Throwing in my 2c.
I'm a "skate-around" street skater in a small town in the alps. No skatepark, no waxed curbs, hardly any "spots", but the ones that exist are carefully guarded by shitty ground. Pretty much riding all asphalt, but there's a little brick, stone, and cobblestone.
Normally riding F4 CF 99a 56mm (down to 54-53). I tried a pair of the same wheel in 97a and liked the roll on rough ground, but thought they were slow on smooth asphalt and too grippy. The way the 99a's roll on smooth asphalt is delicious.
My normal session consists of skating around on streets and sidewalks (up, down, over, flat gaps) on the way to a smooth flatground spot, then cruise home in the same style. I'll blast through some grinds here and there, but no nose/tail/blunt slides. I'm not scared of super crusty ground on 99a, but i'm usually limited to reserved, mellow ollie/nollie as the rough ground fucks you balance on pop.
Dragon 56mm V6:
Shape:
Shape is nice, wide as CF but narrower contact patch. No adjustments on weight or anything.
Roll:
These are not a cruiser wheel. They ride well over the really rough stuff, but you know you're still on rough stuff. But smoother and easier to pop without thinking about the ground snatching your board as you go weightless. A 78a wide cruiser wheel would feel much nicer than these (but fuck that). These are still slow on this stuff. They aren't gonna open up a cobblestone spot for you. Maybe landing, but no way on roll up.
On kinda smooth ashpalt they are probably the most noticeable. You can still feel some vibes, but faster and can pop without a thought.
Really smooth asphalt, this is the most important to me because I love that 25% of my sesh on this stuff, they are just as fast as the 99a F4. This is where I bailed on the 97a F4. These probably benefit from the narrower contact patch on really smooth. On the glassiest asphalt (worked by car wheels for years) these were maybe 5% slower. Not a deal breaker.
Tricks:
No change. I can skirk out bs 180s if I choose to, with maybe a titch more grab on touch down. That's all I really need. Was able to do kickflips in rougher spots I'd never done before because those are more fore/aft sensitive for me and balance would get thrown off on 99a. I'm not a huge power slider, but these were a whole new thing, will be fun to play around. Felt like a slick skatepark on asphalt.
Where they really made a difference was making rougher features more skateable. Banks, bumps, curb cut, volcanoed manhole covers all exist in rough or cracked form. So my day was much more playful, and could hit these things without worry. Even got a personal NBD allie-oop bs 180 off a curb cut.
We have a new mini ramp which is like weather-treated masonite, it wasn't slippery.
Noise:
They are a little less loud rolling, which I like because when it's really rough it's normally deafening. They barked just fine on asphalt and I never heard that weird whishing sound I've been hearing in people's videos. And if I come down hard on all four wheels, it's still loud as fuck. Glad I can still annoy the neighbors.
Bad:
They are bouncy when you drop the board down, so you gotta chase it. Or if you don't put your feet on a flip trick, the rebound caused a few snake bites. I didn't notice any issue with pop timing or quality.
So for someone who doesn't like to ride a bike or walk to any spots and enjoys staying on the board 100% of the time these wheels are great. In the same vein as the F4 97a, but just a little better rolling and more forgiveness on breaking traction.
Until we get a skatepark, I'm just rocking these and probably won't even try the bones x because these are fast enough on my preferred smooth spots.
Topic: Wheels Thread (Read 784721 times)