Ok. If these are light-blue stiff bushings with sexy-looking goo inside ‘em, they are sh*t. I was gonna say “CRAP” to keep the site clean. But “CRAP” is already reserved for the original white hourglass Tracker bushings. Sorry.
Despite the fact that Jani Soderhal won two Swiss races on those white toilet rubber bushings!
I used the new bushings for about 10-15 minutes with my 139mm RTX/S mounted on my best slalom longboard.
I couldn’t handle them any longer.
Issues:
1. They are too hard for slalom. ANY slalom. Might be good bushings for cruising, but that is not applicable here. Cruisers go to
http://www.harleydavidson.com, and I doubt they ever stop by here.
2. When tightened to the appropriate limit, they stop the truck too soon from turning, therefore preventing shorter radius turns from happening.
3. They don’t have any midrange whatsoever! Too turny in the beginning during the turn initiation, rather fast leaning through the turn and then BOOM! – they stop the trucks from turning further no matter how hard one pushes.
I put the cut (see my Planker set-up description in a near future in the “Russian boards” forum) Stimulators back in with the original Tracker top grommets. The difference was like night and day. I just got back home from comparing these bushings, and am typing this still with cold hands. So pardon my slow typing speed.
Stimulators are THE SH*T. For foreigners like myself I translate: they are the bushings to have. Very nice progressive feel, lots of suspension, good rebound. Mix and match durometers, use both for top and bottom, or use conical bushings as tops, and Stimulators as bottoms. As long as the one on top is harder then the bottom one. The original white Tracker cones are OK, although there are better choices.
Who cares about what durometer they are? Why do you need this info? It’s not like with the wheels where you can more or less predict how well they gonna hook and how fast they’ll be based on the durometer and the size.
Get all three and compare. It depends on too many variables to recommend a certain durometer to anyone. I use all three for different purposes/courses/set-ups/boards/truck widths, ect.
If these are NOT the bushings, I’m sorry. I was not told of their name when I got them from Trackers. But I have a feeling I was sh*tting on the right bushings
For some reason Tracker is very reluctant to bring the good stuff back (Tracker original soft slalom bushings) and would rather release something new, even though it’s a piece of junk (make it two pieces of junk in one pack).
If you choose the bushings based on the looks, get them. If you want performance, get Stimulators.
Just my opinion. You still can have yours.
You can read more on my Stimulator/Tracker set-ups in the Russian board forum in a near future.
Vlad.