Post
by Marty Agather » Thu Aug 09, 2007 8:26 pm
Jake,
Welcome! If you can make it to a race before you buy, do it. You will see a lot of different ideas, and if you talk to some of the guys during down time (don't pester them right before a race!) most guys would love to talk to you and let you try their rigs. The only downside to that is that many of the guys that are going to be at a race like DHB Worlds are going to be riding rigs that will break your piggy bank wide open.
So to answer your original question about good gear to get a start, unfortunately it will be difficult to get a single setup that will do everything from Tight to GS really well.
Equipment:
Your best bet would be to buy a "hybrid" deck with a couple of different truck mounting points pre-drilled. That way you can shorten (tighter) or lengthen (more open courses) your wheelbase depending upon the course. Start with a good laminated wooden deck without alot of flex from one of the board manufacturers listed in the forum section on boards. Tracker RTX (front) and RTS (rear) are inexpensive and designed for slalom. Some 70 mm wheels in a softer duro (80a or thereabouts) from Abec11 or Seismic will fill you out.
Where to buy:
Unless you have a local shop that for some reason knows about slalom, you are going to have to go shop the i-net. Sk8kings has a great reputation, and they will work with you to custom set up one of their "axe" slalom completes - right bushings for your weight etc. milehighskates is another very reputable dealer, and also sells completes, but I don't know how much slalom equipment he has. The advantage of a 'semi-custom' complete is that the components are known to work together. The only problem is that selection is a bit more limited, so if you are really dying to ride a board made by XXXX, you might have to buy everything separate.
I hope to see you at a race sometime in the future,
Skate 'em if you got 'em.
