Different width front and rear trucks
Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 9:03 pm
Hey, Just like Claude said, you have to go out and ride and change what you can and figure out what works.
Some like to have the front end narrower, some like to have the back end narrower.
I ride with a 100mm rear Splitfire Phase I rear and for the point of the discussion we'll talk about Seismic Hotspots since the edges are squared off already. I leave them full width in back, however, I trim down the width of the front end a LOT and then I use a Tracker RT-X 8mm conversion with an extra long axle so that I can add spacers and space out my front wheels so that when measuring outer-edge-to-outer-edge, the front and rear wheels have the same total width.
I trim the front wheels so that they turn easier and quicker and so that they slide easier so when I have an unexpected slide, it's a 4 wheel drift which is much safer and easier to recover from than the deadly rear-only-fishtail-swing slide that pitches you off. I also almost always use 80a-ish in back, 85a-ish in front in terms of hardness. This makes for simplicity, time saved at races, and predictability so I always have a pretty good guess what will happen in terms of traction-vs-slide by looking at the pavement.
I also space the front wheels out wider to match the back end so that the front end doesn't feel "tippy" and have the wheels go to the edges in a turn. In fact, I never ever ride slalom trucks narrower than 100 mm anymore because when I did, I could feel(and see in pictures) the whole setup roll to the edges of the wheels, especially in tight courses and for me, it made it harder to turn quickly with narrow trucks. However, I only weigh 150 lbs and am 5'11" tall so I think that has a lot to do with it. Narrower trucks seem to work better with people heavier and/or stockier than me. JBH has made similar observations, he's built sorta like me but taller and more muscular.
For what it's worth, I'm not the fastest guy at any race but I had a good run at the top of the B-Class for awhile and a spell in the bottom to middle of the A-Class back when I was sorta serious about racing. So that's my 2 cents on the topic.
Hope this is of some use - Paul
Some like to have the front end narrower, some like to have the back end narrower.
I ride with a 100mm rear Splitfire Phase I rear and for the point of the discussion we'll talk about Seismic Hotspots since the edges are squared off already. I leave them full width in back, however, I trim down the width of the front end a LOT and then I use a Tracker RT-X 8mm conversion with an extra long axle so that I can add spacers and space out my front wheels so that when measuring outer-edge-to-outer-edge, the front and rear wheels have the same total width.
I trim the front wheels so that they turn easier and quicker and so that they slide easier so when I have an unexpected slide, it's a 4 wheel drift which is much safer and easier to recover from than the deadly rear-only-fishtail-swing slide that pitches you off. I also almost always use 80a-ish in back, 85a-ish in front in terms of hardness. This makes for simplicity, time saved at races, and predictability so I always have a pretty good guess what will happen in terms of traction-vs-slide by looking at the pavement.
I also space the front wheels out wider to match the back end so that the front end doesn't feel "tippy" and have the wheels go to the edges in a turn. In fact, I never ever ride slalom trucks narrower than 100 mm anymore because when I did, I could feel(and see in pictures) the whole setup roll to the edges of the wheels, especially in tight courses and for me, it made it harder to turn quickly with narrow trucks. However, I only weigh 150 lbs and am 5'11" tall so I think that has a lot to do with it. Narrower trucks seem to work better with people heavier and/or stockier than me. JBH has made similar observations, he's built sorta like me but taller and more muscular.
For what it's worth, I'm not the fastest guy at any race but I had a good run at the top of the B-Class for awhile and a spell in the bottom to middle of the A-Class back when I was sorta serious about racing. So that's my 2 cents on the topic.
Hope this is of some use - Paul