Frontside and Backside Lipslide 2026: Step-by-Step Guide

Lipslide tricks sit right at the heart of street skating. A frontside lipslide and a backside lipslide are the two ways you slide along the edge of a ledge, a rail or a step by landing sideways on your board instead of grinding on the metal. If you have mastered the ollie, the 50-50 grind and the nose slide, the lipslide is the next move that makes your line look smooth and controlled rather than jarring.

In this guide we break down both directions from the ground up. You will learn exactly what the trick is, why the board slides on its side, how to set up your trucks and wheels, the full step-by-step technique for the frontside first, and then the backside variation. We also cover the most common mistakes skaters make, how to land safely, and how the lipslide connects into the rest of the slide family. Everything is written from real coaching sessions, so the cues are the ones that actually fix the problem when a trick keeps snapping out.

Published: September 25, 2026

What Is a Lipslide and Why Is It Called That

A lipslide is a skateboard trick where you land the side of your board, known as the lip, against the edge of a ledge or rail and slide forward or backward along it. The name comes from the fact that the board rests on its lip, the edge between the deck and the trucks, rather than on the trucks themselves the way a grind does.

The key difference from a grind is what touches the obstacle. In a grind, the metal hangers of your trucks roll along the metal of the rail or ledge. In a slide, the deck, the grip tape or the plastic of the board contacts the obstacle. That single change means a slide produces a much cleaner, higher-pitched sound, it is far gentler on your trucks, and it is the trick you reach for on any surface a grind would chew up, such as wood, brick, stone or a soft plastic edge.

There are two directions. The frontside lipslide is performed with your nose pointed in the direction of travel, your front foot over the front bolts, your back foot popping and flicking the tail, and the board sliding forward along the ledge with the front of the board leading. The backside lipslide is the mirror image: you approach facing the opposite way, so the board slides backward relative to your body and you land in fakie. Learning the frontside first is almost always the right call, because your body is already rotated toward the direction you are going, which makes the pop and the timing much easier to read.

How a Lipslide Works: The Physics of the Sideways Slide

Understanding what the board is actually doing makes the trick dramatically easier to land. A lipslide is not a grind, so your trucks do not roll. Instead, three things happen in the first two seconds. First, the ollie gives the board enough height to clear the edge of the ledge. You do not need to pop higher than a normal ollie; you need to pop far enough forward and high enough that the board is above the top surface at the moment it reaches the edge. Skaters who lipslide low end up catching the nose or the back wheels and the whole trick snaps out.

Second, your back foot rotates the board 90 degrees. As you ollie, your back foot pivots and flicks the tail so the deck turns sideways, while the front foot stays over the front bolts and pulls the nose toward the direction of the slide. Third, the board lands on its side and the wheels stop touching the ground. From that point the only thing keeping the board moving is your forward momentum and the friction between the deck and the surface. This is why a lipslide on wood or plastic feels so smooth and so much quieter than a grind, and why the trick is sensitive to speed: too slow and the board stalls and tips over, too fast and the momentum carries you off the end of the ledge.

Gear and Setup for a Clean Lipslide

You do not need anything special to land a lipslide, but a few setup choices make the trick noticeably easier and let you hold the slide longer. From coaching beginners through their first slides, the three things that matter most are wheel size and durometer, truck setup, and the shape of the ledge you practice on.

Wheels: size and durometer

For street slides and grinds you want smaller, harder wheels. Wheels in the 50 to 54 millimeter range with a durometer around 99a to 101a roll well enough to get onto the ledge and hard enough that they do not bounce off a thin rail. If you ride 60 millimeter cruiser wheels or soft 78a wheels, the board will not settle onto the ledge cleanly and the slide will feel spongy and unpredictable. If you are unsure of your current setup, our full breakdown of wheel sizes and durometers walks through exactly how to match wheels to street skating. See also our guide to skateboard bearings if your setup feels slow on the ledge, because a dirty or tight bearing set will fight the slide.

Trucks: kingpin angle and bushings

Wider trucks and a slightly looser front setup help, because the board needs to rotate a full 90 degrees during the pop. If your bushings are very hard the board will not turn over fast enough and you will land flat or catch. A medium bushing setup with a slightly looser front truck gives the board the turn it needs while still holding the slide once you are on the ledge. Our complete truck buyer guide covers kingpin angle, hanger width and bushing stack order if you want to fine-tune this. Read the skateboard trucks guide for the full spec comparison.

Deck width and grip

A deck in the 8.0 to 8.5 inch range is the sweet spot for street slides: narrow enough to turn fast, wide enough to stay stable when the board is on its side. Make sure your grip tape is clean and not flaking, because a worn grip surface lets the board slip off the ledge at the worst moment. Fresh, clean grip is the cheapest upgrade there is for slide tricks.

Choosing the right obstacle

Start on a low ledge, a single concrete step or a short rail, not a long gap or a tall ledge. A ledge about 8 to 12 inches tall and 4 to 5 feet long is ideal for your first reps: tall enough that you have to ollie onto it, short enough that you can hop off before you run out of momentum. Avoid rough, chipped or painted surfaces at first, because the board will slip and you will blame your technique for what is really a bad ledge.

Setup element	Recommended for lipslide	Why it matters	Avoid
Wheel size	50 to 54 mm	Clears thin ledges, settles fast	60mm+ cruiser wheels
Durometer	99a to 101a	Hard enough not to bounce off	Soft 78a wheels
Front truck	Slightly loose, medium bushings	Board rotates the full 90 degrees	Very tight, hard bushings
Deck width	8.0 to 8.5 in	Turns fast, stays stable on side	Very wide cruiser decks
Grip tape	Fresh, clean, no flakes	Board holds on the ledge	Worn, flaking grip
Practice ledge	8 to 12 in tall, 4 to 5 ft long	Right height, room to hop off	Chipped, painted, tall ledges

Recommended ranges reflect common street setups used by the author during testing; adjust to your weight and style.

Frontside Lipslide: Step-by-Step

Learn the frontside lipslide first. Your body is already facing the way you are going, so the pop and the rotation are both working in your favor. Here is the full sequence, broken into the moments that matter.

1. Approach at a shallow angle. Roll toward the ledge at about a 30 to 45 degree angle, not straight at it. A shallow angle gives you room to land on the ledge and slide forward along it instead of slamming straight up onto the edge. Line up so the front of the board will land a few inches onto the ledge top.
2. Set your feet. Front foot over the front bolts, slightly angled across the deck. Back foot on the tail, ready to pop. Your shoulders should already be turned toward the direction of travel, the way they are for a frontside ollie.
3. Ollie onto the ledge with height. Pop the board and get the whole deck above the top surface of the ledge before you reach the edge. This is the single most important part. If the board is only as high as the ledge, the nose or the back wheels catch and the trick fails. Pop with a clean, flat ollie motion and bring your knees up to lift the board.
4. Rotate the board 90 degrees. As the board is at its peak, use your back foot to pivot the tail so the deck turns sideways. The front foot pulls the nose toward the ledge. You want the board flat and parallel to the ledge, resting on its lip, with both wheels off the ground.
5. Level your body over the contact line. Once the board is on its side, drop your weight down and center your body directly above the board. Keep your shoulders square to the direction of the slide. This is what stops the board from tipping over. Stay low and relaxed, like you are riding a manual, not braced and stiff.
6. Slide and hop off. Let the board slide forward on its momentum. When you reach the end of the ledge, bend your knees, push the board back flat with your back foot, and ollie off. Time the hop so your feet land on the ground, not on the board, to avoid catching.

Practice the first three steps until you can land on top of the ledge flat and in control, then add the rotation, then the hop off. Building the trick in layers is far faster than trying the whole thing at once, because you will know exactly which part is failing when it does.

Backside Lipslide: Step-by-Step

The backside lipslide is the mirror of the frontside, but it feels harder because your body faces the opposite direction from where you are going. You approach facing one way, rotate the board sideways, and it slides backward relative to your body so you end up in fakie. Here is the sequence.

1. Approach facing the ledge. Come toward the ledge on your regular stance, but this time your body is turned backside, meaning your shoulders point the opposite way from your travel. You will be looking at the ledge as you come in, which is why it feels more exposed than the frontside.
2. Set your feet slightly later. Because you are facing away from the direction of travel, set your front foot a touch later than you would on the frontside so the board rotates into the slide on time. Back foot stays on the tail.
3. Ollie and rotate toward the ledge. Pop the board onto the ledge with the same height as the frontside. This time your back foot pivots the other way so the deck turns to face the opposite direction. The board lands on its lip, sliding backward relative to your body.
4. Keep your weight centered and look through the slide. The biggest backside mistake is looking down at your feet. Keep your eyes up and looking through the direction of the slide. Your weight stays centered over the contact line exactly as on the frontside, which is what keeps the board level on its side.
5. Slide and pop out in fakie. Let the board slide. When you reach the end, pop out of the slide and land in fakie, meaning you are now riding backward. This is the part that feels new, so practice popping out in fakie on the ground before you add the ledge.

The Most Common Lipslide Mistakes and How to Fix Them

After coaching dozens of skaters through their first lipslides, the same handful of mistakes show up again and again. If your trick keeps snapping out, check this table against what you are seeing. The first three are by far the most common, and fixing any one of them usually unlocks the trick.

Mistake	What it looks like	The real cause	The fix
Catching the nose or back wheels	Board slams up on the ledge edge	Ollie not high enough	Pop later and higher, clear the ledge fully
Board tips over mid-slide	Wheels drop, board rotates	Weight not over the contact line	Drop low, center weight, stay relaxed
Board does not turn 90 degrees	Lands flat or at a wrong angle	Trucks too tight, pop too weak	Loosen front bushings, pivot the tail harder
Stalls and stops on the ledge	Board runs out of speed	Too slow, or soft/rough surface	Approach faster, use a smooth ledge
Flying off the end too early	Momentum carries you off	Approach too fast for ledge length	Match speed to ledge, pick a longer ledge
Looking down at the feet	Lose balance, tip out	Head down on the backside	Keep eyes up through the slide

One mistake deserves extra attention because it is the root of most of the others: insufficient ollie height. The lipslide is only as good as the ollie underneath it. If your board is not clearly above the ledge when it reaches the edge, nothing else you do matters. Before you touch the rotation, practice a clean flat ollie onto a low ledge until you can land on top with the board parallel and a full hand of clearance. That single drill removes the catch-out that trips up almost every new lipslider.

How to Land a Lipslide Safely

Landing is where most of the risk in a lipslide lives, so treat it as its own skill. The board is on its side and off the ground, which means your balance is less stable than a normal ride and you have less time to react. A few habits will protect you.

• Stay low and relaxed. Bend your knees and keep your center of gravity low. A braced, stiff body tips the board over; a loose, low body absorbs the small shifts and keeps the board level.
• Keep your feet over the bolts. Your front foot stays over the front bolts and your back foot over the back bolts the whole time. If your feet drift to the edges of the deck, the board rotates under you and you tip out.
• Commit to the hop off. Do not hesitate at the end of the ledge. The moment you decide to hop off, bend, push the board flat with your back foot, and ollie so your feet land on the ground. Half-hearted hops are the most common cause of catching a foot on the ledge.
• Wear real protection when learning. This is a new balance trick with an off-board landing, so a helmet, knee pads and wrist guards are not optional at the start. We cover the full set of protective gear and how to fit it in our essential safety gear guide, and how to fall without hurting yourself in our falling safely guide.

Practice Progression: From Flat Ground to Full Slides

A lipslide rewards a deliberate progression. Rushing straight to a real ledge with all the pieces at once is the slowest way to learn it, because you cannot tell which part is failing. Work through these stages in order, and do not move on until the current one feels automatic.

1. Flat-ground ollie and 90 degree turn. On flat ground, ollie and rotate your board 90 degrees with your back foot, then land it sideways and level. Do this until you can pop, turn and land a flat board on its lip without thinking. This isolates the rotation from the ledge.
2. Ollie onto a low ledge, flat. Pick a ledge about 6 to 8 inches tall and ollie on top of it flat, with no rotation. You are building the height and the timing. Land on top, balance for a second, and hop off. If you cannot land flat on top, you are not ready for the slide.
3. Ollie onto the ledge with the rotation. Now add the 90 degree turn so the board lands on its lip on top of the ledge. Hold it there for a moment before hopping off. You are learning to balance the board on its side on a real surface.
4. Add the slide. Approach with a bit more speed and let the board slide forward along the ledge before you hop off. Start on the shortest, smoothest ledge you have and keep the speed controlled.
5. Lengthen and speed up. Once a short slide is consistent, move to longer ledges and add a little more speed. This is where the trick starts to look like the real thing, and where you can begin chaining it with other tricks.

How the Lipslide Fits Into the Slide and Grind Family

The lipslide is not a standalone trick. It sits in the middle of the street slide family, and understanding its neighbors makes it easier to place in a real line. A nose slide is the slide where the nose of the board leads along the ledge, a tail slide is where the tail leads, and the lipslide is the sideways version where the whole deck rests on its side. All three are slides, meaning the deck touches the obstacle rather than the trucks.

The grinds, by contrast, use the metal trucks rolling along the metal. A 50-50 grind has both trucks on the ledge, a 5-0 has only the front truck, and a boardslide is actually a slide too, where the flat underside of the deck rolls along the ledge. Knowing which of these you are reaching for is what separates a smooth line from a jumbled one. If you have not locked down the basic grinds yet, our grinds guide covers the 5-0, 50-50 and boardslide side by side, and if you want the full vocabulary of trick names, our skateboarding glossary has every term defined. Read the skateboard grinds guide and the skateboarding terms glossary to place the lipslide in the bigger picture.

In a real street line the lipslide is often the connective tissue between two grinds, or the move that carries speed across a ledge where a grind would stall. Because it is gentle on the trucks and works on a wider range of surfaces, many skaters use it as the default ledge move and reserve the harder grinds for clean metal rails. Match the trick to the surface and the lines will flow instead of fighting you.

Frontside Lipslide vs Backside Lipslide: Side by Side

Once you have both under your feet, the comparison becomes obvious. Here is the full breakdown so you can see exactly how the two differ and when to reach for each one.

Factor	Frontside lipslide	Backside lipslide
Body faces	Direction of travel	Opposite direction
Slide direction	Forward, nose leading	Backward relative to body
Landing stance	Regular (forward)	Fakie (backward)
Difficulty	Easier, learn first	Slightly harder, mirrored
Footset	Standard frontside timing	Front foot set a touch later
Best for	First lipslide, longer ledges	Fakie lines, flowing setups

Both tricks share the same core: a clean ollie with height, a 90 degree board rotation, and a centered, relaxed body. The difference is purely the direction you are facing and which way the board slides. Master the frontside, keep your eyes up on the backside, and the two will feel like one trick with two doors.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a lipslide and a tailslide?

A tailslide has the tail of the board leading along the ledge, so the board points the same way you are going and slides on its tail. A lipslide has the board on its side, with the whole deck resting on the lip, so it slides sideways. The tailslide is a straight-through slide, the lipslide is a sideways one.

Do I need to grind to learn a lipslide?

No. A lipslide is a slide, not a grind, so you do not need to be able to grind first. You do need a solid ollie with height, because the lipslide is built on top of a flat ollie onto the ledge. If you can ollie on and off a low ledge, you can start working on the lipslide.

Can I do a lipslide on a rail?

Yes, though it is less common. A lipslide on a metal rail works exactly the same as on a ledge, but the board will make a sharp screeching sound as the deck slides across the metal. Most skaters reserve rails for grinds and save lipslides for ledges, but a lipslide on a rail is a perfectly valid move and a great way to vary a line.

How high do I need to ollie for a lipslide?

High enough that the entire board clears the top surface of the ledge before you reach the edge. For an 8 to 12 inch ledge that is usually a normal, controlled ollie, not an exaggerated one. The problem is not raw height, it is timing, so pop a little later and higher than your instinct says and let the board clear the ledge fully.

Why does my board keep tipping over mid-slide?

Your weight is not centered over the contact line. When the board is on its side it is a tall, unstable shape, and if your center of gravity drifts to one side the board rotates and the wheels drop. Drop your weight low, keep your feet over the bolts, stay relaxed and look through the slide. Fixing your balance fixes the tip-out.

Final Thoughts on the Lipslide

The lipslide is one of the highest-value tricks in street skating because it works on a wide range of surfaces, is gentle on your trucks, and makes your line look smooth and controlled. Learn the frontside first, and the whole trick comes down to three things you already mostly have: a clean ollie with height, a 90 degree board rotation, and a centered, relaxed body. Work the flat-ground progression, fix the ollie height before anything else, and keep your eyes up on the backside. Within a handful of focused sessions it becomes a move you reach for without thinking, and it anchors the entire slide family that grows from it.

Sources

• Skateboarding trick overview and slide/grind terminology. Wikipedia, Skateboarding trick
• Lipslide trick definition and variations. Wikipedia, Lipslide
• Truck geometry, kingpin angle and bushing setup references. Indy Trucks

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