Venture 2020

[Vintagebody]

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Any DLX boards thats rather mellow? I've had my 2nd session with V-hollows 5,8, and 8,5 Silva deck. It has basicly no fingers of flat, super hefty pop, I dident really like it with Thunder either...

Or other Venture friendly decks?

[close]

DLX decks have Roman numerals on the top ply near the front trucks. “IV” is the flattest. “I” is the steepest. Go for an IV.

My Silva deck is an IV. 14.25 WB, 31.8 length. Very steep compared to most Polar decks ive tried.

[Sedition]

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Any DLX boards thats rather mellow? I've had my 2nd session with V-hollows 5,8, and 8,5 Silva deck. It has basicly no fingers of flat, super hefty pop, I dident really like it with Thunder either...

Or other Venture friendly decks?

[close]

DLX decks have Roman numerals on the top ply near the front trucks. “IV” is the flattest. “I” is the steepest. Go for an IV.

[close]

My Silva deck is an IV. 14.25 WB, 31.8 length. Very steep compared to most Polar decks ive tried.

If you have an IV, and it’s too steep, you’re fucked for DLX decks.

[Ok]

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Any DLX boards thats rather mellow? I've had my 2nd session with V-hollows 5,8, and 8,5 Silva deck. It has basicly no fingers of flat, super hefty pop, I dident really like it with Thunder either...

Or other Venture friendly decks?

[close]

DLX decks have Roman numerals on the top ply near the front trucks. “IV” is the flattest. “I” is the steepest. Go for an IV.

[close]

My Silva deck is an IV. 14.25 WB, 31.8 length. Very steep compared to most Polar decks ive tried.

[close]

If you have an IV, and it’s too steep, you’re fucked for DLX decks.

i love krooked. it’s not what it once was, to me, but i’m always going to be a fan. and some of the newer skaters are very sick (jenson, eddy). i’m a gottwig fan. the graphics are not as magical as they used to be. or something.
anyways, the boards are almost always too much. too steep. i don’t like bbs.
occasionally there is the 7.8 eagle in an IV that is flat and perfect. but i’m just not into dlx boards anymore. despite them being the best, for a long moment.
right when kayo started, i loved those boards, also bbs (i didn’t know at the time, but it must be?) and they were noticeably more quality, than the competition, for that era.
blah blah.
dlx boards are never flat or mellow. imo.
if i wanted to support one company, for how they do it, as i understand it, it’d be dlx.

ventures are the shit, i like them most on mellow setups. a person with an opinion i value, was mentioning putting the lo’s on a steep board and liking it, so my curiosity is piqued

[LebowskisRug]

I've had plenty of very mellow DLX 8.38, 8.4, and 8.25 even.

[Sedition]

I've had plenty of very mellow DLX 8.38, 8.4, and 8.25 even.

^ I support this statement.

[Weezil]

I don’t know anything about tails but I usually skate the quasi proto shape (8.25/8.5, are the tails short on that shape?), w/ ventures. This summer I’ve been running the dlx 8.25 grey eagle w/ venture 5.8 cast. Little longer in the wb than the quasi but might be the best setup I’ve ever ridden. Everything’s been clicking all summer and I haven’t changed anything.

I’d say ventures w that shape is a good move if Indy’s aren’t doing it

[jimgrude]

I don’t know anything about tails but I usually skate the quasi proto shape (8.25/8.5, are the tails short on that shape?), w/ ventures. This summer I’ve been running the dlx 8.25 grey eagle w/ venture 5.8 cast. Little longer in the wb than the quasi but might be the best setup I’ve ever ridden. Everything’s been clicking all summer and I haven’t changed anything.

I’d say ventures w that shape is a good move if Indy’s aren’t doing it

The Quasi Proto tails can be as short as 6.4" for 8.5, and 6.3 for 8.25, which is quite short for these sizes. The wheelbase is also really short, at 14", but the noses are a decent length at 6.8".

[Sedition]

I don’t know anything about tails but I usually skate the quasi proto shape (8.25/8.5, are the tails short on that shape?), w/ ventures. This summer I’ve been running the dlx 8.25 grey eagle w/ venture 5.8 cast. Little longer in the wb than the quasi but might be the best setup I’ve ever ridden. Everything’s been clicking all summer and I haven’t changed anything.

I’d say ventures w that shape is a good move if Indy’s aren’t doing it

I religiously ride DLX 8.25s (usually the grey eagle). I've been on Indys, but have 5.6 coming this week. I'm eager to try them out (e.g. I want to like them). Your comments have me excited.

[Mbrimson88]

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It's a stupid matter, but I'm heading to the shop tomorrow and will grab pics of the 8.25 and 8.38 as well. There's no way the 8.38 is under 6.5. I love that shape and can ride the Twin Tail just as well because it's the same exact tail but you get 2 of them. That one is consistently listed as 6.625.

[close]

When I mentioned under 6.5, I mean it was a tiny amounts here, like 1/16th under. The ones I had very well could have just been odd-ball/bad sand jobs. The 6.625 seems out there to me…that’s like that 8.125 shape. Anyway, I’m curious to see what you find/see.

[close]

Ya know, if you think about the difference in steepness between a I and IV and that we measure tail length as the base of a right triangle, the hypotenuse shortens the steeper the deck is and thus the base shortens as well. So, it is entirely possible that measuring straight across as we usually do would give different measurements.

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Was totally thinking exact same thing, too.

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DLX- I love you, but your Roman Numerals are really fucking with my gear madness.

The funny thing is after flattening out a I or II it is often a very slightly longer board, which I like.  Sometimes the side to side concave of those boards is a bit much for me though, but I make do with whatever I have here.

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Any DLX boards thats rather mellow? I've had my 2nd session with V-hollows 5,8, and 8,5 Silva deck. It has basicly no fingers of flat, super hefty pop, I dident really like it with Thunder either...

Or other Venture friendly decks?

[close]

DLX decks have Roman numerals on the top ply near the front trucks. “IV” is the flattest. “I” is the steepest. Go for an IV.

[close]

My Silva deck is an IV. 14.25 WB, 31.8 length. Very steep compared to most Polar decks ive tried.

On the same topic of boards too steep, I often park on the kicks to flatten them out some, which makes things way easier for me to skate almost any board regardless of how steep it is (or DLX number stamp).

Others have posted clips of it and done similar things in the past and it does work, so if any board is too steep, lay it down graphic up, sit on cardboard or something on a flat even surface, gently drive on to the kick and park pretty much over bolts for a bit, depending on how steep it is and how much you want to flatten it out, eg half an hour most commonly for me, then do the other kick for the same time.  Let it sit for a day and then see how much difference it has made.

I can send you pics and clips of doing my own boards - almost all DLX boards, others too, but that is about the only way a board that is too steep will still skate well for me on any truck, especially Ventures which push the wheelbase out and into the kicks, which makes a regular board feel more steep, especially compared to on Indy or Ace trucks.

Just a thought anyway, as if you have a board that is just too steep to be comfortable to skate, at least you are not wasting anything by trying it.

[LebowskisRug]

I've tried the parking thing twice and ruined both decks, never again.

[Ok]

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I've had plenty of very mellow DLX 8.38, 8.4, and 8.25 even.

[close]

^ I support this statement.

nah. ya’ll might have had dlx boards that were more mellow than other dlx boards, but that doesn’t mean those boards were mellow, compared to: a flat ps stix, pgi boards, control mfg, those dang mini logos….
bbs boards are just are not that flat/mellow
unless i’m not understanding the term mellow.

[Sedition]

I've tried the parking thing twice and ruined both decks, never again.

I tried three times, and I’m with Lebowski, won’t try it again.

First attempt resulted in kicks that were just they way I liked them. That’s promising, right? The problem was concave on rest of board (e.g. the middle) felt disproportionately steep and deep compared to the (now) flatter nose and tail. It’s a very strange disconnect that I couldn’t handle.

Second attempt ended with a warped deck because I didn’t park “straight enough” on the deck.

Final attempt ended with really disproportionate kick angles on nose and tail. At this point, I was like, “OK. You can’t get this work to your liking. Stop. Just spend the time to track down IV stamped decks.”

[LebowskisRug]

I had the flattest board on planet earth literally the kicks had a 1" gap between them and the IV I put on top. I tried riding it and was pissed I wasted $5 shop grip on it

[rikki]

I religiously ride DLX 8.25s (usually the grey eagle). I've been on Indys, but have 5.6 coming this week. I'm eager to try them out (e.g. I want to like them). Your comments have me excited.

Interested to hear how the 5.6s go on a 14.38" wb.

[rocklobster]

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I religiously ride DLX 8.25s (usually the grey eagle). I've been on Indys, but have 5.6 coming this week. I'm eager to try them out (e.g. I want to like them). Your comments have me excited.

[close]

Interested to hear how the 5.6s go on a 14.38" wb.

Depends on the deck length, riding the Habitat 8.38 x 32.25 x 14.38 twin and it's been a dream. Previously swore that I'd only ride Ventures on 14 WB, 14.25 max, but I've ridden 6 of these in a row and haven't looked back.

[rikki]

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I religiously ride DLX 8.25s (usually the grey eagle). I've been on Indys, but have 5.6 coming this week. I'm eager to try them out (e.g. I want to like them). Your comments have me excited.

[close]

Interested to hear how the 5.6s go on a 14.38" wb.

[close]

Depends on the deck length, riding the Habitat 8.38 x 32.25 x 14.38 twin and it's been a dream. Previously swore that I'd only ride Ventures on 14 WB, 14.25 max, but I've ridden 6 of these in a row and haven't looked back.

Good to hear! Relevant personal question: how tall are you?

[rocklobster]

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I religiously ride DLX 8.25s (usually the grey eagle). I've been on Indys, but have 5.6 coming this week. I'm eager to try them out (e.g. I want to like them). Your comments have me excited.

[close]

Interested to hear how the 5.6s go on a 14.38" wb.

[close]

Depends on the deck length, riding the Habitat 8.38 x 32.25 x 14.38 twin and it's been a dream. Previously swore that I'd only ride Ventures on 14 WB, 14.25 max, but I've ridden 6 of these in a row and haven't looked back.

[close]

Good to hear! Relevant personal question: how tall are you?

Short (king) - 170cm / 5'6 on the best of days

[rikki]

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I religiously ride DLX 8.25s (usually the grey eagle). I've been on Indys, but have 5.6 coming this week. I'm eager to try them out (e.g. I want to like them). Your comments have me excited.

[close]

Interested to hear how the 5.6s go on a 14.38" wb.

[close]

Depends on the deck length, riding the Habitat 8.38 x 32.25 x 14.38 twin and it's been a dream. Previously swore that I'd only ride Ventures on 14 WB, 14.25 max, but I've ridden 6 of these in a row and haven't looked back.

[close]

Good to hear! Relevant personal question: how tall are you?

[close]

Short (king) - 170cm / 5'6 on the best of days

Ok, thanks, this is good info as I'm 5'9 and been thinking that a 14.38" wb with Ventures (V-hollow, forged plate) would be too much for me physically. Also riding max 14.125 decks at the moment.

It's of course always a matter of getting used to stuff, but still.

[LebowskisRug]

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I religiously ride DLX 8.25s (usually the grey eagle). I've been on Indys, but have 5.6 coming this week. I'm eager to try them out (e.g. I want to like them). Your comments have me excited.

[close]

Interested to hear how the 5.6s go on a 14.38" wb.

I've been on Venture and 14.38 for a month and it's not what people fear. I'm 6 foot 3 and went to V lights and have some of my best flip tricks on them especially Tre flips. Great pop, great stability, great pinch, only weird part was pop timing for popping over large things and the manual point.

Been on the V Hollow for 3 sessions now and find the manual point is better, everything else is more or less the same. Plenty of Venture pros skate 14.38 and above on Ventures. The idea that you can only skate short WB with them started in here and with Ben Degros' personal preference.

Frankly I'm no longer convinced about the effective WB argument. I've had Indy standard, Indy Forged, Thunder standard, Thunder forged, and now both Venture variants on the same shape at one time or another. They all do something slightly better and something else slightly worse but for the most part it's in the margins. I am preferring more stable, less tall trucks now and actually like Venture over Indy forged for this wb because the pop feel isn't so light that my timing has to be very fast. I can also run em looser.

[Sedition]

^ Ben D. seems to like steep kicks, on shorter WB decks, with tall trucks (he likes cast Indys). That sounds like a nightmare to me. Effective wheelbase certainly changes the feel of some things, but 100% this “can’t ride Truck X with Wheelbase Y” is just…goofy.

[LebowskisRug]

He's been on Venture Low and Thunder forged on small, short decks for a while now I think he said 8-12mo in a video. But he often states he can't ride Venture cast in anything above 14 and prefers the forged.

I personally am not sure I'd even wanna ride 14.25 and smaller boards at my height.

I completely agree with your last statement. While running Ace Classic on an 8.5x14.38 Polar once felt like it had great pop and stability for me, I find that combo way less nimble to flip around than 8.38x14.38 on Venture

[scab]

I personally am not sure I'd even wanna ride 14.25 and smaller boards at my height.

That's where I (6'2) have landed as well. Longer deck wheelbases give me more leeway in terms of foot positioning, whereas I need to really be on point with my foot placement to land stuff consistently on short wheelbases. I always put my feet too close to each other because I can't unlearn looking at my front bolts as my North Star in terms of foot placement.

Effective wheelbase seems to only affect me when it's too short. I run a whopping 17.9" effective wheelbase on my main setup and have no issues whatsoever, but everything below 17.5 starts to feel unstable and cramped really fast.

tl;dr: After putting an unreasonable amount of time and resources into figuring this shit out, I've come to terms with just riding what I like.

[Thebird]

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I personally am not sure I'd even wanna ride 14.25 and smaller boards at my height.

[close]

That's where I (6'2) have landed as well. Longer deck wheelbases give me more leeway in terms of foot positioning, whereas I need to really be on point with my foot placement to land stuff consistently on short wheelbases. I always put my feet too close to each other because I can't unlearn looking at my front bolts as my North Star in terms of foot placement.

Effective wheelbase seems to only affect me when it's too short. I run a whopping 17.9" effective wheelbase on my main setup and have no issues whatsoever, but everything below 17.5 starts to feel unstable and cramped really fast.

tl;dr: After putting an unreasonable amount of time and resources into figuring this shit out, I've come to terms with just riding what I like.

It took a while, but I have realized that the truck height affects me more than the wheelbase.  I tried numerous times to ride Venture highs on a 14" wb, always felt cramped.  Venture lows on the 14" wb feel perfect - I'm 6'3".  I currently have the Venture highs on a Quasi with a 14.38 wb.  Feels awesome.  Whenever I put the lows on a 14.25" wb, no dice.  I guess there is so much that comes into play, and everyone likes something different.

[LebowskisRug]

This might not make sense, but I have thought of what you pointed out. On the 14" WB your feet will probably be closer together. With a high truck that raises the fulcrum and thus the deck is at a pretty high angle before you slide your front foot up.

Take that same exact truck and stretch the WB out 3/8" and your foot is now lower relative to the end of the nose and its less extreme. Using a lower truck probably gets you closer to the front foot/rear foot differential and likely feels closer to your natural timing.

For me the Venture on 14.38 feels better than on 14.25 also because the deck is slightly longer and just gives me a bit more room relative to where the trucks are and that just lets me be more comfortable. Its not a massive difference in measurements, but I step on the board and it feels better. Even if something is "better" on the shorter board, I need to just focus on why that is and duplicate on the longer than worry about wheelbases. Yesterday I was focusing on doing dork tricks on a curb and a nollie back tail worked better on a 14.25/smaller deck when I came out of the trick. Turns out since it was shorter my front foot was more on the tip of the nose. Easy fix. I am sure other more complicated shit is the same.

[intendedreceivers]

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I religiously ride DLX 8.25s (usually the grey eagle). I've been on Indys, but have 5.6 coming this week. I'm eager to try them out (e.g. I want to like them). Your comments have me excited.

[close]

Interested to hear how the 5.6s go on a 14.38" wb.

[close]

Depends on the deck length, riding the Habitat 8.38 x 32.25 x 14.38 twin and it's been a dream. Previously swore that I'd only ride Ventures on 14 WB, 14.25 max, but I've ridden 6 of these in a row and haven't looked back.

[close]

Good to hear! Relevant personal question: how tall are you?

[close]

Short (king) - 170cm / 5'6 on the best of days

[close]

Ok, thanks, this is good info as I'm 5'9 and been thinking that a 14.38" wb with Ventures (V-hollow, forged plate) would be too much for me physically. Also riding max 14.125 decks at the moment.

It's of course always a matter of getting used to stuff, but still.

I’ve been riding the Black Eagle on forged 5.6s, and it’s really a staple for me. I’m 5’9” with long-ish legs.

[j....soy.....]

I have size 8 feet and long arms…..

[Mbrimson88]

My Silva deck is an IV. 14.25 WB, 31.8 length. Very steep compared to most Polar decks ive tried.

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I've tried the parking thing twice and ruined both decks, never again.

[close]

I tried three times, and I’m with Lebowski, won’t try it again.

First attempt resulted in kicks that were just they way I liked them. That’s promising, right? The problem was concave on rest of board (e.g. the middle) felt disproportionately steep and deep compared to the (now) flatter nose and tail. It’s a very strange disconnect that I couldn’t handle.

Second attempt ended with a warped deck because I didn’t park “straight enough” on the deck.

Final attempt ended with really disproportionate kick angles on nose and tail. At this point, I was like, “OK. You can’t get this work to your liking. Stop. Just spend the time to track down IV stamped decks.”

Ha yeah it is not for everyone and takes a bit to work out how much, so if you parked on it too long and didn't really just try driving over it first, I can see how that would end up being a no go for you, along with making the board feel bad in various ways.

If you are not going to skate it because it is too steep to start with, then trying this is not so bad really.


Ventures definitely make steeper boards feel even steeper, but for some people, they really like that feel and get more out of the spring and pop higher.

Just down to what you might be used to and what you can adapt to, but also the lower trucks give a little more than the higher trucks too.

[Vintagebody]

I tried a Anti Hero Grant Taylor 8.38 with 14.5WB, and it was amazing with Thunders.
This Real Silva deck is just... something very odd with it. I dont even like it with Thunders, and I skate Thunders 90% of the time, with DLX decks.

I'll try a new board before I decide to retire from Venture, even tho I do rather enjoy them

[LebowskisRug]

I didn't love that shape either. It's a bit on the short side for me and just felt a bit clunky. Like I never had great pop or flick.

[Sedition]

@LebowskisRug for some inexplicable reason, I actually bought an 8.38 today. Normally I don't like that shape, but some reason I was feeling it this afternoon, and wanted to try a 14.5wb. Anyway, mine has a 6.5 tail. I must have a bad rash of odd ball sanding or something with the other ones I had, and Skatedeluxe is def with a 6.6 claim, at least against the one I now have.

As to Ventures (to keep somewhat on topic), there has been a real debacle at TWO shops getting a hold of a pair. I'll post those details when I get them (eventually) and post a review/my thoughts on them.