I’m pretty sure that in an interview somewhere Natas said he used to ride two stackable cell blocks on the front, (it may have been three?) and a cell block 3 on the back truck. It made the front truck slightly higher and simulated a rocker giving more of a moment/ leverage for ollies. I was riding Natas boards at the time and mimicked it. Not sure if it made any difference. It was certainly better than running suicide bolts* though.
*a stupid trend that lasted no time at all. Inverting the two most forward truck bolts so that the nuts were on top. The idea being they caught your foot and pulled the board level. In reality all that happened was the bolts became sharpened to spikes in a couple of skates, and stabbed holes in both your shoes and feet. Ahhh, the ‘80’s.
as well as the suicide bolts, what was the name of those things that were like a metal plate that ran along the top of the bolt holes on the grip tape side of the deck?
Just typing ‘rocker’ jogged my memory. I really liked Schmitt decks for a bit around ‘88ish. They had a pronounced rocker. I had a couple of Danny Sargent Monkey bananas decks in a row and loved them. I don’t know if it was a placebo but my ollies definitely gained a few more inches on those. It was weird going back to a standard flat deck afterwards- it felt like it was bent the wrong way. I think Consolidated had a run of rockered decks in the early 00’s. They were all black dipped. Never tried one they just didn’t appeal 15 years after the trend died out.
ahhh that sounds about right. i remember trying someone’s board back in the 90s who had it. ancient set up. the bridge bolts were so weird, i don’t see what they were really trying to accomplish other than being something to waste money on
I had one of those consolidated boards and it was great. But that was back in my time plummeting off stuff (nothing that big), and the tail pinged off under my lead feet.
i never had grind kings but always wondered why inverted kingpins never took off. was there no benefit to them? i thought they were meant to smith/feeble better or something?
I had an Alva Chris Cook for about 15 minutes- those tri tails sucked. I liked the Blockhead two stage tails though. Everyone loved the Hell Concave because it was the new shit. In actual fact it was probably more of a hinderance than a help. Thank god SMA/World came along.
Because they would spin and undo easier for whatever reason.
I think maybe because of the mass of the bolt is larger than the nut so if you catch on say a Smithgrind it would be have more resistance to wear and eventually start turning. A nut hardly weighs anything so the first thing it would do is just wear down.
‘No hang ups’, I think their marketing went. They were definitely stronger than the average kingpin. I had some but also used to invert standard kingpins myself as well. It meant I didn’t have the problem of the kingpin nut getting ground down washer thin making adjusting my trucks in any way a pain in the arse. Royals had or have an upside down kingpin, I think. Mind you, who gives a monkey about Royals?
Don’t remember any inverted royals, I rode nothing but Royals for years because Thunder went shit for a while. They were the only trucks with that geometry. Royals were great but not particularly strong.
I’m not bothered about inverted but kingpins snap etc. So heat the base plate hammer the kingpin out stick it in a vice mark the centre and drill a hole through the middle to make it hollow
