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Skated my production 93a dragons one last time today before giving to a friend. Some more observations on grind drag:
Rockridge curbs (so those in the bay area have some reference). Ground ish rough ish but nothing 99 f4s cant handle. Curbs are pretty good, but I'm guessing nowhere near as icy as the venice curbs. Everything I previously said was true, but on curbs this smooth (or better), I could see myself getting used to pushing tricks like reg/sw slappy crooks a bit harder to compensate, and just getting used to the way these wheels climb onto curbs. Its pretty noticeably worse than a hard wheel after doing side by side comparisons, but if you value the smooth ride that much, you could probably adjust and deal with a bit more grind drag.
There's also a wooden box with metal coping there right now. If you wax the metal coping, it crooked grinds, tailslides etc just fine. But if its a little drier then it'll be noticeably stickier than f4s.
What I noticed about the drag for other tricks (smiths, 5-0s etc) is that its fine if you lock in perfectly... but if you don't lock in perfectly and have to adjust into the correct position, these aren't as forgiving as a hard wheel. I could see this being an even bigger problem on round rails where often you shimmy into a cross lock after your trucks make initial contact with the rail.
Again, a hearty coat of wax would solve most of these problems, but I really don't like waxing stuff too much, especially if there's a bunch of people skating the obstacle.
I don't skate around and between spots much nowadays, and even for spots with less ideal ground that I often skate, the increased grind friction, and other minor drawbacks, isn't worth the much smoother ride 90% of the time.
Still keeping my protoype 95as for the occasional days where I really dont want to push but still want to skate a little bit. Maybe the production 95 or 97as are going to be perfect
Not sure if I missed it in another of your comments, but how would you compare them to 97a spits, if you can?
I haven't skated a 97a f4 in a few months so much of this is based off of the best of my recollection, but 97 spits definitely feel harder for sure. I never really noticed a difference in wheelbite between 97 and 99 f4s, but with these I did notice myself being thrown off harder if I wheelbite.
I recall that 97 spits had similar issues on metal coping, but definitely not as bad as these. 97 spits also slappy better, dont drag on grinds as much etc, especially crooked grinds.... though both are worse than a 99 f4
When it comes to purely powerslides, both are very good, maybe I'd give the edge to these powell 93as actually, if anything just purely because of how pleasantly surprised I was by the powerslide, but never did a side by side test so hard to say, I don't find either wheel lacking in this department and am plenty happy with it. Its possible that the 93as are better for lip/bluntslides on certain surfaces too, definitely can't say for sure though.
The powell 93as are a lot lot smoother than the 97 f4s though. I know some others in this thread disagree, but imo its pretty clear cut, and even a few of my friends (who mostly skate 99 f4s but some have skated 97 f4s) agreed that these feel like a soft wheel that perform almost as good as a hard wheel... whereas 97 f4s are kind of a hard wheel like a 99 f4 thats just a little bit softer and more forgiving.
Basically, if you get a lot of wheelbite, or your skating is very heavily focused on grinds or slides on things that aren't super icy, I would get 97 f4s any day. If you want something smoother than 97 f4s, handles rough shit better, and grinds/slides aren't a very high priority for you, I'd get the dragons.