Trucks, finally (we took a few weeks off, sorry)

Well folks,
(if there is anyone out there) here they are. The first longboard trucks we ever bought. Randal's II 180mm. Like we said before we did not know what to buy so we stopped by our friendly neighbourhood skate shop the Decline. (formerly in Provo, Ut now in American Fork, Ut under new ownership) We asked their advise on trucks (that's where we met Fullmer) and they advised if you need to conserve money buy cheap wheels or bearings, or make your own deck, but never buy cheap trucks for a longboard. Why you ask? That's what we asked. Why? Well because most longboarders like to ride downhill, more speed, speed wobble! Whats speed wobble? Longboards usually achieve much higher speeds than a skateboard. At high speed trucks with the wrong kingpin angle can get to wobbling, more speed more wobble=speed wobble. This can be VERY dangerous, CRASHES usually occur, along with pain, road rash, blood, broken bones, and death. So you guessed it. We didn't scrimp, we bought the Randal's and boy have we been very happy with them. I don't know how fast we've been (no speedometer) but its been faster than we should have and we have never had speed wobble with our Randal's. My younger son (Scratch and dent) had a pretty bad crash first time out with some old skateboard trucks we had laying around. He tried to keep up with Scooter on Randal's and lost it on the first hill due to speed wobble.

Anyway there are a lot of good longboard trucks out there. We hope to test them all. Paris, Gullwing, Independent, Original, and others including the new Bear trucks by Landyachtz, but for now we highly recommend Randal's. Made in America, reasonable price, excellent performance. Oh by the way they turn pretty darn well also. You can flip the hangar over and make them even more stable and they have different angle base plates available to customize your ride. You can learn much more at http://www.randal.com/ FAQ page.

Cool, Green Wheels

We want to present the equipment in the order that we acquired it and tested it. The next thing we got after Scooter's first board was finished was wheels. He purchased a slightly used set of ABEC 11 70's Flashbacks, 70 mm longboard wheels from one of his friends. They are rated 78a. That's their durometer rating that designates how hard they are. A low number, like 75a is a pretty soft wheel, smooth ride, rolls well over rocks and bumps, not quite as fast. A high number like 100a is a very hard wheel, rolls very fast, not a smooth ride, longer lasting. Usually, longboard wheels are 75-78a. Usually, pool and park wheels on skateboards are in the 90s. The flashback wheels have been extremely good, all around longboard wheels. They've ridden well for the 3 years we've had them, they've been very durable, held up with a lot of use, however, if a lot of sliding is done, they will chunk. Especially if sliding is done when they are brand new, as you can see in the pictures. The new wheels were only a few days old when the chunk came out. The old wheels are the ones we have been riding for 3 years, on various boards. We would highly recommend flashbacks and feel that they are one of the very best, all around longboarding wheels, great for downhill, cruising, carving and commuting.
Next week, we will review our first set of longboard trucks

The Beginning

I guess the best place to start is to start at the beginning. In early spring of 2006, my oldest son, Scooter, was between woodshop projects. His teacher told him to go in the back room and see if he could scrounge up a small project to take up some time. He found a partially completed longboard and brought it home for my opinion. It was approximately 50 inches long and only 5/8ths of an inch thick. We found that this was way to long for its thickness and it flexed way too much. We decided to save the project and cut it down to 42 inches and reshaped it. At the time, Scooter weighed about 150 lbs, which was about perfect for that thick of a board. He became a very proficient rider in a short period of time. His first day on a longboard, he came down the Provo Canyon River Trail with his friends who had been riding for several years. The board proved to be an excellent shape, length, and size. It was made out of cabinet grade birch plywood. It has about 11 or 12 equal thickness birch plys, which is much stronger than other plywood like CDX that has plys of wood and then plys of mush (sawdust and glue). When we build our own boards, we want to make sure we use good quality, hardwood, plywood, with all plys the same thickness.
This great first longboard project that got virtually the whole family into boarding, came to an untimely demise because of a girl. Scooter was showing off for Kelly, showing how well the board flexed by bouncing on its middle, when it cracked and broke in half. Scooter liked this design so much that he made several copies of the board. More on that later.
NOTE: If our riders weigh more than 150 lbs, we use 3/4inch baltic birch cabinet grade plywood

We just got started. As time permits we will post reviews of all the equipment we have tested to date. We will try to post about once a week.