Loaded Fattail

Loaded Fattail Flex 2
Paris 150's
83a Fat Frees

After riding the Loaded Fattail almost nonstop for 2 and half weeks and thrashing it almost beyond recognition, I am comfortable writing this review. I have pushed this boards limits and tested it's freeride capability on 15% grade hills as well as using it for freestyle in parks, sidewalks, even on the beach (I know that sounds ridiculous..I skated it for a bit on some really packed down sand). With the exception of the Bhangra, this board has outlasted every other freestyle board I have owned. After 3 or 4 days of thrashing it, I noticed some slight delam in the nose and began to worry that it would start to get worse immediately. After continuing to thrash it for a few more weeks, the condition stayed just about the same except for some wear on the rails from old school tre's and fakie bigflips. Before experimenting with the board's freestyle capability, though, I used it as a freeride board.

 My second time ever riding the board was when I brought it to a freeride competition. After getting highsiding a couple times and catching a few edges, I became comfortable on the board. I was surprised to realize that by the end of the day, my toeside checks on the Fattail had become bigger and cleaner than they had ever been on any of my legitimate freeride setups. This board is nimble and very responsive, especially with 150mm trucks, and with 83a Fat Frees, sliding had never been easier. I was shocked at how easily freeride-able this board was. After successfully being able to skate pools, hills, and beaches, I can conclude that the fattail is a great do-everything board. While it has not been Loaded's most popular release in comparison to boards like the Tan Tien and the Bhangra (both great boards as well), it exceeded my expectations by far and I know that when I eventually thrash it until is no longer ride-able, I will likely want another one.


My Video of me riding the Fattail!

-Alec

Abec 11 Centerset Freerides

81a
72mm.
39mm Contact Patch.
Centerset.

So I have been riding these smooth mother f*ckers for about a month or two but have only been riding them hard for the past 3 or 4 weeks. I have recently flat spotted mine quite severely so I decided, while I wait for a chance to chuck them on the Lathe, why not do a review :).

Ive always found Abec 11 Classic thane to be amazingly smooth and from those I had tried, I seemed to like 81a thane the most. So I ordered a set but they gathered dust for a month while I rode my Sayshun Plasma A+, but once I finally gave them a shot there was no turning back!

These wheels were soooooooooo smooth I could hardly get the smile off my face that whole day. They are crazy predictable and extended my slides by about 10ft instantly(My standup slides were at about 10-20ft before, now around 30ft).
I'm a bit of a freak when it comes to coning, so once they coned even the slightest bit, I instantly flipped them around and rotated them and found myself doing this every week.:p

Abec 11 Classic thane is my favorite thane out there but it does come with some downfalls unfortunately across the range. While the thane is amazingly smooth and predictable, it wears quite quickly without proper technique. During a session last week they began to flat spot, and by the end of the session they were purrrrrrrring down the road slowing me down. Although this was partly at fault for my technique, I didn't keep my wheels very far above or below 90 degrees which cause them to continue flat spotting.
But luckily there is wood shop nearby I can use to lathe my wheels down.

Anyway back to the review at hand ;).
The small contact patch and round lips shows all the features of your classic freeride wheel and makes the slide all the smoother. As the contact patch is small, it does tend to mean the wheel will slip out under to much pressure so it wouldn't be a great wheel for holding those corners when bombing a hill.
After i shaved through about 5-10mm, I found that the wheels almost got square lips, but didn't affect the slide at all thanks to Abec 11's amazing classic thane formula.
At about $55 shipped from SoCal to Australia, these are a bargain buy for me and a price I couldnt refuse.

If you are a freerider at heart get the aptly named Abec 11 Freerides, because these wheels slide like nothing else but you will need to use the $40-70 every 2 months or so as they do wear faster than other wheels you may have tried.
Amazing wheel, Amazing freeride at an Amazing price! Abec 11= Amazing

-Adam

Original Custom 35

35 inches long
10  inches wide
  
 Setup

• Retro zigzags 78a 70mm (their is a review on these) 
• S8 trucks from Original
• Some type of reds bearings

This was my first Originalskateboards and it was great and still amazing. For the complete its $219 with the basic setup. Starting off my board has been run over by a Ford SUV and the board is fully intact and fully rideable . The car ran over the trucks. This board is and all around performance board, meaning you can do any type of riding with the board. Though it exceeds in cruising and carving. 

This board is incredibly flexy but dont worry there are 3 different types of flex that you can get. I got this board when i was younger and i have the flyweight but now i weigh a lot more, therefore it will bottom out if I do any huge tricks. This board will pop you out of your carves because the flex is responsive. They get this flex by using special lamination technique. The center layers of the board has mahogany strings running from front to tail with e sheets of maple sandwiching it one on top and the other on the bottom and then the same thing again but wit fiberglass.
 

This board is decent for learning standies and other slides, although you need to watch yourself because the flex will pop you off the board. Riding hills is a piece of cake with the Custom 35 and also a joy. With the Original S Series trucks you will carve hills like crazy, they cut so hard and have so much control (as you can see from the pics above). I say when you get the board go with original S series trucks they are a perfect match for the board.

This board has sand sprayed grip tape and a logo under it that gives the look of a surf board.

Over all I would recommend this board to anyone who is starting longboarding or anyone who is looking into carving hills up.

Longboard Carving Bliss

-Ryan

Landyachtz Zombie Hawgs 80a

80a
76mm High.
33mm Contact Patch.
Sideset.

When I first got these wheels I was pretty surprised at how chunky they actually were, I knew all the numbers (now long forgotten) but for some reason these seemed larger.
These were my first slide wheel bigger than 70mm since Durians and I was a little dubious about chatter, threw them on my omen pike and all thoughts about chatter or icey crappiness simply left my mind.
These wheels did make me high side and tear most of the skin off my hip first slide simply because I wasn't ready for how much grip they actually had! (Still not much)

But after my initial fail they were sweet, I don't honestly know a wheel I could compare them too, the urethane has a super dry chalk like feel as opposed to say, a Tweaker which feels more greasy.
I had heard these wheels slide quite well on rougher roads so I took them to one of the rougher Down Hill runs in my town, this road is one of the nicest tech runs in my area but the surface kind of kills it but these wheels definitely made it a lot more fun.
One thing I was shocked at was how fast they wore, even on smooth road that normally doesn't eat wheels, I could actually watch them get smaller as the day went on. That being said the size of the thane lines was absolutely ridiculous and they were so easy to control at speed I was getting a bit carried away with the standies.
They  gradually feel dryer/chalkier and more controlled as they wear down and I would say they are one of my top three wheels (Being Tweakers, followed by these, followed by Tunnel Krakatoa's).
They actually stayed pretty round considering the shallow depth of the urethane and my Gumby style of riding and only flat spotted within a maybe 3 mm of the core
All in all a great wheel for busting out some serious "oh shiii" slides at a jam but as a use everyday wheel they wear a tad fast for my liking, definitely worth a try though, I will certainly be getting another set.

-Painy

Tunnel Krakatoa's 81a

81a
70mm High.
39mm Contact Patch
Center Set? (Apparently) 

Alright, let me start by saying these wheels were fun! .....Alo these wheels are not center set.

When i first got them, to be honest I bought these wheels because they were cheap and I needed a new slide wheel, anyway I set them up on a Rayne mini Killswitch and within 20 minutes i had fallen in love with these wheels.
They have a very confidence inducing smooth, predictable slide to them.
That being said they do take a bit of breaking in and during that period I found myself slipping out and losing my board a few times, the slide on these wheel surprised me a bit (Coming off wider contact patch wheels like 4prez), they weren't actually that different in feel, they just slid a bit longer.
The only wheel I could compare it to would be a similar duro Abec 11 Gumball, but smoother.
They do push back quite a bit for a small contact patch wheel and feel good to slide at any speed.

They were leaving reasonable thane lines almost straight away and they only got bigger till the wheel reached the low 60mm range then strangely enough they actually didn't leave much of a line at all till right before the core, which was one downside to the wheel, it wore rather quickly. I cored mine within two months and that was when my best standup slides were 20 feet. I cant imagine it holding up well to the 45 odd foot standup's nowadays, on the plus side they were quite resistant to flat spots.
All in all a cheap wheel, super smooth, great to progress on and ride and slide quite well on rough roads (Better than Tweakers and Baluts by far, similar to Zombie Hawgs) and kept a consistent feeling till they hit the core.
-Painy

Abec 11 Retro Zigzags

70mm
78a
OS Offset

 

These wheels are great for downhill and I would put them in the carver-cruiser category.

 I have had these wheels for a long time and they have kept up, considering I didn't use them for sliding. If you use these wheels for sliding (which I don't suggest because they are to soft)they will wear down fast.

At a first look I thought these wheels were great, they gripped when you wanted them to.  They are great for pumping and awesome for hardcore carving!?! These wheels are also splendid on slalom boards and old school decks. These wheels are good for downhill and when you are looking for great traction. If you want to use these wheels for long distance rides, I would say go with the Big Zigs because they are bigger.

These wheels price well, you can find these for $44

I loved these wheels and I would recommend these to anyone!!
5/5 for grip, 4/5 duro 5/5 looks
-Ryan

Sayshun Plasma A+

69mm
81a
Centerset.

So Ive had these wheels for about 3 months, as long as my Saltflat and I used them for freeride, but they had nice grip. My first Impressions were that these were basically exactly like metro motions, except not worn in at first glance. They are center set, round lipped and have that same smooth center as the metro motions.
Now I wasn't a fan of metro's. They were uncontrollably Icey for myself! The opposite of these Sayshuns!
These wheels were very buttery to start with and made very little noise and felt similar to Abec 11 Freerides. But once i got them down to about 63-65mm, they started to make more noise and chatter which I found disappointing. They left very little thane and lasted me a long time which I found different to metro motions also.

These wheels were also grippy enough to grip through turns really well, I even managed to hit 70km/h on these bad boys when I took a trip to the hills. I was told it was foolish, but I didn't care, I had to try! And well I am still here and they didn't slide out at all.

All in all I was very happy to have bought these and gave them a shot, they have a predictable slide, good control at speed and is a favorite freeride wheel in my book.

-Adam

Bombsquad Saltflat

 37 inches long.
10.25 inches wide.
28.5, 29.5 or 30 inch wheelbase

 Current Setup- 81a 72mm centre set Abec 11  Freerides, Abec 11 Biltins and 42 degree gunmetal baseplates and Caliber(10inch) hangar w/87a venom barrel roadside and Caliber Blood Orange Barrel Roadside. For downhill I use 80a Inheats.

Ok so we haven't posted a review in a while and I feel I'm ready enough to review my Saltflat which I have been riding for the past 3 months.
Right so I got this board early January and made it my primary Downhill board, as I was getting into that kind of style.
It has a very very mild W concave which I feel could be more aggressive. However the concave that it does have is extremely nice. It locks you in  perfectly for freeride too.

As i mentioned I got this board for DH but now it has become my favourite freeride board too. I used this board with Caliber 50s, biltins and Sayshun Plasma A+ 81a which i found a decent freeride wheel, with the Plasma A+ making for a smooth slide.

While the deck isn't symmetrical, it really doesn't need to be as there isn't a huge difference in their shapes, the front has a slightly pointed nose, and the backs a flat cutoff.
It is quite a heavy board when compared to say, my freeride 41W or apex, but that's expected as a thick downhill board.

This board is extremely stable at speed, I was able to hit 70km/h on it, straight from hitting 50 no problem. It is very easy to control and has nice pockets to lock your foot into.
The Saltflat is quite a wide board, so unless your feet are big like mine(size 13US) then it may not feel as nice for freeride as the platform could feel really big.

However there are a few points I would like to see this board have, which would make it all the better:
-Gas Pedals: while I did sand some in myself, they really should come with some, even if you wouldn't use em, they wont get in the way or anything and are needed on toeside standups and predrifts.
-W Concave: It needs a more aggressive W concave, as it is only very very mild and you can barely feel it.
-Micro drops: This would be an idea for a new version of the Saltflat, having half inch or so drops just before the cutouts would be really good, I personally love this shape and would love some slight drops added to it.


-Adam