Also, is this the same as leaning on a bicycle or motorcycle to turn?
In: Physics
The front wheels are connected to the skateboard [at an angle](https://www.skatewarehouse.com/anatomy.html) that makes them “steer” when you turn.
It’s the same principle to bicycle and motorcycle front wheel being held by a [fork](https://bike.bikegremlin.com/545/bicycle-fork/) that’s not vertical / straight down, but at a slight angle, so that when you lean the cycle the angle of contact between the front wheel and the ground pushes the wheel to “steer”.
I think it is because of the special axles, when you lean on it, it causes the axels to turn slightly.
Think about the steering wheel in a car – fixed on the end of a steering column, at right angles to the column but at something of an angle relative to the car. Put one hand at 9 o’clock and the other at 3 o’clock. The line between them is horizontal, and they’re the same distance forward in the car.
Now keep your hands in those positions, and turn the wheel left. Your left hand goes down, and – because the steering column is at an angle – moves a little closer to you (backward in the car). Your right hand moves higher and a little forward.
That’s basically the truck of a skateboard, upside down. Instead of a steering wheel, there’s an axle at right angles to the steering coumn, with a wheel at each end (where your hands were). And instead of the steering column going down to the chasis of the car, there’s a rod which goes up to a socket on the underside of the deck, where it’s free to pivot. If you turn the rod one way, one of the wheels gets closer to the deck and the other gets further away – but, crucially, because the rod is at an angle to the deck, they also move a litle forward and backwards along the deck.
The result is that, if you turn the rod so that the axle twists, then put the board down so that both wheels are on the ground, two things have happened. Firstly, the deck is tilted (one wheel – one end of the axle – is closer to the board than the other). Secondly, the axle has twisted at an angle, relative to the front/back line of the deck (one wheel has moved slightly forward, the other has move slightly back). It’s steering, in other words.
Rather than directly turn the axle to turn the board, you do things backwards – put more pressure on one edge of the deck than the other, so that one side of the axle gets squeezed. That pushes it to rotate around the rod to a more stable position, with both wheels on the ground. But that also twists the axle so that it’s pointing in a different direction.
All you need now is another axle at the other end, just the same as the first one but pointing the other way, and you’re home and dry. Put your weight on the edge of the deck, and the two axles twist in opposite directions – and the board rolls in a curve.
Clearly, you need to make sure that the pivots are pointing the right ways, or you’ll lean right and the board will turn left. But what the heck, that’s what safety equipment is for.
(There are more bits to the trucks of a skateboard than that, not least to keep everything in place and help things work – but let’s stick to the main principle.)
It’s not the same because of how the wheels are attached to the deck. The wheels on a skateboard are mounted on a flexible housing called a truck. When you lean, the trucks turn the axles in and out.
It’s hard to tell but the wheels turn.
Pretend you are looking top down at a skateboard Leaning right makes the right side wheels pull what looks like toward each other. In return the left wheels expand outward away from each other.
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