Greetings Gents,
For a higher end board like Lacroix, Kaly Nyc, etc what do y’all find to be the ultimate rim/tire combo? Without concerning range. Just purely stability.
I’m assuming going from the standard 8” (200x50) tires to a 9” tire would offer more stability.? But I’m hoping I can find an 8” tire with a wider contact patch instead to give me that extra stability I’m looking for.
What’s the best bang for buck rims that offer substantial wider contact patch for 200x50 tire?
And lastly what do y’all think of some of these 165x62 tire rim combo?
I would think a more rounder and less squared contact patch would be more ideal for high speed stability…?
I had gotten up to 47mph with Hubba hubs and regular 200x50 Kenda, one of the cheaper combo for wider tires. Just need to balance your tire well. But ultimately I think rider skill matter the most.
Michael and Artem are both right that tires aren’t the highest on the list but they are still a very noticable difference. Larger heavier tires significantly dampem the steering of a board and change it’s feel especially at high speeds when they are spinning fast, and this seems more noticeable on large channel trucks where they are pushed far outside of the deck.
Kendas are my favorite for stability but they have to be balanced, they are big, heavy and round which are the 3 elements that make the biggest difference to me in damping. I don’t particularly like this feel anymore but when my sole goal was going fast, 55+mph was much easier on those tires, swapping to SKP 7" tires which are substantially lighter and smaller makes the board feel much more alive but more twitchy at speed.
I think sidewall size and stiffness also plays a role in hiding small movements.
Weights for reference all brand new tires plus tube:
Kenda: 421g
SKP 7": 319g
SKP 8" CST: 386g
If you want to stick to 8" I’d recommend looking towards the mboards nova 8" variant, I have no personal experience with it but probably a really good all around street tire.
I’ve been running some 9x3.5 CST slicks for a while and they are well balanced, and super heavy with stiff sidewalls. About 1450g for a full wheel, don’t know the tire by itself, but probably around or slightly over 900g. The fastest I took them to was 43mph but I ride pretty much exlusively track nowadays, and I didn’t race a track yet where the straight was long enough to do more. Also good grip with their 80mm contact patch, but only until you have good road conditions. So no wet riding, certain types of dust makes it slippery and they are quite uncomfortable on bad roads - they roll over everything, but you also feel everything quite a bit. And they last forever and I didn’t have a single flat since I switched them (but had frequent flats on 8x2s beforehand). I liked them for a casual riding as well, but I have good roads.
And I really like the monster truck look it gives to my board.
I run them on MBS rockstar II pro XL hubs, very few hubs can take these tires. I designed 3D printed wideners for them that gets them super wide and it doesn’t affect the bearing spacing. Support for both 3.75" and 4" lips but if you don’t want to ruin the hubs nearly every crash you gotta use the 4" lips. And they also have flat sections which take balancing weights really nicely. Widened they wear out bearings pretty quickly though.
However, you would have a much more substantial increase in stability by just switching to a better truck - Tito Dualities handle wayyyyy better than any channel truck I’ve ridden. And you can spice things up with riptide WFB bushings which offer the best straight line stability while simultaneously offering way better turning. They also have a pretty substantial split angle built into the baseplates, but the real magic is in how the bushings work in them.
Getting the deck closer to you axle height, along with getting it stiffer are also good things for stability.
I’m unsure if you’ll get the clearance required using a 155mm tyre but the 4inch wide BRPs are the most stable tyre I’ve used. Also the most expensive when combined with the drive hubs and hubs required to use them. The 3 inch wide are then the second most stable. I’ve run pneumatics on my race boards and definitely when racing over 60kph I want to be on BRPs over pneumatics!
My commuter board runs kendas on newbee impalers. I do about 30~ miles a day, averaging 40mph, but typically peaking mid 50s. I think the only times Ive had any wobbles or sketchiness are from tires not at the right pressure, or a bushing preload screw backing out a bit. The extra width definitely makes a difference compared to the standard 50mm
