It’s a lifestyle choice, not an addiction!
Heya folks, I got a weird idea bouncing around my head. The consensus about @Titoxd1000 's duality trucks is that they fuck severely (and I agree), and the reason is that they can:
- get rid of pivot slop like a channel truck
- run bushings super loose like a RKP
- lean so much that you can run really low angles without losing turn
I also happen to enjoy running crazy loose bushings and lowering my truck angles. The limit to how far I can push that strategy is just my truck’s steering lock and the fact that it eventually get twitchy at speed with no preload.
So it got an idea bouncing around my head. Could I just take the bushings blocks out of a channel truck and connect a steering dampers to the hangers? No centering spring effect, just damping. Would I be able to make a board with like 45 degrees of lean, running 15 degree truck angles that can handle extreme speeds AND ALSO short track racing? IDK, but in order to figure out the optimal point on this trend I’d hafta identify how far you can run with it before it starts making the skateboard worse again.
Which is a really long-winded way of me asking if anyone can measure the articulation of some Matrix trucks with the blocks removed. I’m basing this on the speculation that channels can lean about ~45 degrees without the blocks (i’m just eyballing that from product pics), but I’ve never worked with them personally. If they’re actually better than the duality’s 33deg articulation I might try it out. Thanks if you can help!
I’ve got you dawg
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50°
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Gat damn! That’s some Michael Jackson levels of lean.
Thanks for the solid my guy, I owe you a digital soda 
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Sounds to me like what you want is some classic Other Planet Trucks.
Insane lean
Low angles
Freedom from the restriction of bushings.
And a cam that acts as a damping system.
OK, that one is a bit of a stretch, especially compared with steering dampers.
The problem you’re going to run into with this approach is grip.
I’m not sure exactly how it works, or why, but low angle trucks with a lot of lean and low resistance don’t bite the pavement in the same way, and they don’t have a defined line between gripping and drifting. But they do drift like butter compared to the other end of the spectrum.
More on the speculation side, I think it has to do with the pivoting of the hanger acting like a rocker suspension between the left and right wheels, and that having a nice fast rebound in your resistance helps keep your inside wheel engaged with the pavement.
If that theory is correct, then adding a damper might even compound the lack of grip. As it would be tuned for steering damping, not suspension damping.
You also might be interested in what we’ve got going on in this truck project:
These trucks add progressive steering on top of the characteristics you’ve already listed.
The farther you lean, the higher the effective angles of the trucks become.
The execution on these isn’t the greatest, but if you’re wanting to explore low angles, high lean, stability at speed when going straight, and the ability to maneuver, well, explore this.
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There is definitely a point of diminishing returns going lower on the angles. I found that to be around 30/10 depending to the wheelbase. Below that, steering is slow and takes to much effort to get around tight turns on track. Street riding lower angles was doable and lots of fun for deep carves. For best of both worlds 40-50 total angles front and rear is what I would recommend.
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Interesting, maybe it has to do with the inside wheels like you say. During a high G turn, your weight transfers to the outside wheels due to inertia, but pressure from the bushings transfers it back inside. With too-stiff bushings, you can go the other way and loose traction on the outside.
Could be that having unweighted inside wheels make them lose grip at a slightly different point. The inertial weight transfer is reduced by a lower deck and wider trucks, so a deep drop setup could help.
I would also point out that guys like @Dinnye are running a loose setup with 50% more lean than standard trucks, and it sounds like the biggest impact on grip still comes from tires. How much lean are you talking about, when you say the behavior starts getting drifty?
Extremely cool! That’s a very compact way to get progressive steering. I wonder if they sacrifice slop though, they look like the hanger might be less constrained.
The problem you are going to run into is that there’s a point you don’t want to go below in angles, because it makes racing too much effort. I know it’s a very long read, but if you go over my build thread and see the adjustments I’ve been making over time, nowadays it’s going up in angles not down. And that’s to make it more competitive on short track.
It depends on wheelbase, deck flex, maybe even axle to standing platform height. On a Haero deck I could go as low as 25/10 and it was insanely fun on the streets. But for track 30/10 just felt better. Less effort, less tiring to ride when you have frequent direction changes.
Now I’m on a Tomiboi Hellhound with a carbon layer on the bottom. It’s not extremely stiff, but you can’t feel flex during riding. Wheelbase is 41.5", 1" less than a V5, so quite long. Axle height mostly inline with standing platform. I am currently running it at 35 degrees in the front and 12.5 in the rear… And it clearly works really well. But I’m still considering adding an extra 2.5 degrees to the front, just to make it a bit less tiring on short track.
The only channels basically I don’t have experience with is Matrix III. With the rest, I just kept having issues with kingpin tightness causing slop all the time. I don’t recommend going this way. Also channels have a high amount of positive rake while dualities are rakeless. Rake can be fun, but for racing and straight line stability you want rakeless. Also people with similar setup preferences like me who tried propel’s ADT trucks (which have adjustable damping) said that the lowest setting felt best. So I’m not convinced that a steering damper would be a good idea either.
I definitely don’t have any grip issues. Loss of grip depending on the tire can feel quite violent, definitely not buttery.
Have a look at the video on the bottom of this post on how loose I run my front truck. Although it’s worth saying that the bushings are WFB meaning that they actually have a fairly steady center compared to what you’d expect from the video, even though they can lean in so effortlessly.
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