Ultra Low Inverted: the most aggressive of the lot, with a shorter top bushing and the kingpin lower still. “You can slappy feeble grind. You could slap into a hurricane. You can do a back smith, dip it all the way to the ground.”

Sinclair doesn’t rewrite history either: he openly credits Grind King for doing inverted kingpins thirty years ago, and rates Krepar’s too. Widths start at 7.5 and go places nobody else goes: there’s an 11” Wide Boy made with Fos of Heroin, and a 13” that he says sells surprisingly well.

Who it’s for

If you skate curbs, slappies and long grinds and you’re sick of hearing the kingpin scrape, this is the brand. Same if you ride a very wide deck and standard sizes leave you short. It isn’t for anyone who wants heritage or a huge team — this is a one-man company, and it doesn’t pretend otherwise.

To understand what each truck height actually does, read the hi vs lo trucks guide.