Puddy Tat

I put in 74k on the Grennett in four days of riding over five days last week. I love the truck. The feel of the truck is ridiculously smooth and snappy and it seemed to have added about 1.5 km/h to my average speed compared to my home polished Cinnett. As I mentioned above the feel of the ball pivot is amazing compared to the standard pivot point. However I sent it back to Thane yesterday as the retaining pins for the ball pivot just weren't staying in. I tried several solutions including red loctite, JB Weld and drifting some aluminum over the hole. The pins still came out. Thane has indicated this doesn't normally happen and he will fix it. I'm looking forward to getting this truck back on my board in the future. Dave EDIT: (2 days later) - This was the first time I've had to really ride my board since removing the Grennett on Saturday. I used my original Cinnett (15 degree baseplate) at the same effective wedge angle with the same bushings as I had on the Grennett and I'm much SLOWER! :( I was 47:40 this morning on the 9.5km ride into work this morning (~7min slower than with the Grennett). From a qualitative perspective I felt it required much more effort just to maintain the speed I did this morning. The ball pivot definitely gives the truck a smoother surfier feel; when I was leaning with the Grennett the counter-pressure didn't seem to ramp up the way it does with the Cinnett. And all the machined surfaces on the Grennett seem to have made a huge difference in lowering the overall resistance of the system. Looking forward to getting this back on my board.

9.5k into work this morning, and 10.2k home this evening. On the ride home I noticed the rear of my board was feeling squirrelly and I was having a tough time getting any acceleration out of it. I flipped the board over and took a look and saw I'd split the roadside bushing. Does anything destroy bushings as fast as LDP? Dave

BTW Pokkis. The rear Don't Trip truck is a 20 degree truck. I see you've de-wedged it further. Was wonder how much you de-wedged it? I'm interested because I think I might be around 20 degrees with my Tracker RTS (15 degrees de-wedge) and was thinking with the Don't Trip Truck it would be easy to get even lower. Dave

No argument. Just dreaming. Nice set-up you've got going there. Looking forward to having my LDP setup configured much the same way in the next few weeks. Dave

I'll admit this idea is outside of Bomber's core competency of producing snowboard interface hardware. But seeing as Fin has at least one CNC machine and a mechanical engineering background I think it'd be cool if Bomber came up with a set of precision trucks for pumping. Actually there is potentially more market in the downhill/freeride market, but I think that market might be starting to become saturated with precision truck manufacturers. Fin could go chat with companies like RoeRacing who do slalom, LDP, and are just getting back into downhill freeride and speed boards about whether it would be worth developing trucks for this market. There is only one manufacturer that I know of in North America who just started making a CNC'd reverse kingpin truck for Slalom/LDP (see my previous post). While the potential customer base is large there could be issues with getting acceptance in the downhill skate community; but if you were connected with a well known brand it would ease that transition. With LDP the customer base is much smaller but the community is a bunch of tinkers and tweakers who seem more willing to try things that look like they might work, so it could be easier to transition into that market. The comparision between the relative size of the longboarding Downhill/Freeride and LDP communities is probably pretty similar to the snowboarding Softboot/Hardboot communities. Anyway I'd love having Bomber products on both my winter and summer boards! Dave

I heard about these about a year ago? I don't know I'm torn. I'm pretty much an LDP flatland distance kind of guy or a carver, to be honest. As such I'm either way forward and out of position to use a rear foot brake or I'm only moving 20k or on hills that are wide enough to carve on so I don't have any issues with speed control. Beyond that I'm at the point of being able to do check slides to kill some speed now as I carve. Would be nice for descending steep narrow hills though. Because I do get going pretty quick occasionally (35-40km/h is my top out for comfort), but in those cases I drop a foot brake before I get myself into speeds that I can't stop safely from. (I go through alot of shoes :-). I mean one of the things about longboarding is you shouldn't really be riding faster than what you can stop at (with reference to the terrain). If you're a footbraker this is probably 35-40km/h in an area where you know you won't be turning, or have something appear in front of you. If you can powerslide/coleman you've got alot more speed you can access. My concern is that giving a new rider a brake that they are afraid to move their foot to at high speed (or after speed wobbles have started) might be worse as people who don't have the requisite skill, or equipment, to ride at that speed are going to be riding there before they are ready just because they have a brake? Dave

"Holy Sh!t! - This is amazing." My Grennett showed up last night. The truck shipped semi-assembled (the hanger was off the baseplate) and arrived with the original red Bennett bushings. Thane had hourglassed the boardside bushing, and replaced the original kingpin with an aircraft bolt (epoxied and jb welded into place). It also has precision bearing spacers, Sorry I don't have pics of the parts as they arrived I was a little tired and busy last night and only had time to put the truck on my board. Unfortunately I don't have a perfect comparison with my previous Bennett as between this truck and my Cinnett I changed the wedge angle of the truck by three degrees and had to go to slightly stiffer bushings. (My 80a roadside bushing was done and I was out of that duro.) Here's a picture of the Grennett set-up on my deck with 12 degrees wedging, and Riptide APS bushings (80a boardside/85a roadside). I've also installed Thane's array washers on the top and bottom of the Grennett. I thought I'd have a nice casual cruise into work this morning as I wasn't feeling all that motivated so I ended up walking out of the river valley and just casually cruising into work. When I stopped my Garmin I had beat my personal best for the route by 5 minutes (46:35 was my previous PR today I cruised it in 41:49). Admittedly there was a short new section of re-paved road so my overall route was 9.44k instead of 9.79k and this different route took waiting at two lights out of the mix but on the otherhand I wasn't even trying this morning. The truck is quiet, smooth and responsive. The carving feel is really different from the standard Bennett; I think this comes from having the ball pivot installed in place of the stock pivot point. I'm going to have to take it easy carving on steeper hills until I figure out what is going on. It didn't seem to build up resistance as it went into a deep carve the same way as the standard Bennett. It just wanted to keep leaning over. But when I let off the pressure it wanted to smoothly center itself. Really nice carvey feel. Overall the Grennett beats the hell out of a stock Bennett or even a home modded Bennett with a self-polished pivot point. With all the mating surfaces faced and ground smooth the truck has an amazing silky smooth feel. It also comes with precision bearing spacers and copper locknuts for your wheels. It's currently got a home as my new front truck. Cheers, Dave EDIT: I have noticed that the holes drilled for the two pins which hold the ball pivot appear to be a little oversized for the pins installed. This is allowing the pins to work out as the truck turns back and forth as I pump. I pulled the pins out this morning and re-installed them with red loctite as a permanent fix. Still loving this truck as it is smooth, fast and snappy.

Don't Trip released their LDP RKP trucks which are called "Poppys". As I mentioned in an earlier post I've ordered a front and rear (an image from the website is below). I've got the 125mm set coming, which should be pretty comparable if slightly narrower than my current Bennett 5.0 and Tracker RTS combo. He's put spherical bearings in the hanger to maintain the hanger alignment, and there is a 95a Riptide pivot, as well as Riptide bushings. The Front truck is still a 55 degree truck and the rear is a 20 degree. I'm interested in just being able to stick these onto my board with a couple of risers and see what happens. They've been stuck in a post office in Florida since July 4th so I'm not expecting to get my hands on these for at least another week. On the other hand maybe my Grennett will be here shortly. If you're interested here's the link to the Poppys on his site. http://www.dtskate.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=1861 Cheers, Dave Oh and I went out for a 30.5k cruise today. Nice casual, hill climbs, downhill carving, pumping in the flats. Just chillin' at a pace I felt like I could do all day. I've hooked up with a couple of other guys and we get together on on the weekends and ride. Turning into a fun way to spend the summer.

Looks like fun. Dave

That's sick, your average speed is ~23km/h. That's more than 150% of what I'm currently pulling. Well definitely more work in order. I'm pretty sure I can't get much more out of my current set-up. So I'll be off tweaking more in the future. Going to play with a few things. I think I need to remove some wedging from the front and stiffen my front bushings. Currently running 75a and 80a, maybe bump that up to 80a on both as a start, or 80a/85a. Would like to go to that height, but I can't see it with the amount of pushing I need to do on hills. Maybe I'll look into trying out some 83mm Centraxes though. Dave

Decided to see what I could do this evening for a fast sprint. I live in a river valley so anything I ride is going to have a bunch of climbing on the way out and descending on the way back. Anyways I did 5.2km out and back in 20mins 1 sec. Averaging 15.3 km/h. On a downhill stretch were I was tucked I hit 35 km/h with no stability issues at all. Dave

FWIW I'm 6'2" 215lbs and only freecarve and freeride. I use 3 degree cant discs in both applications under TD3 step-ins and on top of blue e-rings for freecarving and yellow e-rings for freeriding. You can see my current board set-ups in my profile. Except for the Prior WCRM which is no longer rideable. On the upside there is now a Coiler NSR 185cm 20cm waist coming from Bruce for next winter . And seeing as I'll now have UPM inserts probably an AF plate from Sean too.... (When's it going to start snowing again?) Ok same thing. I use UPZs RTRs for freecarving (these are the model that preceded the current generation RTRs). And I use UPZ ATBs for freeriding. In both cases I've changed out the liner to go to Deeluxe 141 thermofit liners, and in both boots I'm using the UPZ black tongues. This softened the RTRs and stiffened the ATBs. And seeing as I have completely flat abnormal feet my boots have seen much love from a bootfitter. On the upside they now fit pretty much like slippers. Even with bootfitting I couldn't get the Deeluxe boots to work with my foot shape. UPZs are wide toe box and narrow heel. The Deeluxes are pretty much the opposite. Heads Stratos Pros, I've never tried, but I personally know one guy who swears by them, and Phil (on here) uses them for everything from freecarving to powder riding (with the appropriate board of course). Cheers, Dave

Well I met up with a LDP'er from Paved Wave a couple of evenings ago and we rode 12.8k (about 8 miles). This is the first time I've actually ridden with anyone else who I hadn't directly gotten into pumping (there is one other person). It was really cool, and motivating, having someone to ride with. The average speed for the ride was 2 km/h faster than any of my prior average speeds (14.7km/h). But even more interesting was the difference in our pumping styles and board set-ups seeing as we both got all of our information from Paved Wave. I've described LDP in other places on this site as feeling like doing fast cross-under carves on an alpine deck. In fact I came to longboarding and pumping as a way to get some carves in during the summer months, so I've ended up setting my board up fairly loosely, with a ton of turn allowing low-frequency large-amplitude "surf" style pumps. It lets me push the board out away from me as I'm in entering turn and then suck it back under myself as I exit the turn and transition to the next one. Because of this my riding style involves rotating my hip into the turn. I also tend to sit a little further back on the board say with the front edge of my front foot about 3-4" behind the back bolts of my front truck. I've found sitting back like that allows me to feel the nose swing back and forth. While I've never surfed been on a real wave, but the looseness in the nose make it reminds me of being on a wakesurf board. The only time I ever get right forward and over the truck is when I'm climbing hills. Because I'm pushing the board out, and sucking it back under me with my feet while rotating into the turn I was finding that my front foot was wandering off the board so I installed a footstop to keep me in place. Evan's board was set-up to do high-frequency low-amplitude "wiggle" pumps. He uses a Subsonic Pulse with a Randall on the front and one of the Don't Trip LDP trucks on the rear. When I tried it it was so different in a turn that I almost fell over as the board wouldn't lean enough for the riding style I have; compared to my set-up it didn't initially feel like the board was leaning at all!. I think the Randall was limiting the boards lean compared to my Bennett. In terms of technique his board performed best when your front foot was placed immediately over the front truck. Interestingly well the rotation that I use wasn't really required; just going toe to heel with your feet was enough to keep the board moving, and moving quickly. While I couldn't get his board going as fast as he could (and vice versa), when we were riding I think he may have had more top-end speed. That is to say that when we were riding in the flats I definitely bumped into a point where I could feel that I had hit the maximum speed of my surf set-up, but I'd be willing to bet he had about 10% more in the wiggle set-up. Based on our riding I think the surf set-up may have been more efficient at pumping up inclines (this may also have had to do with our individual conditioning though). Evan described my board as feeling like sliding. Which is interesting as I didn't actually understand how to initiate a slide until I started riding this board and started pumping. I like the way my board carves on hills and can check slide to kill a little speed. I don't think I'd be as confident on his board, though his deck is extremely stable feeling compared to mine. Having ridden my deck for the past year it was really interesting to see another take on how to set-up an LDP board. I'll probably tweak myself a little further in that direction, as I think I can get some more top speed out of it at the expense of a little bit of surfiness. But I think I'll wait until after I've had a chance to try out my Grennett and the two Don't Trip trucks. Dave

So is anyone pumping switch? I ask because the back of my knee on my front leg is starting to feel a little tweaked after these longish rides. I think I'm going to get around this by working on my forward flexibility and trying to ride switch to take some of the strain off my legs. Obviously this would be standing in your off stance on your board as LDP boards do NOT go backwards nicely at all. Uber turny truck in the rear with a dead truck in the front is all bad. I found this out when I jumped on a symmetrically shaped board I had set up for pumping last summer and laid into a pump. The board basically crabbed out from under me. I tried even just riding switch last season, it was horrendous, completely awkward to push and I felt absolutely out of control standing on the board when it was moving even a little bit at all. So last season I spent my time pumping in my normal stance (goofy) and then I would alternate feet back and forth when pushing up hills switching on the fly, (5 normal pushes, 5 mongo pushes, repeat until out of hill or energy). This was initially pretty awkward, but because the board was getting slowed down on the hills it actually wasn't that bad. So I went out this evening and tentatively tried it again. Hey it wasn't too bad to actually stand on the board, I pushed a bit and did a few footbrakes, then carved slowly down a tiny pretty much insignificant grade, then start slowly pumping. After about 45 minutes I was actually half-@ssed pumping switch. Sure I was flailing around like a dork again, but I could feel tiny bits of acceleration, and I could definitely feel when I cancelled my acceleration. But by the end of it I was sweating like crazy and maybe pumping at 5-7km/h switch. Sweet! I think I'm going to work on adding this to every ride for a few kilometers in the flats, along with switch foot braking until I get much faster at this. Dave

Oh I hit the pavement alright. I was carving hard into the turn, weight forward, and leaned a little harder to make the corner and the next thing I knew I was flying. It was mostly a slam on my side (or maybe rear right quarter, if that makes any sense), a couple of minor scrapes but nothing I'd call road rash. I'm pretty sore today,and a muscle in the right of my lower back, just on my hip is feeling a little charlie-horsed from the impact. I did some stretching to try and loosen up the knotted up muscles this morning. The board stopped so suddenly that I've been wondering if maybe my Bennett dove? I've been reading that the truck has a tendency to do that sometimes. I'll grow up and start acting my age one of these days. I turn 43 in ten days, according to the Huffington Post apparently we as guys are supposed to mature at 43 (http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/06/12/men-dont-mature-until-43-_n_3430287.html). Based on what I like doing I don't think I'm going to make it. :rolleyes: Protection For LDP I normally wear a Protec helmet and full fingered cycling gloves. I find some kind of glove is pretty much required for skating, a couple of years ago I didn't bother putting on a pair of slide gloves for commuting and I lost it on an exposed aggregate sidewalk and needed stitches in my palms. I used to wear slide gloves for LDP, but I found that when I did go off the board the pucks would slide out leaving me sliding on my forearms and chest (ouch), so I've switch to full-fingered cycling gloves. Seeing as I haven't figured out how to Coleman, pendy, or any other hands down slide, I'm not putting a hand down to slide while I'm riding an LDP board anyways. I treat Helmets the same way. I think they are required. I had two falls in the last week (but no falls other than those this year), and my helmet hit the ground on both of those. I'm back at school part-time taking an MBA and I think the only time I haven't bothered with the helmet and gloves when I'm skating casually between two buildings on the University campus here. On the other hand it's a little stupid not bothering to put them on because they are in my backpack. Dave

I'm looking at that road in the background in thinking that would be fun to carve all the way down. I'm not talking about bombing just nice lazy back and forth carves all the way down. Surfy. Dave

42.9km today. Time was 3h 22mins but based on my km lap times I lost about 8 mins in the middle of the ride when I "think" I got wheel bite carving around a tight corner at about 20km/h roughly 23k into the ride. R.I.P water bottle. Also heard the back of my helmet hit the sidewalk (so glad I never ride without that). Hard slam that took a couple of seconds to get up from. My legs were absolutely toast by the end of this suggesting I may have gone long a little soon. Thinking I should have called it quits and turned around to make my distance about 30k instead. Oh well to late now. Apparently the local endurance on the calves just got kicked into high gear. I've also ordered those trucks from Don't Trip $230 total for a front and rear Precison Truck. As well Thane has shipped my Grennett. When those get here I'll let you know what I think of them. If anyone here is recording their LDP rides on Endomondo, and wants to share rides to help maintain the stoke, send me a friend request. I'm on there as David Webb out of Edmonton; my profile pic is of a heelside carve on a metal topped Prior. Cheers,

Have you tried LDP? It's a niche part of longboarding. In my opinion it feels a lot like doing cross-under carves on an alpine board, and it's a great distance workout too. Since I got into pumping longboards a couple of years ago I don't get all twitchy in the summer. I think it appeals to me because I can skate miles and miles without ever putting a foot on the ground and it's also got a substantial tweaking, and optimizing component. There's a thread running on this here on BOL (http://www.bomberonline.com/VBulletin/showthread.php?40145-The-Pump-Thread) or you can check out Paved Wave(www.pavedwave.org). Dave As an added bonus my wife actually supports this sport as she says I'm now bearable to be around in July and August.

10k into work in the morning and 10k home this evening. ~51 minutes each way but there was stopping due to some lights and some hiking on hills. Anyways during these rides I've also got a long trip across a ~400m crappy wooden bridge deck. Today I pumped across the bridge deck, and actually passed a couple of teens pushing their longboards across. It was surprisingly easy to pump the board across, maybe because the front truck is always turning so it tends to hit the gaps in the decking at an angle? Anyways I threw them a casual "Hey guys" while I went by them without putting a foot down at ~14km/h (seriously the bridge deck is rough). Yes I'm an @ss. Dave

That is unbelievable! Would love to see video of you riding it. With wheels that size have you tried something like a GBomb? With the cut outs you'd get lower but would lose some leverage over the truck. Way cool. How long is the hardware you are using?

Nice looking ride and nice place to be riding. Been raining a bit here this week. (Including a tornado warning yesterday:eek:). So between that and having to study for a final this evening I haven't been out much. I've gotten another person into LDP, and found another guy here in Edmonton who is also in to it, so the three of us are going out for a 20k ride on Sunday. Cheers, Dave

I used to like the feeling of carving my dropcarve on hills where the board would de-camber in the turns and then snap back underneath me. It felt alot like the return I would get from an alpine deck. Currently that board is set up for my daughter (who is less than 40% of my weight) so its a little unrideable by me. :-) Pumping feels more to me like doing fast cross-under carves. I'll look into larger wheels and further deadening of the rear truck. To much deadness and I'm thinking it might get harder to climb inclines with? Dave

After deadening my rear truck by increasing the de-wedge last week I can see how pushing towards zero degree would make the system faster. I'm going to order some of Don't Trips 20 degree LDP trucks and then I can wedge those to even shallower angles (say 10 or even 5 degrees). Thane at Griffin Skates is also currently building a 0G (zero degree) truck that should be available this summer. Interested in those too. Any comment on what it's like to try and slide a nearly zero degree rear truck into a check slide to kill some speed on hills while carving? I also get where a larger wheel will give me more speed for the same RPM (effort to get to speed has to be higher) and I'd bet the rotational inertia would allow them to hold their speed even better. Technically for the same RPM what puts me at 20 km/h with a 75mm wheel should put me at ~28.5 km/h with a 107mm wheel. But what are you mounting the eFlys on? If I stuck them under my topmount Triton I think I'd get a nosebleed if I stood on the board? :D I might be able to get away with 83mm or possibly 90mm without jacking myself into the stratosphere. Might be time to invest in a deck with full wheel cut outs? As I wrote this I started to think of a bunch of questions (stuff like the below) 1. How much more effort is required to pump a board with huge rotating wheels? It would seem to me that at some point gyroscopic stabilization of the wheel must come into play and it would become more difficult to deflect it into turns? 2. Which truck is the driving wheel (which wheels are actually pushing me forwards)? I suspect it is the rear? 3. What would happen if I only oversized the wheels on the rear driving truck (the board would have a forward lean, but weight forward is generally good)? If we raise the tail I'd think this might have a dewedging effect on the front and rear trucks, (both trucks would become more dead?) Maybe we'd get better forward drive? Hmm I'm starting to sound like my 11 year old daughter, sorry about all the stupid questions. It's interesting to think about how to start to explore this further. Cheers, Dave

I'm using a Tracker RT-S 129mm as the rear truck which is currently de-wedged at 12 degrees, and sitting on a 1/2" solid riser and 1/8" shock riser. I've modified the 'wings' of the hanger by filing them down and polishing the pivot point. I installed a delrin hanger spacer and delrin pivot cup (Griffin Skate again). I'm currently using an APS 85a Chubby boardside and APS 85a Cone roadside. The installed washers are the smal cup that came with the Tracker (because normal sized washers don't dan't to fit there) and the washer that came with the Chubby. I'm running 77a 3dm Avila's for wheels. I tried the 81a Big Zigs in the back but I couldn't pump without them sliding out so I went with the 77a 3dms. The Avila's have crazy grip while I am pumping but if I shift forward and crank hard into the carve while I push out on my back foot I am able to make them slide out into a check slide to control my speed on moderate hills. On narrow bike paths this almost feels like taking a snowboard down a fall-line descent while jumping the tail back and forth to control speed. Rear Truck De-Wedging Rear Truck Bushings I think I need to press out the rear kingpin and replace it with a longer kingpin. The rear bushings look a little over compressed.

After breaking the kingpin, I pressed in a AN6-24a aircraft bolt using an arbor press at work. (You can buy one for your bench at home for about $50 and they make changing kingpins a breeze.) As the inner portion of the roadside bushing was getting chewed up by the threading on the original grade 8 bolt I also replaced it with the same Riptide APS 80a barrel that I was currently using. I suspect using the aircraft bolt will result in far less damage to this bushing as the shank is so much longer on the aircraft bolts. While I was screwing around replacing the front truck and fiddling with the bushing I decided to play with the wedging on the rear truck. I was wondering if increasing the de-wedge on the rear to make the truck more dead would make me faster, so I increased my rear de-wedge from 9 degrees to 12 degrees. When I put everything back together the board felt great on an initial spin around the block, with it being perhaps a little harder to pump at slow speeds. The next day I rode into work which is 9.7k (I use a Garmin 610 watch to track my rides). It was incredible. I've never travelled at those speeds while pumping. It was literally like I had changed to a higher gear. My previous best time was about 49mins, with my cruising speeds being 16-17km/h, and an average speed of 11.8 km/h I had hit speeds of 20k if I sprinted but would gas out pretty quickly. That day I made the ride in 46:35 was cruising at 19-20km/h and sprinted at 22km/h. It was amazing! The board feels a little less 'surfy' but it is so much faster. I'm considering taking a few degrees out of my front end to see if I can push myself up even higher. As the site only allows the uploading of three images at a time I'm going to divide this post into two separate posts to describe my current set-up . I'm using a Roe Triton (Stiff), as my board. the board apparently has some vibration damping in it. I can't say if it works or not, but I don't have any issues with my toes going numb on longer 38km rides. I bought a ziplock freezer bag worth of Riptide APS bushings this year to play around with and figure out what I like in duros so I use Riptides everywhere on it. All wedging and dewedging is done with Khiro rail risers. Board I'm running a Cinnett 5.0 15 degree as my front truck. That's a Cindrich 15 degree baseplate with a Bennett 5.0 hanger. This is essentially like having a Bennett baseplate pre-wedged by 5 degrees. I'm currently running 10 degrees of wedging in the front truck (15 degrees Bennett truck equivalence). I'm considering reducing this by 3 or 4 degrees to see if I can get faster. The truck sits on a 1/2 solid riser and 1/8" shock riser to ensure I have enough clearance to prevent wheel bite. Bushings are 80a APS barrel roadside and 75a APS tall barrel boardside. I've put array washers (from Griffin skate) on the top and bottom to help with rebound, and a delrin spacer into the hanger. The delrin spacer makes the hanger pivot much more effectively and prevents the bushings from being extruded through the hanger. Additionally I've polished the pivot point, using a variety of grades of sandpaper to make it as smooth as possible (this takes about 30 mins by hand), and installed a delrin pivot cup (also from Griffin Skate) I use 75mm 81a Classic BigZigs up front. Front Wedging Front Bushings and Array Washers