I need some help figuring out what type to trucks to get for my board. I got 9 inch wide 43 degree caliber 3s and they are too wobbly when I went around 20mph. I learned my first slide today at a much slower speed, and would like trucks that can get up to 30mph on. I am only interested in doing glove down slides. Thanks!
- beginner
- budget: $120
-weight: 125ish
Those trucks are fine for riding at 30mph and under. Your balance will also improve with practice and experience.
You can do some or all of the following to help with stability:
Wedge your front truck by 5* and dewedge the back truck by 5* (or just dewedge the rear and use a flat riser on the front truck to match the heights)
Use harder bushings in your rear truck (most important tip here)
Use a larger bushing shape on the boardside (fat cones, etc.) This will take out some of the depth of the turn.
If you do dewedge your back truck, you will need harder bushings in the back (lower angles give more leverage over the same bushing durometer. I would not dewedge the back without adding harder bushings).
You should also stand with more weight on your front foot. Back foot weight causes instability.
Riding with your feet at 90* is less stable than having your feet face mostly forward (around 30*)
I'd start with harder rear bushings and practice more.
thank you for the detailed reply. I will definitely practice more on my weight distribution.
What will taking the depth of the turn do?
Good to know I do not need to buy new trucks, just harder bushings and more practice
thank you thank you
@Anissa Chavez I saw you were just starting out, I'd honestly just do a looser front truck bushing and not go faster than you can slide. If you are not sure if you will ever ride switch, don't ride with too much of a bushing or truck degree split or you will fall the second you go backwards fast.
Agreed with Jenny above, mostly. A small split won't cause you issues riding switch, but a big split (more than 5-10 degrees) does make switch a lot harder.
Working on learning glovedown both ways and setting up softer bushings front, harder bushings back will definitely help.
Fat bushings reduce the total turning range of the trucks (turn depth). I don't like how this feels, but other people like this. Fat bushings make it so that the trucks stiffen up towards the end of their lean, but the center keeps the easier turn.
Check your kingpin too. Too loose and it's gonna be sloppy, too tight and you'll have too much preload and rebound. Either one can make a setup feel awful and affect stability. If you can move your truck by hand and feel a spot where there isn't any resistance, you wanna tighten them up. If it looks like there are too many kingpin threads showing, you wanna loosen it. Ideal is maybe a half turn tighter than the point where you stop being able to turn the bushing/washer by hand. If that feels too loose or tight, then think about new bushings.
Most stability comes from the rider though, so practice as much as possible! But if your setup isn't right, it's gonna hold you back from progressing.
Hope that helps!
Cal 3s are pretty solid trucks, even straight out of the box with the stock setup. You do have options with the cupped / flat bushing. I would recommend trying flat roadside and cupped boardside. I personally have been getting down with that for freeride setups. A lot of stability is based on how much weight you have forward. I'd make sure you have some kind of footstop up front, which will help you lean forward.
@Gabriel Fockler ahh so much information thank you! I don't really understand but I'll try!! Appreciate your help
@Jenny Talia thank you! So getting different bushings should help loosen the front truck
@David Serate do you mean washers?
@Anissa Chavez Yeah, sorry! I meant cupped boardside washer and flat roadside washer!
Fun fact, if you're tuning your cal3s, you can actually get 3 separate washer configurations!
1. Cupped roadside washer, flat boardside washer
2. Flat roadside washer, cupped boardside washer
3. Flipped cupped roadside washer (the cup should face the road), flat boardside washer
Also, if you have the raked cal 3s, you can run the hangers flipped, which can provide more stability.
Love the cal3s for their versatility in many situations!
Caliber have a plug bushing which eliminates the wobble and the slop. Wo with maybe harder bushings or by tightening more your actual bushings, it could solve your problem
Stability comes from technique first and formost. Those cals should be plenty fine up to 30mph for a beginner. Learn to mitigate the wobbles and control the board. It will be worth it in the long run. Just make sure you have a safe place to do so!
@Anissa Chavez buy these yellow (85a) for your front truck. https://www.fullcircledistribution.com/products/venom-hpf-caliber-plug-barrel-downhill-bushings
Red (90a) for your back.
@Kurt Derow Swapped out her fronts to 80a and rear to 85a all aps, with the bigger option for the boardside the 43 deg Cals offers, then got riptide pivots, and pats risers wedges and insert bushings, after that she had a much better time than before.
Great trucks instead of good trucks had been a crutch for her stance before, which is better solved slow instead of fast imo. But maxing out the Cals will put her in a better place for learning imo.
Also just as policy we want to do everything we can to make sure ppl arn't sneaking onto here to sell gear so- mentioning where you think someone can buy gear is totally cool as long as it's not over the top but we're doing links to buying gear as a no go sort of deal due to this.
Edit: Nvm on this ^
