New from video from Loaded. Very cool event. Would have been better had it been in Texas, but I digress – fun video.

A rad downhill run by Dustin Hampton, filmed by Adam Colton. This kind of stuff makes all the shortboarding flip tricks and whatnot seem pretty unsubstantial. Great job, guys.

Milehighskates.com coined a popular phrase in the longboarding world: Loose Trucks Save Lives.

Based, however, on Milehigh Mark’s own work, I would have to add ” , but Good Bushings Make it Worth Living“.

For a while now, Milehigh has been selling some hybrid trucks, based on either the Ace or Indy hanger, and the Core baseplate. It seems that many standard trucks these days do not ship with the oldschool mounting hole pattern in addition to the current standard. As a result, those trucks can’t be mounted on a lot of longboards, which use the oldschool pattern.

Ace/Core hybrid, with longer kingpin, Reflex bushing on bottom, Ace bushing on top. Killer turning.

I already had some Ace trucks, so I decided to give this a try. I ordered some Core baseplates from Milehigh. Of course, Mark doesn’t just sell you the baseplate. He improves them by replacing the kingpin with a longer, grade-8 kingpin to accomodate taller, softer bushings, and puts in a much better pivot cup.

I used some Reflex bushings on bottom, from Retro, and put the stock bottom bushing from the Ace trucks on top (they come with really good bushings).  Used flat washers on top. These trucks are the Ace 44s. The hangers are 5 3/4″ wide — just slightly narrower than 150mm.

I put these trucks on my Comet Voodoo speed board, with 1/4″ soft risers under them, and some 65mm 78a Road Rider wheels I’ve been holding on to for about 9 years. The wheels are OK. Not great. They are fast, but with the rounded edges they don’t grip all that well. They are smooth as hell. I’ve used these before, and they wear down pretty quickly. I’ll probably put the Retro Zig Zag 66mm back on when these are worn out.

With really good bushings like this, you can tighten the trucks enough that there is no “slop”. They aren’t floppy feeling at all, but they still turn really well. Obviously, running a tall bushing on top isn’t practical for a street board or a pool board on which you’ll be doing grinds, but for a downhill setup it is killer. If you are a street skater who likes loose trucks, I’d recommend changing the bottom bushing to Reflex. It will improve the handling of your board.

Comet Voodoo, with Ace/Core hybrid trucks and Road Rider wheels.

After setting this board up, I met my friend Chris over at a nearby bike path with a nice mellow downhill section, about 1/4 long.  Even without wedge risers, I found these trucks turned as well or better than my 150mm Randal-IIs. To be fair, the R-IIs don’t have the awesome bushing upgrades, so it isn’t really a fair comparison. My point, however, is that with good bushings, a standard geometry truck can turn really, really well.  This is something Bennett Truks (yes, that’s how they spell the word “truck”) has known for over 30 years. This does make me want to try the new Bennetts, even though they ride pretty darned high. Generally I’d prefer a lower truck, and then adjust with riser pads. If I can pick up a set of the Bennett  6.0s cheap I might give them a shot.

I know that a lot of longboarders have been switching to Milehigh’s Hybrid trucks. They are expensive, as Mark has to take a normal truck, pay for a new baseplate, and add a better kingpin and better bushings and pivot cup. So they are about twice as much as a normal set of trucks. But I’d have to say at this point that if you can afford it, the Hybrids are worth the cash. They just carve like butter. All the benefits of a loosely-adjusted truck without any of the flop.

An added benefit: A friend of mine has a Comet drop-through deck with Hybrids on it, and the board sits much lower than it would with Randal-IIs. So if getting low is your goal, this would be an excellent option for you. I don’t see any reduction in turning at all.

A few words about Ace trucks:

These are really nice trucks. They machine down the ends of the hangers so that speed ring on the inside is almost unnecessary. The pivot point is round and smooth, which without a doubt helps make ‘em turn really nicely. Next time you have a truck taken apart, check this — a lot of trucks have rough, crappy pivot points. I know a lot of street and pool skaters are switching to these trucks, and with good reason. They are killer. The bushings are good enough that they’d be good on a longboard even without the hybrid modification.

So overall I’m really happy with this experiment. I’m going to consider putting Hybrids on at least one of my other boards.

I purchased my first Comet longboard in 1999, at the Purple Skunk skateshop, in San Fransisco. It has been a favorite board for 10 years, and I still ride it. Since then, I’ve acquired several other Comet boards.

First, a little about Comet Skateboards. Comet one of just a few skateboard manufacturers that attempts to minimize its environmental impact. They have been at the forefront of this effort too. They use solar power in their manufacturing process. They use a lot of highly renewable materials in their boards. They don’t finish their boards with toxic paints and coatings. They even recycle their wood scraps. Check out their site for more about there sustainability efforts.

Side view of Pagan, showing low profile and spoon concave.

OK, now, about the Comet Pagan. The Pagan is one of Comets downhill/speed boards. They make it in two configurations — a drop-through (where the trucks actually drop through the deck, lowering the entire board), and the flush-mount (on which the trucks are mounted in a recessed area, lowering the board by the thickness of the baseplates). Both of these configurations have the effect of increasing the stability of the board by lowering the center of gravity. I decided to get the drop-through deck.

Top of deck, showing proper mounting hardware for a drop-though deck.

One of Comet’s early innovations for downhill riding is their “spoon concave”. I don’t know if they still use that terminology, but since it is highly descriptive of the product I continue to use it. The entire riding surface of the board is bowed slightly down toward the middle of it’s length, producing a rocker (there have been many boards with rocker before). In addition, the board has a nice concave. Combining the two – rocker and concave – creates a nice “pocket” for your front foot, just behind the front truck. This feature increases the feeling of stabilty provided by the drop-through truck mounting.

View of concave and spoon.

The spoon concave has one other effect. It changes the angle of the front truck just slightly, as the truck is actually tipped up just a bit. This changes the turning geometry of the board, also increase stabilty somewhat.

Why is stability important? Because this board is made for going very, very fast. Faster than I will probably ever go. However, as you’ll see in my previous post, stability can help you even at lower-fast speeds if your course is on crappy concrete or is particularly technical.

As you can see, the board is shaped to minimize the potential for wheel bite with larger wheels. I’m not going to say wheelbite is impossible, but with my 72mm wheels and Randal trucks it isn’t a problem. I realize that these days 72mm is not considered that big. But I don’t really like huge, bulky wheels. Maybe if I were racing, but for my kind of riding I like agility and fast acceleration.

Shot of milehighskates.com kingpin/bushing mods

The Pagan is 10″ wide, at its widest point, and 42″ long. This is good size for me. I’m 6′ tall, and a little over 200 pounds. For smaller riders, or those who prefer a shorter board, Comet makes a smaller version called the Loki. It looks killer too. The Pagan is a nice, big platform. Easy to move your feet around, but the spoon concave lets you feel locked in when you need it. It allows a nice variety of stances — from wide to narrow.

Comet’s earliest boards were pretty flexy. Their newer downhill boards, like this, are not. Under my 200 pounds, this board is just flexy enough to absorb a little shock. It is really a very stiff board. Again – it is made for going at the higher end of downhill speeds (people are hitting 50mph + these days), so most of the flex has been eliminated.

I ordered this board as a complete setup from Milehigh Skates. It is set up with Randal-II 180mm trucks, and Retro Freeride wheels (72mm, 80a). Mark, the owner of Mile High, sets all the boards up himself. He is probably the only person I know from whom I’d buy a complete. He is the only person I really trust to do it right. Mark doesn’t just slap the components together. In particular, he customizes every set of Randal trucks he sends out. He “faces” the hangers (check his website to find out what that means), puts in better king pins, and installs better bushings and flat washers.

Closeup of mounting hardware, on bottom. Little washers prevent the lock nuts from pulling into the board.

Don’t get me wrong — a stock Randal is great. Mark just makes them better. Mounting trucks on a drop-through deck requires some little washers and the right hardware to make it work well, and Mark does all that too. He also uses really good bearings and good bearing spacers, so the wheels are set up just right. No slop. A totally solid setup, right out of the box.

I think my previous post does a good job of describing how well I think this board rides. I think the drop-through and spoon rocker really make a big difference when you are turning at a good rate of speed. Especially when you are making a 90 degree turn around a corner at 20+ mph. I have a lot of boards, and I can tell you this board just handles those situations better. Lower is better.

Since that first session on this beast, I’ve had a chance to ride the Pagan on a mellow, longer hill with nice smooth asphalt. I was just blown away. On the crappy, patched concrete around here, I feel like the Pagan allowed me to get down the hill and make a hard turn in one piece. It drifted a bit, but any board would drift on the surfaces in my area. However, on smooth ashphalt, this sucker rides like a formula-1 race car. Fast fast fast, and just hugs the ground, but still turns and carves all buttery-like.

I need to get it out somewhere and try a few slides. The pavement here is really really bad for sliding, but I’ll find some.

Rear cutout area - prevents wheelbite.

OK, to wrap up this review, as you can see, I’m pretty stoked about this board. I think it is a very versitile board for riding hills, suitable for relaxed carving or free riding, as well as fast hill bombing. Just really a superior board, made by a company that cares about the planet.

Comet Pagan drop-through, R-II 180s, Retro Freerides.

This is a post I made on the smallschool.biz blog a couple of months ago. I’m reposting it here because next I’m going to do a full review of the Comet Pagan board in the story.

Let me preface this post by admitting that I’m not really a downhill skater. Not even close. I’m not a complete spaz — I’ve gone down hills before, but it has never been my thing.

That being said, yesterday I took my new downhill board out to a nearby neighborhood and skated some hills. Nothing too steep, but around here the streets aren’t nice asphalt. They are somewhat OK concrete, with a lot of patches and seams between the sections. Since they are neighborhood streets, of course there are cars parked against the curb, so you’ve gotta keep you wits about you. Don’t want to get doored by someone as you pass by at 20mph. That could hurt.

Now, I think I probably only got up to a max speed of 25, and was probably at 20mph most of the way on these runs of about 1/4 mile each. The 2nd run I scouted out  ends in a T-bone intersection, requiring a 90 degree turn one way or the other. Luckily there is room to see if there’s a car coming. I figured if I spoted one I could just put the slider gloves down and skid to a stop.

Like many such intersections, the pavement there is pretty choppy. They tend to dig things up and then do bad patch jobs. Having walked the hill first, I knew it would be at least a little challenging to not lose my line turning through that spot. No matter what you are riding — even on a great downhill board with big, grippy wheels — If you are turning on choppy pavement you are going to drift and bounce a bit.

At any rate, the first part of that hill was fun. I carved back and forth to control my speed and just enjoyed the flow. But on crappy surface, when you reach a certain speed, carving can be a little harder due to the aforementioned drifting. So at that point I just pointed the nose toward the bottom and picked up speed.

The bottom turn came up a lot faster than I expected. I spoted an SUV down the street I was going to turn into, but it was plenty far away. When I saw that bumpy-ass surface down there, I actually thought about foot braking, but decided to man-up and just plow through.  The new board was rad — it did drift a bit, and I wondered if I was about to go down. So I dropped my stance just a bit for a lower center of gravity through the frontside turn, front hand ready to slide if need be.

I shot through the turn, passing the SUV and waving to the driver, who looked a little freaked out.

This was probably the first real surge of adrenalin and fear I’ve felt skating in a long time. Downhill is no joke. Looking back to that crazy bottom turn, I think I could have picked a much better line to set up for the turn. Streets like this, with 90 degree turns, are not the ideal place to learn, but you work with what you have, eh? I have a lot to learn about this kind of skating.

Oh — yes — I did have a helmet on.