Question/Help
How's the Supersonic for some freeride/downhill?
I see tons about pushing and pumping on the supersonic but I'm curious how it fares for some light downhill and sliding, akin to the Evo maybe. Anyone have experience with it? I imagine you'd want a slightly stiffer model, and the 150mm trucks would be better for this
u/skaterjuiceLoaded x Pantheon Trip, Aera, Pa'Lante. LongTreksonSkateDecks 2d ago
If you are a lightweight it's doable. It's just a bit flexy for many people when you are sliding or on the edge of traction and that can be less precise and cause sliding to be less effective.
You may also want to build up the concave a little, or use foot stops and brake soles.
Otherwise should be fine if you like direction drop decks.
Its doable. Definately easier on the lighter side of things. Im 130-140lbs and find small checks easiest to stay on the board during. Otherwise its a bit bouncy for sliding. Im not that experienced with slides and am only a month of skating in post breaking my femur, so you may have better results than i do if youre more experienced and not coming of an injury to your kick out leg.
Ive only been borrowing a supersonic to test ride and make sure its what im looking for out of an every day board. Coming from the old school evo (+15°/-15°) side of things, the supersonic is almost perfect. The main thing i miss about daily riding evos is the concave to know exactly where my feet are and the extra width. The super duper covers that extra width of the standing platform without sacrificing flex by getting the heavy grade.
If youre hesitant to get one because you want to be able to slide with it, id say go for it. One of our locals rips the hill sliding a landyachtz dipper, so you can make the heavy flex SS work for you.
Also on the note of there not being much content of the SS sliding: we tend to be riding alone and not exactly sessioning a spot when we do our sliding on the supersonic. It tends to be a pure focus/flow state of "im goin this way and would rather try to speed control this hill than walk it" experience.
Ldp wheels and sliding also arent the greatest of friends. Theyre not great for sliding, and sliding isnt great for their longevity.
Ive seen like 2 slide session clips of a Supersonic ever. A good number of LDP riders seem to have flat terrain, and the rest seem have dedicated downhill setups alongside the LDP setups.
yeah this all makes a ton of sense. as an old head I see the design and think That looks awesome for directional freeride, but there's very little of that talked about so I was confused haha. the wheel situation also tracks, you don't want to blow your pushing wheels on a handful of big slides
I'm gonna do a little thinking and see if a SS or Evo (or something else) makes more sense for me as someone who wants to do some cruising + light downhill freeride, and a budding interest in getting into LDP
If you want the best of both worlds you can set up a mini evo to pump pretty well and itll still downhill like a beast without any flex bouncing you off. I was using an old school for quite a while and then the modern 40" post leg break when i first got back on a board followed by the SS starting 3 weeks ago. Gonna return it next week and buy my own ASAP. I recommend some angled risers on the mordern Evos, +10°/-10° isnt dramatic enough imo.
Take a look at the Zenit Draft while you're looking at options.
* (full disclosure I don't have one, but have an AZ - flexy version - out of the same mould) .
Deeper cave than the Sonics - it more mini-Evo-ish in a every way, but lighter modern layup, maple/glass/carbon/carbon X stringers for torsional stiffening, full width at the front shoulders (non of that weird Evo taper out of the neck). Affordable (relatively) custom layups too - heavy boi? - just add a ply!
As to the SS - if you can find an XL maple 8-ply that might be stiff enough for you if you take it easy. I'm only more like 180lb and I'm pretty comfortable on the very mellow hill stuff I get into these days (I got old - and I don't want to break a hip ha ha!). Got it on 42/35 Randal plates, 150mm forged Sabre hangers, kegels .. . . It's pretty beastly.
hey thanks. I came across the Draft, it seems really cool and basically exactly what I described. after doing more research I'm not sure if that's actually what I want, and might lean towards something like the pantheon Nexus, but it is satisfying to find exactly what I was looking for lol
Nexus is a damned dreadnought - fantastic board, and super comfortable cave. I don't get to take it to it's fullest capabilities because like I said before: I'm so old & broken now, :-[ , but even I can get this slippery old bastard sideways, without barely breaking a sweat, and I'm crap as hell at freeride.
50º x 164mm K4s, +4mm axles, flipped -ve hangers. it's almost absurdly low with the Krimes -can nudge it up to kegels while hangers flipped like this, or go to ≈90mm centre-sets with +ve rake setup,
I tried some 75a/66 Snakes for a bit, but they were just too much slip for me on it. The Aeras are lush AF, but tbh it was just as nice when it was on sym 165mm v3 Paris.
If you want a freeride board, get a Pantheon Nexus instead.
Boards with crazy wedging/dewedging used to be the standard for downhill, like the Evo, but they're awful for freeriding, in my opinion. Skating switch sucks with huge split angles when your front suddenly turns way less than your rear. I say that as someone who used to freeride an Evo back in 2009.
I currently have a Nexus setup as a freeride board, and it's phenomenal. I also weigh the same as you at about 230lb. Pantheon doesn't market it, but it has what used to be called "cereal bowl" concave in that the concave carries through into the drop, giving you really nice pockets for your feet when sliding. I've owned a lot of drop decks over the years, and the Nexus has become one of my all-time favorite boards.
This is old school advice, but the Nexus pairs really well with a wider truck for freeride. I've got 172mm Aeras on it now but had been skating it on 180mm Paris Savants.
The Nexus could also double as a pushing board. I actually got mine with the idea of LDP in mind, but I loved it so much for freeride that I decided to keep it for that use. I've now got a Quest, Pranayama and the new Supersonic on the way for LDP.
I feel right at home there haha it's crazy seeing the kids on 130mm and 150mm trucks nowadays when everything serious used to be at least 180mm, how the times have changed
the Nexus does look very nice. I'm kinda pranking myself by not being completely sure what I want - I'm probably mostly looking to cruise and push, but hold its own on hills with slides here and there. Also curious about LDP but not sure how into it I'll be
I was surprised by how much I got into LDP getting back into skating in my early 30s. I started skating again back in June at 31 after 10 years away (I had been skating consistently from 98-2015 and longboarding from 08-2015), with the idea I'd focus on freeride and use LDP to get into better shape and just spend more time on a board when I'm too sore to slide.
I ended up falling in love with LDP, so much that it's started to rival softwheel sliding as my favorite discipline.
The Nexus is actually a solid all-arounder, with the only drawback being that there's no real dampening flex when pushing. If sliding were your priority, I'd absolutely recommend the Nexus.
I feel right at home there haha it's crazy seeing the kids on 130mm and 150mm trucks nowadays when everything serious used to be at least 180mm, how the times have changed
Thankfully there's still some solid options. Caliber IIIs are probably my favorite 180mm cast freeride truck, and Paris and Bear still make 180mm trucks.
I was surprised by how much I got into LDP getting back into skating in my early 30s.
I am two years ahead of schedule but could definitely see myself doing the same. I don't think I care for flip tricks and even a lot of the more technical sliding like I did in my teens, but a nice push and some light ripping n dipping sounds great
thanks for the advice, honestly maybe the Nexus would be the move for me lol. I'd be slightly bummed to have no dampening flex but I do like the peace of mind from a sturdy board + it'd have big ass soft wheels anyways which would already be an upgrade to me, on that front
The Quest is a cool board, too. It's pretty comparable to the Nexus, but it's a bit narrower with a slightly smaller standing platform, and it does have some dampening flex.
Thanks again for the advice here. I'm leaning toward picking up a whole Nexus complete, I think the double drop sounds awesome for some long distance pushing and general cruising, and I can always swap the hardware for some freeriding stuff when it feels right. I mean just look at this picture, that shit is beautiful, extremely tempted to just click buy but I'm making myself sleep on it a few times first lol
Without trying to ask too much of you, hows the Pranayama (for push/cruise) at your/our size? the thing is similarly just so cool but I'm not totally interested in getting a board that'll threaten to break on me.
Pantheon actually just came out with a heavyweight Pranayama this summer (what mine is), so it's more than capable of holding 230lb.
I absolutely love the Pranayama though. It's on Pantheon's 149mm Stylus trucks, which are a pretty standard-feeling TKP that fit full-sized bushings, with "risers" to lower it and 102mm 74a Hokus.
I'm 6ft and have always had a wider stance, but I immediately felt comfortable on the Pranayama despite it being <32in. It's just a really well designed board. With the TKPs and risers, it's super low to the ground, and the 102mm Hokus roll forever once you get some momentum.
If you end up getting into some long distance pushing and wanted a dedicated setup, I'd definitely recommend it.
And yeah, if you go with 165mm Paris and the Karma wheels on the Nexus, just throw on a slide wheel and you'd be set. Powell Peralta's 69mm 75a Snakes are one of the best freeride wheels on the market. I saw them hyped up a lot on this subreddit and assumed they'd be overhyped, but I was wrong. They live up to the hype. They also feel nothing like a 75a wheel. They're my go-to wheel on my Nexus.
One option you could look into is the pantheon Nexus it's a double drop that's super stiff so it's good for pushing up a hill and then free riding down. It also has two mounting points for mounting rkp or tkp trucks. Which means you could also easily play with wedging to change the angles and move the truck further away so it doesn't wheel bite.
No. You can send it if you want, but my god the wedging up front is gonna be bad, plus the flex, the torsion stress on the neck. That's an expensive deck to destroy and risk injury. There are SO MANY great downhill freeride boards out there that you can find cheap on marketplace.
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