Customizing can and should be a lot of fun for those that wish to try it. It's part of the expression of skating. Always has been. Surfskates offer even more scope to change things around and intermix brands. I love tuning a board to feel 'right' for my riding style and ability. Appreciate your time and work here Steve. Top shelf as always.
That's amazing Steve, you managed to create a watchable encyclopedia of modern surfskate customization and optimization. Thanks for the tremendous work of putting this together into an unmatched reference video for anyone who's looking to optimize or play around with their setup. Awesome work Steve !
The collaboration with Riptide bushings was gold. The single most significant upgrade for me were pink bushings and flat washers. Different bearings and wheels are great, but the quality and rebound of the bushings has truly been awesome. You leave no stones unturned in your video presentations and your order shipping is speedy quick! 🫵🥇
I customized my Smoothstar Toledo by chucking out the rear truck, replacing that with a Gullwing Sidewinder 2. Couple that with pushing the front truck forward a few inches make my rig so much more flexible rail to rail.
My man, Steve, bro... If you're going to do that wheel well grind you really, maybe not "need", but you really WANT a larger belt, or drum sander... Those pictures hurt my heart, and I think you could even do a prettier job with a regular grinder, and a flapper sanding disk. Great info elsewise, as always. With such a huge/nebulous topic, I think you've really started to hone in on some really important points, within the collective surf-skate wheelhouse. You've made an incalculable contribution to this community. Thank you so much for your time, and efforts.
Thank you for putting this together and discussing so many variables. Opens things up to play around with. I really love Waterborne on longer wheelbase boards, and the cx on my Globe 33" Chromantic with the 22.25"wb. Longboard feel, but lighter. My all around board for a variety of excitement is the c5 on a sturdy 32" cruiser with wedge risers (as if it wasn't carvy enough) and Orang 70mm stimulus. Hold on to your hats. Edge city!
I watched a ton of your videos! THANKS FOR ALL THE SURFSKATE KNOWLEDGE!!! Coming from a LDP background to surfskating RE: ANGLED RISERS I can fill this in a bit for you. The closer the front truck king pin is to about 58° and the rear rear truck king pin is to " 90° straight down " (AKA 0° in LDP longboarding terms). The EASIER pumping is!. Most of the surftrucks or Systems give you something close to the front high angle while negleting the rear angle because the goal is surfing, not LDP Long Distance Pumping.. THE FOLLOWING will likely have better results on regular, non surf TKP or RKP truck choices. BUT might, maybe help with surf trucks/systems IF PUMPING not surfing is the goal. However this would DEFINETLY HELP THE ORIGINAL WATERBORNE SYSTEM BEFORE THE FIN SYSTEM. In this case, WEDGING the front truck 7° WOULD make it even more like "superpump". When I first tried the Waterborne WITH the rail system the pumping was horribly slow like moving through sand. After removing the rail system and DEWEDGING my rear INDIE TKP truck by 14° (or down to 3° in LDP terms: 17° stock kingpin angle minus 14° DEWEDGE = 3° kingpin angle). Pumping was super easy and 4 times faster like on my LDP setups!!! DEWEDGING can be done Using 2, 7° angled risers stacked together or 1, 15°, with the fat ends in the direction of the tail and the thin ends toward the board middle. This will give you the greatest advantage to using angled risers. But your'e also gonna need 2 or 2/12" bolts for this trick.. NOTE if you do this you may also want to swap for HARDER high rebound bushings. 2 or 3 duros harder to maintain the rebound power which gets diminished as the angle decreases in DEWEDGING). If you are NOT using a surf truck or surf system you could simply WEDGE a 50° RKP truck, bringing the front truck angle up from typically 50° on a RKP Truck (Which turns more than tkp BTW..) to about 57° with 1, 7° angled riser and swapping out for SOFTER bushings to aid in turnyness. (Ironically WEDGING the front truck angle riser is the IDENTICAL DIRECTION to DEwedging the rear IE the fat end of the riser pad STILL points to the tail. It's strange but that's the way it works) - if you do it with the fat end facing the nose on the FRONT truck you actually DECREASE the front truck angle making it turn LESS!). Anyway, Although you could try this on the front truck surftrucks or surf systems it won't make nearly the difference as decreasing the back truck angle because the surftrucks/ systems are already at super high angles. And while trying angled risers on regular RKP front trucks WILL make any board more pumpable and slightly, more surfy IT'S NOT a great substitute for a surf truck/ system.
Awesome video! You've got a lot of intriguing custom setups there and really nice configurations. It's awesome you're experimenting outfitting super longboards with Actual front surfskate trucks! This is one place the original Smoothstar Thruster really shines. We'd love to see a video of your Long Longboard setups.
Hi Steeve, Happy to see that you have more and more fun on big longboards. I've been convince by a Kahuna 48 deck with flex on which i've tried : Slide front truck, Meraki truck, Paris, now they are in Arsenal 165 wedged and it's a fantastic pumpable board to have fun with a paddle ! Not exacly a surfskate anymore, but no boundaries, loose longboard allow to mimic very well real surfing, where shorters surfskates are another game, snappier and looser than real surfing. All i learn on 34" surfskate helps me on the 48", and the opposite is true.
I've only just started and I have absolutely no idea what I need. I bought a Yow x Pukas 34.5 Surfskate and it feels a bit hard to push, maybe because I'm small, lightweight and untrained. Even slight uphill roads and passages take a lot effort. But it's good for learning because it's quite stable and you feel safe on it. Later on, I'd like a smaller, lighter board that I can use for long distances.
My only experience has been with waterborne front and rear. I like carving but forward thrust is my top priority. Would you say switching out for the C2 rear would help with that?
Hi! I just started watching the video. I'm deep into customization and DIY and,to be honest, I find the amount of hardware and tools you're using excessive, just to say a word. All I've ever needed is a skate tool, maybe a leatherman multi tool. I think this may seem like a soft-wall for most young skaters looking into surfskating, if you know what I mean. Not all of us have the amount of time and money to buy expensive tools, specially when already having to buy parts. This is specially true when you're young. As I said, i just started watching the video, and to be fair it seems to be full of useful information Thanks for sharing. I hope I'm not too blunt, it's just my two cents.
It's a fair point. But this isn't "The Budget Guide to Customizing Surfskates." It's "A Comprehensive Guide." And if you were watching, you would have heard me say at the beginning, "You don't need all this stuff, I'm just showing you what I use." And I do use all that stuff on a daily basis. Especially all the hardware. That's absolutely essential for me. My intention here is to give people as many options as possible. You can do as little or as much as you want depending on your interest and budget. And my two cents is that it gets tiresome to hear people talking about the budget issue, because frankly, it usually sounds like petty jealousy. Not saying this is you, just saying I get the same comment a lot, and I think it's just silly. If you have the budget, customizing is a HUGE part of the fun. At least for me. And I work very hard to have my budget, and I invest in what I love. But I get tired of the sour grapes attitude. It's just a reality that some people have more of a budget than others. Having said all that, I do see a lot of value in "A Budget Guide to Customizing."
I have a carver Taylor Know Quill deck with the CX trucks and carver park wheels... using for park and bowl skating. I'm considering upgrading my bushings and pivot cups. I am 6'3" and 175lbs. What pivot cup and bushing durometer would you suggest? Was thinking the green 96a cups and the yellow 90a bushings.... thoughts?
Really appreciate your work, thanks! I already changed the pivot cups and the bushings on my yow and now i wanna change the rear truck, can i just swap the riser with the waterborne rail adapter or I have to change the truck as well? If so I will just search a carver c2 truck 😂 Thanks again mate!!!
Hi Steve. In order to customize a surfskate for pumping medium distance, and that could roll on uneven surfaces (sidewalks with groove patterns, or rough asphalt, for example) but also maintain the flow of surskate, starting from a Meraki truck, would it be a good idea to put some wedge risers on the front meraki, opening the angle (as in the waterbone configured in megapump)? That would make the meraki more pumpeable, and would allow to mount 75 or 80 mm wheels without weelbite? Thank you very much for your amazing work and your passion for skateboarding.
@@SurfskateLove I dunno. I think Sol-Ride might have 'accidentally on purpose' made one of the best designs for a front skate truck ever created. Seriously, if you get into the true custom truck scene, that's kind of dominated by downhillers, you might stumble into Rojas trucks, which is a strikingly similar concept, in a way more premium/customizable platform. Point being, with a little tinkering via bushing duro, motion stops, and wedging, and maybe some width options for the hangers, you can really make a Sol-Ride truck do anything, from a platform that initially rides lower than a standard truck, and really doesn't weigh significantly more. The key to it is in it's mechanical simplicity. It's actually less dynamically complex than a standard truck. But it hones what dynamic motion you actually need, on a single plane, and is completely customizable with wedging. I hope more people come to understand the beauty in distilling a front truck down to what you actually need, in this way. But the key drawback it has is the fragility of the twisting bushings, and the fact that you're forced to buy a multi duro four pack, for replacements, that are of questionable urethane composition. I sure hope it doesn't wind up getting lost in the mix of everything, getting set aside for being as cheaply produced as they are. Because the step up, for similar design, jumps immediately into the 1000 dollar range for what is essentially a custom machined fully modular truck.
Thanks for the great clip, Steve!
The way I see it, this is the very best Guide to Upgrading & Customizing Surfskates on the platform.
Congrats!
Customizing can and should be a lot of fun for those that wish to try it. It's part of the expression of skating. Always has been. Surfskates offer even more scope to change things around and intermix brands. I love tuning a board to feel 'right' for my riding style and ability. Appreciate your time and work here Steve. Top shelf as always.
Comprehensive is definitely the right word for it! Way to go Steve!
That's amazing Steve, you managed to create a watchable encyclopedia of modern surfskate customization and optimization. Thanks for the tremendous work of putting this together into an unmatched reference video for anyone who's looking to optimize or play around with their setup. Awesome work Steve !
The collaboration with Riptide bushings was gold. The single most significant upgrade for me were pink bushings and flat washers. Different bearings and wheels are great, but the quality and rebound of the bushings has truly been awesome. You leave no stones unturned in your video presentations and your order shipping is speedy quick! 🫵🥇
Excellent video. All-in-one guide to build your very own surfskate of dream.
I customized my Smoothstar Toledo by chucking out the rear truck, replacing that with a Gullwing Sidewinder 2. Couple that with pushing the front truck forward a few inches make my rig so much more flexible rail to rail.
My man, Steve, bro... If you're going to do that wheel well grind you really, maybe not "need", but you really WANT a larger belt, or drum sander... Those pictures hurt my heart, and I think you could even do a prettier job with a regular grinder, and a flapper sanding disk.
Great info elsewise, as always. With such a huge/nebulous topic, I think you've really started to hone in on some really important points, within the collective surf-skate wheelhouse. You've made an incalculable contribution to this community. Thank you so much for your time, and efforts.
I’m only doing it on decks I don’t care about. I would never do it on nice decks that I want to look good. And thank you so much!
Dang! Well done man!
Thank you for putting this together and discussing so many variables. Opens things up to play around with. I really love Waterborne on longer wheelbase boards, and the cx on my Globe 33" Chromantic with the 22.25"wb. Longboard feel, but lighter. My all around board for a variety of excitement is the c5 on a sturdy 32" cruiser with wedge risers (as if it wasn't carvy enough) and Orang 70mm stimulus. Hold on to your hats. Edge city!
I have spice pilot X on the soulboard 👌 and putting their new OKTO on a soulboardiy too.
Great video, very useful!
I watched a ton of your videos! THANKS FOR ALL THE SURFSKATE KNOWLEDGE!!! Coming from a LDP background to surfskating RE: ANGLED RISERS I can fill this in a bit for you.
The closer the front truck king pin is to about 58° and the rear rear truck king pin is to " 90° straight down " (AKA 0° in LDP longboarding terms). The EASIER pumping is!.
Most of the surftrucks or Systems give you something close to the front high angle while negleting the rear angle because the goal is surfing, not LDP Long Distance Pumping..
THE FOLLOWING will likely have better results on regular, non surf TKP or RKP truck choices. BUT might, maybe help with surf trucks/systems IF PUMPING not surfing is the goal.
However this would DEFINETLY HELP THE ORIGINAL WATERBORNE SYSTEM BEFORE THE FIN SYSTEM.
In this case, WEDGING the front truck 7° WOULD make it even more like "superpump".
When I first tried the Waterborne WITH the rail system the pumping was horribly slow like moving through sand. After removing the rail system and DEWEDGING my rear INDIE TKP truck by 14° (or down to 3° in LDP terms: 17° stock kingpin angle minus 14° DEWEDGE = 3° kingpin angle).
Pumping was super easy and 4 times faster like on my LDP setups!!!
DEWEDGING can be done Using 2, 7° angled risers stacked together or 1, 15°, with the fat ends in the direction of the tail and the thin ends toward the board middle. This will give you the greatest advantage to using angled risers. But your'e also gonna need 2 or 2/12" bolts for this trick..
NOTE if you do this you may also want to swap for HARDER high rebound bushings. 2 or 3 duros harder to maintain the rebound power which gets diminished as the angle decreases in DEWEDGING).
If you are NOT using a surf truck or surf system you could simply WEDGE a 50° RKP truck, bringing the front truck angle up from typically 50° on a RKP Truck (Which turns more than tkp BTW..) to about 57° with 1, 7° angled riser and swapping out for SOFTER bushings to aid in turnyness.
(Ironically WEDGING the front truck angle riser is the IDENTICAL DIRECTION to DEwedging the rear IE the fat end of the riser pad STILL points to the tail. It's strange but that's the way it works) - if you do it with the fat end facing the nose on the FRONT truck you actually DECREASE the front truck angle making it turn LESS!).
Anyway, Although you could try this on the front truck surftrucks or surf systems it won't make nearly the difference as decreasing the back truck angle because the surftrucks/ systems are already at super high angles.
And while trying angled risers on regular RKP front trucks WILL make any board more pumpable and slightly, more surfy IT'S NOT a great substitute for a surf truck/ system.
This video is the most informative video honest professional opinions and encouraging!!great work bro
Wonderful video! Thanks a lot! I really would like to learn more about the biggest ones!
I’ll be doing some videos on them.
Awesome video! You've got a lot of intriguing custom setups there and really nice configurations. It's awesome you're experimenting outfitting super longboards with Actual front surfskate trucks! This is one place the original Smoothstar Thruster really shines. We'd love to see a video of your Long Longboard setups.
I'll be doing a lot of videos on the crazy longboards! I'm addicted!
@@SurfskateLove Nice! Looking forward to watch them.
Parabéns, amei a organização e todo esse conteúdo incrível que você expõe de forma profissional e capacitada . Estou aprendendo com você.👏👏👏👏🙌🙌🙌🙌
Love the YOW front with the C2 rear
Hi Steeve, Happy to see that you have more and more fun on big longboards. I've been convince by a Kahuna 48 deck with flex on which i've tried : Slide front truck, Meraki truck, Paris, now they are in Arsenal 165 wedged and it's a fantastic pumpable board to have fun with a paddle ! Not exacly a surfskate anymore, but no boundaries, loose longboard allow to mimic very well real surfing, where shorters surfskates are another game, snappier and looser than real surfing. All i learn on 34" surfskate helps me on the 48", and the opposite is true.
I've only just started and I have absolutely no idea what I need. I bought a Yow x Pukas 34.5 Surfskate and it feels a bit hard to push, maybe because I'm small, lightweight and untrained. Even slight uphill roads and passages take a lot effort. But it's good for learning because it's quite stable and you feel safe on it. Later on, I'd like a smaller, lighter board that I can use for long distances.
My only experience has been with waterborne front and rear. I like carving but forward thrust is my top priority. Would you say switching out for the C2 rear would help with that?
I don't think so.
Ur the fucking man!!! Love all your videos and instagram posts!!!!
Hi! I just started watching the video. I'm deep into customization and DIY and,to be honest, I find the amount of hardware and tools you're using excessive, just to say a word.
All I've ever needed is a skate tool, maybe a leatherman multi tool.
I think this may seem like a soft-wall for most young skaters looking into surfskating, if you know what I mean.
Not all of us have the amount of time and money to buy expensive tools, specially when already having to buy parts. This is specially true when you're young.
As I said, i just started watching the video, and to be fair it seems to be full of useful information
Thanks for sharing. I hope I'm not too blunt, it's just my two cents.
It's a fair point. But this isn't "The Budget Guide to Customizing Surfskates." It's "A Comprehensive Guide." And if you were watching, you would have heard me say at the beginning, "You don't need all this stuff, I'm just showing you what I use." And I do use all that stuff on a daily basis. Especially all the hardware. That's absolutely essential for me.
My intention here is to give people as many options as possible. You can do as little or as much as you want depending on your interest and budget.
And my two cents is that it gets tiresome to hear people talking about the budget issue, because frankly, it usually sounds like petty jealousy. Not saying this is you, just saying I get the same comment a lot, and I think it's just silly. If you have the budget, customizing is a HUGE part of the fun. At least for me. And I work very hard to have my budget, and I invest in what I love. But I get tired of the sour grapes attitude. It's just a reality that some people have more of a budget than others.
Having said all that, I do see a lot of value in "A Budget Guide to Customizing."
@@SurfskateLove Totally agree and well put.
Please do a review on the swellteck Jamie O'brien surfskate
I have a carver Taylor Know Quill deck with the CX trucks and carver park wheels... using for park and bowl skating. I'm considering upgrading my bushings and pivot cups. I am 6'3" and 175lbs. What pivot cup and bushing durometer would you suggest? Was thinking the green 96a cups and the yellow 90a bushings.... thoughts?
Really appreciate your work, thanks! I already changed the pivot cups and the bushings on my yow and now i wanna change the rear truck, can i just swap the riser with the waterborne rail adapter or I have to change the truck as well? If so I will just search a carver c2 truck 😂
Thanks again mate!!!
Thank you! You can keep the truck on your YOW, just attach it to the rail adapter. Have fun!
I WOULD LOVEEEEE TO SEE THE REVIEW OF THE NEW WATERBORNE SYSTEM CALLED DREAM SYSTEM!
On the way!
Hi Steve. In order to customize a surfskate for pumping medium distance, and that could roll on uneven surfaces (sidewalks with groove patterns, or rough asphalt, for example) but also maintain the flow of surskate, starting from a Meraki truck, would it be a good idea to put some wedge risers on the front meraki, opening the angle (as in the waterbone configured in megapump)? That would make the meraki more pumpeable, and would allow to mount 75 or 80 mm wheels without weelbite?
Thank you very much for your amazing work and your passion for skateboarding.
I've never tried it. Give it a shot and let me know how it rides!
Hey I was wondering what the wheelbases are on the first soulboardiy you showed with 2 wheelbase options
It has options for 17", 18" and 19".
What if your put the carver on the water borne rail adapter for the back truck ??
It would ride way too high, for starters.
could you put a normal skate deck with the carver trucks?
Not typically, because you need a wider wheelbase.
💯💯💯💥💥💥👍👍👍
Can someone PLEASE beg and plead with Riptide to come out with some SolRide replacement bushings???
Good luck. It’s shockingly expensive to make custom molds and there’s no market for Solride bushings yet.
@@SurfskateLove I dunno. I think Sol-Ride might have 'accidentally on purpose' made one of the best designs for a front skate truck ever created.
Seriously, if you get into the true custom truck scene, that's kind of dominated by downhillers, you might stumble into Rojas trucks, which is a strikingly similar concept, in a way more premium/customizable platform.
Point being, with a little tinkering via bushing duro, motion stops, and wedging, and maybe some width options for the hangers, you can really make a Sol-Ride truck do anything, from a platform that initially rides lower than a standard truck, and really doesn't weigh significantly more.
The key to it is in it's mechanical simplicity. It's actually less dynamically complex than a standard truck. But it hones what dynamic motion you actually need, on a single plane, and is completely customizable with wedging.
I hope more people come to understand the beauty in distilling a front truck down to what you actually need, in this way.
But the key drawback it has is the fragility of the twisting bushings, and the fact that you're forced to buy a multi duro four pack, for replacements, that are of questionable urethane composition.
I sure hope it doesn't wind up getting lost in the mix of everything, getting set aside for being as cheaply produced as they are. Because the step up, for similar design, jumps immediately into the 1000 dollar range for what is essentially a custom machined fully modular truck.