What happens when you add 60mm, 78a cruiser wheels and trucks to a popsicle stick board? You get the abomination pictured here.
And yet, I think I love this setup!
So, I decided to switch out the trucks that came with this old Razor board (because they were old and in terrible shape, as detailed in this post) with the ones from my Goldcoast cruiser deck, just to see how it would skate. And I kinda love it?
To be honest, I'm not sure exactly why I did this, or what I thought I'd achieve. I think I just wanted a longer board? The Goldcoast deck is 27 inches while the Razor deck is about 32. I think I thought it would be easier to ollie, but so far it's about the same.
The first thing I noticed was that it's easier to do kickturns and manuals. It seemed like there was zero margin for error on the Goldcoast board because it was shorter. You'd start leaning backwards and suddenly you're dragging the tail or falling over backwards. Whereas, with this set up, I can put my front foot further towards the nose and maintain balance much easier. Skating off curbs and ledges is easier, too. I feel like I have much more control, now.
There's also more room for my front foot. The Goldcoast board has a tapered nose and my foot had nowhere to go. I constantly felt like I was dangling off the edge, and it kinda hurt my foot, after a while.
My biggest concern was that I'd be setting myself up for severe wheel bite, but that isn't the case, at all. With the riser pad and shape of the board, you'd have to be cranking down pretty hard to get the wheels to hit the deck. As a result, it's almost ridiculous how far I can lean into turns and carves. It's so much easier and fun to carve, now, with just the slightest amount of sideways motion before going into a full-on slide.
Of course, it does feel different, and I haven’t had a chance to put a few miles on it and really give it a proper shakedown, but I think I'm much happier with this setup. It feels a little wrong to just abandon the Goldcoast deck because I learned so much on it, but I really, really like this setup. Cruising is much more comfortable.















