I think everyone should have a collection of risers to experiment with, like bushings! Tune your ride height to match YOUR riding style. And if you don’t have a bunch of angled risers, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! Your steering could feel so much better. I recommend www.patsrisers.com if you’re trying to hone in your setup like a fine chef’s knife.
I've been longboarding for around a year and a half now. I don't often go over 25mph as im still learning and there aren't a ton of big hills where I live. Because I do a lot of cruising around to get to spots or up hills, having risers definitely helps prevent wheelbite. I'm also a fan of giant wheels and have 85mm mango seismics on one board and 80mm Mavericks on the other
This is the quality content we love! I knew I already knew everything in this video, yet watched it and thoroughly enjoyed it anyway! Love your style and especially how you approach every subject from so many different perspectives. Keep em comin!
Watching this video has reminded me that I use 1/8 inch rubber risers on my DH setup (which felt STUPID high transitioning from my drop down) and now I want to compare the ride feel for higher speeds and slides by taking those off. Great insight Owen!
I think one of the main changes with ride height is how you interact with your wheels on the pavement. A higher ride-height will give you more force into the lips of your wheels. Giving you more overall grip, and a more aggressive release and hookup. Riding too tall (compared to your track width) will make your board prone to flipping over, but getting close to that will give you absolute maximum grip on sharp lipped wheels. Granted, a lot of riders are mot trying to maximize grip because this is sacrificing control and the ease with which we break into and hook up from slides. I think we have all been bucked at-least once from an overly aggressive hook up. I find it surprising that Diego runs very little rise, but he may be prioritizing feel and control over outright grip. Especially since he is already riding very grippy race wheels. I also find it really interesting that some riders report less chatter by adding risers, which may invalidate my hypothesis on ride height. . 3-5* rear dewedged is the meta for freeride as far as I am concerned. That added stability makes it so much easier to kick out and control directional standies, and isn’t too much that switch riding is sketchy. Although, if you are planning on riding a lot of switch, stick with symmetric plates. (ps. wedging the front, and de-wedging the back do the same thing)
Your opinion on the soft riser I completely agree with. If your truck isn't secured to your board enough, a little bit of slop can lead to worse vibrations. Even when it is secured, a tiny bit of flex is now introduced beneath your truck, though I've never found that to be very noticeable. I only use soft risers on my freeride board to prevent scratching my deck art. Limiting any damage from your truck rubbing against the deck.
I ride a 36'' topmount with with caliber IIIs (50 front and raked back), 70-68mm wheels (cuei big sliders), no pads at all and never had any wheelbite with this setup. Pads take a lot away from sliding and too much shock absorption... i don't know, i like to feel the road to feel safe and locked in the board. Also, great content, man! Keep'em coming! I used to watch ocasionally, but am definitely subscribing now! It would be great te have that kind of videos when i was starting, back in '98, but... well, no youtube and stuff.
I appreciate your insight and the subscription! I’m trying to make the kind of videos I would want to watch, and I appreciate when people tell me that they’re worth watching. Thanks for sticking around :)
I agree that for any style of riding, too much riser feels bad. From a freeride perspective, I don't want my board to ever get wheelbite and there's no speed where I would be happy to get wheelbite during a skate session. Allowing static wheelbite on your board just seems like tempting fate. There's always something that can get ya while you're riding...
I used to use risers when I started longboarding a few years back. In my experience, unless you’re using HARD wedge risers to change the feeling of your trucks, risers diminish the performance of your setup. I stopped using risers even on my cruiser. If you want shock absorption, use bigger wheels
I think properly sized flat risers can improve your performance if used correctly. It’s super individualized though - I can’t reliably tell someone what’s going to work on their setup
Big agree!!! I’ve been using his products for years. He and I have been designing and prototyping some cool truck upgrades lately, be on the lookout for some cool stuff from him in upcoming months.
Great vid! I have a zenit marble 35 on the way and I’ve been contemplating throwing on a little 5* dewedge on the rear just to experiment. This definitely encouraged me to give it a try
I use valk mk3s which lean to no end and I’ve had major wheelbite(nothing over 5-10mph). I like doing downhill most of all but I do also enjoy a low speed freeride carving session so having risers gives me more confidence to turn hard and use all the lean of the valks.
I bought a few sets of risers recently to have options to play with my setup when I bought my LY Cheese Grater. I agree, worth having a mix of risers and bushings, but don't forget different sized hardware to go with the different sized risers. With my current hardware, I could only fit the my soft 1/8th inch risers when using Cal 3's. I did have to swap from my 70mm wheels to 65mm wheels because I got ejected from wheel bite while cruising along while my son was riding his bike. I was able use solid 1/4 inch risers when I put on some forged trucks because of the thinner metal of the forged baseplates. I still haven't tried the 70mm wheels since swapping trucks, but they'd probably be ok since I have a less playful bushing setup on the forged trucks. I haven't messed with my angled risers yet, but it's definitely fun to be able to experiment with my setup.
I've always thought risers thicker than 1/8" or so were a cheap and easy but bad solution for most of what people want them to do, outside of pumping/slalom or dedicated carving boards. They very quickly make your setup inherently unstable because of how gravity and leverage work. Even if you don't care about stability downhill, they're terrible if you need to cover distance or commute because they make pushing slower and more tiring, and footbraking awkward. If you're trying to get a smoother ride with shock pads they barely make any difference, but add slop. Wheels are what absorb chatter, and after that you should consider the flex/damping of the board, unless you need a rigid dedicated DH setup.
I was having trouble a while back with my Trotta board + Ronins getting wheel bite at low speed. I thought throwing some risers on was going to help my suituaiton, but actually what helped the most was tuning my bushing setup. I now can flush mount the ronins comfotably and throw some 69mm snakes on with 0 wheel bite at even slow speeds.
So long as your board still is fun to ride, that’s a great solution! Some people use bushings that are too hard and deaden their setup, reducing the overall performance of the board. Ronins and the Trotta might be a decent LDP setup, haha! Super low
This makes me wonder why tall bushings became popular like with rogues and ronins, when I primarily associate the brands with downhill. Don't get me wrong, I love them and have the cast version of both. That's because I do a lot of pushing and carving on drop mount boards with huge wheel cutouts though, and don't often go above 20mph. The ability for me to lean super deep feels amazing carving and is really helpful for 90° sidewalk corners etc.
I think it is more about consistency. Tall bushings provide a more linear turn, (less ramp up in force as you lean more). This becomes important with very restrictive trucks like rogues. They also generally run a little softer, so a 90a tall feels closer to an 88a standard than it does to a 90a standard. It also lets you sit deeper into slides because you can really drive your heels or toes down into that lean, whereas shorter bushings provide an almost hard stop. You can also turn harder at low speeds since you can literally lean the board farther. But a lot of people much prefer the feel of shorter bushings. Cal 3’s got it right letting you try both. I am a big supporter of more lean, lower baseplate angles for dh and freeride. Same stability, you just have more fine control.
It is ALL about marginal gains risers do protect, especially if you do drops, as far as lean goes you WILL try and use it all if it is that or you hit a car or pole which is the one time you can't afford to get wheel bite. If you have perfect wheels, roads, places for runs and never ride to / from spots it will be different .. till it's not
I find it interesting that in the thumbnail you have DT-Trucks, I just made my first DH/FR board out of a land yachts obsidian, and the DT Mollys baseplate is just slightly too long. Right now I have washers, but it definitely messes with the feel of the board, especially with the significant rocker on the obsidian. I’m thinking of sanding down a bit of the front baseplate front lip on the board to make a more solid patch for the truck to lock to the board. Do you think this will be better than getting a riser? The board rides pretty high with my 50 degree in the front and 30 In the back. I could pull a Dexter manning and have a riser only In the front of the board. Love your vids man, keep it up!
I think sanding the deck to fit the trucks is a good idea. I did that on a Madrid Nessie when I wanted to use my Paris on the longest wheelbase. Just do it on the side towards the nose of the board. If you sand the side of the flushmounts facing the middle of the board, then you’ll hurt the rigidity of the deck. Another (expensive) option is using the fixed baseplate that Don’t Trip sells on their website. They are 1/8” lower than the adjustable baseplate. That’s a lot of money to spend for 1/8” of ride height, but it could help. They are the same length as the adjustable baseplate, so they won’t fit in the flush mount
Thanks for the advice! I was going to sand the nose side anyways because the trucks are barely going over the lip, I have to take off so much less material nose side than middle of the board-side. And I just sent you my setup on instagram!
I like how you didn't even try to recommend specifics since there are infinite setups that could feel better or worse with a 1/16" vs 1/32" or 1⁰ vs 5⁰
