Venom has been at the top of the urethane game for a long time now. The original mass-producers of a huge variety of bushings, Venom has also been the greatest creator and designer of many cores, urethane formulae and shapes on the market since day one.
Much of Venom’s well-deserved fame comes from their Cobra cores- a proprietary core that’s almost unmatched in speed, grip and slide characteristics. Debuting in late 2015, they replaced the generic cores in the old Cannibal wheels, a downhill wheel offering that’s infamous for being grippy as sandpaper with fresh skin, and a freeride-able goodie when broken in. Since then, the Harlot was born into the Cobra Core lineup, a freeride wheel with the same urethane formula as the Cannibal, but in an addictive round bevel shape.
This year, Venom created the Hard in the Paint urethane formula, a formula we covered last month that’s reputed to leave thane lines when you kickturn. However, there was a small mishap during the release, when Venom’s wheel factory mispoured the production models with an 80a Mach 1 urethane formula, which is another one of Venom’s Cannibal formulas. Riders found this to be incredibly resilient and durable, prompting Venom to embrace one of their mistakes and release the wheel in that same mispoured formula, now named the Enhanced Durability formula.
ED Cannibals 72mm
ED Harlots
ED Cannibals
ED Harlots
ED Harlots and Cannibals
Rider testimony has been incredibly positive- it’s said to be fast (after all, the 76a Mach 1 formula broke the speed record) and awesome for all different kinds of asphalt pavement. The resiliency of the formula is good for practicing, as you really don’t need urethane lines for practice.
Get a set now! Venom is sold out, but Muirskate has a few Harlot sets left!
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Traditionally speaking, the public has only ever gotten the finalized, perfect copies of production model boards. And some may say that this is incredibly positive- the fact that customers are always 100% ensured and confident that they’ll be receiving a production-quality board means that a company’s image goes up, and customers stick around, having experienced the quality of a company’s service.
Prototypes and leftover B-grades are usually left to the team riders or close friends of companies. For that reason, prototypes are sometimes sought after in the public scene as some prototypes have different shapes or concave features that certain people enjoy. Some like to collect them and appreciate having a one-off, one-of-a-kind board in their arsenal. I turn out to be one of those people.
So I was incredibly delighted when I learned about Sanctum’s 24K project, where they fully open their prototyping process to the public in the form of limited production runs of sub-models in the process of creating a finalized, production-grade board. For example, when prototyping Tanner Morelock’s Choomah, Sanctum released the current model as a 24K board last weekend. The Choomah will continue to evolve in its shape and concave, but the limited release represents the Choomah at that point in its development.
The current 24K Choomah is a 35 inch long, 9.75 inch wide cutout topmount monster with a 27 inch wheelbase that grows to 28 inches per the rider’s request. It features some awesome curves, such as an artificial microdrop in the front in the form of wheel flares, a fat W with ridges in the back, and an edged flare that spreads to the back corners. Continue reading →
2016 has been the year of fledgling companies going huge in the downhill longboarding scene. Unlike the majority of companies, these few companies made most of their revenue selling quality downhill/freeride longboards, with a few cruiser completes being sold on the side. First it was Moonshine MFG, and now it’s Zenit Longboards.
If you were on the website last year, you would have seen a completely different lineup compared to this year’s. Last year’s lineup was a small, minimalist series of 5 boards- but this year, Zenit turned it around and emerged with a huge release of decks which cover all there is to do with longboards, style-wise and discipline-wise.
But that isn’t to say that Zenit is like any other board company with a diverse lineup- they’re a little different. Upon stumbling onto their website, the first thing you’ll notice is that they have a peculiar surfskate lineup! These are extremely space-efficient, stylish cruiser/slasher hybrids with meaningful concave which unlike many other cruisers, can be utilized to do some more stylish, skill-based riding such as urban slashing and pool skating.
There are three of them- the Hibiscus, the Alaia, and the Choka. They all have more or less the same shape, with the main difference being in the length and width- most of the length differences come from the size and quantity of kicks. The Hibiscus has no nose kick, and Alaia has a small nose half-kick, and the Choka has two full kicktails. The widths increase from 9 inches with the Hibiscus to 10 inches with the Choka, with the Alaia being right in the middle with a 9.5. These small increments make finding a board that’s a good match for your shoe sizes an absolute jiffy. LNV recommends a 9.5 inch width for people with a size 9 men’s shoe size (US standard), so you can scale up or down depending on how big your feet are.
Hibiscus Bottom
Hibiscus Bottom Details
Hibiscus Profile
Hibiscus Construction
Alaia Bottom
Alaia Bottom Details
Alaia Profile
Alaia Construction
Choka Bottom
Choka Bottom Details
Choka Profile
Choka Construction
Some of the most hyped boards of Zenit’s 2017 lineup are the downhill/freeride boards. These were released to the team riders and local scenes in small numbers, gathering more and more positive feedback every time.
The Marble 40 is pressed in the CONFO mold, which is a microdrop-flare combination with a delicious amount of medium radial. This makes an awesome foot pocket right where the microdrops meet the flares, where you can really wedge your toes or heels in for toesides and heelsides. Aside from the concave, the 40 has double kicktails and a small amount of flex to help with a skater’s freestyle ability- it’s still stiff enough to do downhill and freeride on. Take the Loaded Tesseract for example with its slight dampening flex. The Marble 40 just does the same with its construction rather than a layer of cork on the bottom.
Marble 40 Bottom
Marble 40 Bottom Details
Marble 40 Profile
Marble 40 Construction
The Marble 38 is the same, except with just one kicktail, and complete rigidity opposed to the small amount of dampening flex that the 40. Same concave, same shape. The great thing about the 38 is also that each board is painted and “marbled” by hand at the factory. The artists at Zenit layer paint over a base and strafe it down the board to create a legitimate marble look and finish that’s durable and total eye candy to look at.
Marble 38 Bottom
Marble 38 Bottom Details
Marble 38 Profile
Marble 38 Construction
The Rocket V2 is, as it stands, the most recent iteration of the 2015-2015 Rocket V1 and Missile boards. It features a directional, gnarly concave with some of the greatest gaspedal-inspired concave you may ever see on a downhill longboard. Although the middle features almost no radial, the concave is high and persistently supportive wherever it matters. The small amount of rocker helps to support the feet on an otherwise laterally straight concave profile.
Dancing and freestyle as a genre of longboarding is starting to pick up momentum in North America. While before it was a style that was pretty much exclusive to Europe and Asia, it’s now starting to penetrate into the sunny scenes of southern California and western Canada as a less speedy alternative to getting your fix of adrenaline and progression each day.
To meet the speedy growth of the freestyle scene, Landyachtz has painstakingly worked away to create a fancy dancer of their own! The Hollowtech Stratus is made with Landyachtz’ proprietary hollowcore construction, consisting of fiberglass and wood composites on the top and bottom, with more solid wood kicktails. This is the third year that Hollowcore has been available to the public, and you can expect it to be both durable and functional. Other than that, you can hold it up to the sun and see right through your board!
Stratus Standard Flex
Stratus Super Flex
The folks at Landyachtz are so thoughtful in fact, that they even engineered the placement of the griptape. With some talented freestylers under their wing, Landyachtz has decided to leave the whole middle section of the board without griptape, knowing that pirouettes, boardwalking and other related tricks are exponentially harder and choppier when your feet are sticking to the board like mice in sticky traps.
The Stratus comes in two flex patterns- standard flex and super flex, noted by their colors, red and blue respectively. Listening to community feedback, we’ve deducted that anyone over 170 lbs will easily bottom out the super flex, and thus should go for the standard flex model. The standard flex model is quite snappy and sturdy as it is, and is a great choice for those who may not want a board that’s overly flimsy.
A demonstration of Landyachtz’ Hollowtech
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S1 has been one of the greatest helmet companies for derby, skateboarding and BMX. Ever since the introduction of their hard-foam, hard-shell dual-certified S1 Lifer, and creating waves in the adrenaline sport community for safe helmet usage, S1 has been continually looking to spread safety as their mission.
Being one of the most trusted helmet companies in the scene, S1’s lack of a fullface helmet offering was the source of a little bit of whining- but whine no more, as S1 has finally introduced their fullface! Affordable, but still fitted with the S1 half-shell, the S1 fullface promises to make protecting your noggin more accessible than it ever was before.
This helmet represents the epitome of all the current trends- anti-fog venting, swift visor action, cool colors and a smooth, aerodynamic shell shape. The design features ear holes to make it easier to hear things when you have it over your head. The helmet doesn’t have any external venting, but the shape of the foam inside the helmet directs hot, moist air out the bottom of the helmet to reduce fogging.
You can choose 4 different kinds of visors at checkout- the clear, tinted, iridium, and mirror finishes. Each have their merits for different lighting conditions. For clear and tinted visors are for bright and clear days, while the iridium and mirror finishes are for extremely bright, sunny days when glare from cars and shiny trucks might blind you momentarily.
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