Zealous Trucks Thread


  • I've been on the zealous slaloms for about a month now, and i am very impressed with these. They're marketed as a racing truck, but i think that they are amazing for freeride/standup slides. 

    I have not needed to adjust these from stock at all. I've mostly been using these for freeride, with a few downhill grip runs on them. They're stable at the ~40mph run i took them on. It was a bit of a learning curve to adjust to standing on the front bolts, but now my other trucks feel very dead in comparison. 

     

    What surprised me most was how much they improved my freeride. The stability and restrictive bushing seat has me doing longer standup toes than my other freeride board. 

    Pros:

    Very stable

    Easy standup slides

    Much more comfy and chill than other small trucks 

     

    Cons: 

    Can't core standard freeride wheels without scraping kingpin. 

    Anybody else riding these? They're my new favorite trucks now. 



  • Thanks for the good review! Been curious about them for a while, and how good they'd be. For it's price point, do you know how do they compare to other precisions like aeras slalocybins or rogues? I know the zealouses tend to be cheaper as well. 


  • Saw these only because of the Earthwing post about them in the last week or so. They definitely look rad! I love the axle on the rear truck bring in-line with the kingpin - it reminds me of the really old Bear Smokies, but I think those were in-line on the front and rear. Do they have spherical bearings in the hangar or the pivot? I didn't take a close look when I saw them before.


  • I have a set of aera k5s, previously owned k3 and k4. These are definitely different than those. Aeras are very premium "normal trucks" if that makes sense. Very nice for freeride/all around riding, but not really a downhill-specific truck. 

    Don't trips are pretty terrible imo, they're very widely panned by most people with experience. Usually only found for very cheap prices on bsts to entice people into buying them without trying them first. Worst precision brand on the market by far. "Dont turns" if you ask me. 

    Rogues - i can't really speak to these, other than saying that i don't like spherical bearings. They ride really rough. The golds are very well-received by downhill guys. I'd pick those over the new zm1s. 

    Scythe/slalom valk/other more exotic precisions - no idea. 

     

    Ronins - try before you buy. I don't like these, but dh specific guys seem to dig them. 

    I am 99% a freeride guy, occasionally skating downhill but nothing extreme. 

    The zealous trucks work for me because they feel a lot more chill than other skinny slalom trucks. I can do big standup slides on the zealous, but i would be terrified to do that on ronins. 

    I think that these would be a good buy to see if you're into the slalom trucks, while still retaining a nice standup-friendly feeling. I usually ride under 30mph, usually like 15-25mph standup slide riding. For those purposes, these are awesome. 

     

    The only reason i would reach for my aeras would be if i wanted to do a lot of switch riding, or i had small wheels that i wanted to core. The zealous and other super-split trucks don't feel very nice in switch. I can do the switch heel 180 easy, but i can't switch toe on them like i can on my aera setup. There just isn't enough steering in switch on slalom trucks. 

     

    Edit for zach's comment:

    No sphericals in these. I really hate sphericals, so that's good imo. Sphericals ride REALLY rough unless you're on very good pavement. Also very twitchy, which is not good for standup slides/freeride. They do have a urethane insert in the hanger. 

     


  • @Gabriel Fockler yeah, I can totally understand the hate for sphericals when it comes to freeride or DH. I think that they're pretty useful for LDP, but just because that twitchy feeling turns into a more responsive turn at low speeds, at least in my experience.

    Additionally, I think your take on Don't Trips is pretty spot on. I stopped skating for a pretty good period of time, and Don't Trip designs don't look like they've changed at all. The exception is probably the Bhanger according to the other LDP folks, but definitely not good for anything other than LDP, haha.


  • I rode these on 95/93 rear and it felt great. The 97 BS rear just didn't turn enough for me to make it around hairpins. And that was with a heavy rider on a 21.5" WB. I really don't get how the rest of you do it.

    I changed decks and started wobbling bad when nearing 50 mph, so now I am trying 97/95 rear. We shall see how that goes.


  • I like my Zealous's but I agree with @Peder HS .  I cannot get the stock bushings to work for me, but 93/95 feels pretty good.  I think Zealous may be the best skinny slalom downhill style truck for freeriding with relative ease, but I don't enjoy how restrictive the seat is.  I feel like I can feel it fighting my turn much sooner than I'd like in the front.


  • I might try using the softer bushing combo in the back. If I standup toe to a stop, it can be hard to get the rear truck to steer out. 

    I like the restrictive seat for standup slides, but it does feel different than the infinite turn of some small dh front trucks. For me, this is good because I can lock out the truck on my precarve, so standups are really easy. On ronins etc. it feels like I can't get that stable lockout and the front truck kind of floats/tips in the standup slide. Might be better for real dh skating, but I wouldn't know. 


  • @Gabriel Fockler try out some 95a/95a in Venoms (or 93a RS if you're saucy), I think that feels pretty great in Zealous for being able to get the rear truck to lean over a bit more.


  • @Diego Murray I'm late to the party, but I've heard of people using cones roadside to get around the bushing seat restriction. I'm happy on stock so I can't back that up, but it might be worth a shot. 


  • The zealous slalom are my new favorite truck. I bought them last year with the intention of them just being a DH truck, I never planned on freeriding them.

    One day I decided to throw some freeride wheels on them and started throwing the best standup slides that I've ever done! The restrictive bushing seat gives me confidence that I won't wheel bite and the stock bushing setup has been good enough for now.


    The small board / truck freeride thing really works well with these trucks. I run them at a 21in wheel base and skate them with either Green Krimes or 78a drifts.


  • Has anyone tried Riptide WFB roadside in Zealous? I hear they have a snap back because the chamfered bushing seat. Well I've skated wfb in valks and I'm thinking about trying it in Cal 3 precisions to ease out the snappy return to center and try and make it more controllable which I think WFB would shine for.


  • Just got some zealous v1s, and I'm not really liking the venoms in these. Should I get some riptide or seismic bushings to swap out? For reference I usually use seismic


Please login to reply this topic!