What makes good longboard wheels

The very sharp edge provides grip and can be hard to push into a slide. Beveled edges 45 degrees are usually found on short board wheels. They are in between square edges and round edges and are easier to slide. You will lose some grip on a wheel the same width as taking the corner off, reduces the size of the contact patch.

Rounded edges are the easiest to slide, but the shape means once again you lose a little more contact patch on a wheel the same width. Most longboard wheels have a core to keep the bearings square and true. A soft compound urethane will not support the bearings and they would just pull straight through the wheel with a little sideways force. Longboard wheels with cores dissipate heat caused by friction coming off bearings at high speeds. Wheel cores are made with a harder material like hard urethane, plastic, aluminum and even fiberglass reinforced plastic.

The hard core will improve roll speed and help prevent deformation of the urethane during slides. These qualities can also make the wheel slide faster. A core can affect the ride of the wheel as well. A centered core makes for even wear, allowing them to be easily flipped, great for rotating your wheels for durability. A larger diameter core will make will make a wheel roll faster, great for transportation, freeride, and downhill.

What does scrubbed mean? Is it an exceptionally clean skateboard wheel? No, a scrubbed wheel means the contact patch has been machined so you can use it straight off of the shelf.

Most urethane wheels are made in a mold and have a smooth shiny surface when they come out. If you get a smooth wheel it can be slippery when you first use it. Scrubbed wheels are put on a lathe and the surface is either machined with a metal tool or a stone grinding wheel. This roughens up the surface so it performs as a broken in wheel would straight away. It also ensures the wheel runs perfectly true in relation to the bearing seat.

Is scrubbed, is good! To get the best longboard wheels for you, first we need to know what you want to do with Them. To simplify choosing the best longboard wheels we have spit this discipline into three different divisions. Cruising and carving is all about carving down gradually sloped streets and hills. You will also want something fun and easy to push from A to B on. What you are doing most will determine what is best for you. If you are mostly transporting a bigger squarer wheel is the go.

Want to get tricky and push it around sideways, then choose a round or beveled edge wheel. Freeride, Freestyle and Dancing is all about being creative. It involves many technical skills such as sliding, board tricks, regular and goofy riding, and dancing. Harder wheels with round edges are what you want here.

Slide gloves and a good helmet are a must for higher speed slide action. This discipline is most suited to experienced riders. If you want to get involved though, having the right wheels is critical.

What this actually means is larger wheels are generally harder to break grip and harder to control whilst sliding - hence most freeride wheels are around the 70mm mark, or have huge vented cores to save weight.

There's a balance to be struck with having enough urethane on the core to give you a long lasting wheel, and a wheel size that isn't too sluggish whilst sliding. These are the fastest accelerating wheels out there, and also the best choice if you want to slide a lot at slower speeds. A smaller wheel like this slides better although it might not last as long , and is way less prone to wheelbite on topmount cruiser setups.

Smaller, lighter wheels are more nimble and also keep your deck height lower. Faster acceleration Lighter weight and relatively large core makes smaller wheels ideal for sliding Less likely to get wheelbite May not last as long as larger wheels Not as smooth and plush over rougher surfaces as a bigger wheel back to top.

This is pretty much the ideal size for a longboard wheel. Big enough to carry speed and feel plush on rougher surfaces, but small enough to accelerate and slide nicely, around the 70mm mark has been the standard size longboard wheel for ever. A good balance of speed, weight and smoothness makes for a great all-round size Not really likely to get wheelbite, but you might need to watch out with very loose or lower angle trucks on topmount longboards A plusher ride than a smaller wheel - not the ultimate in smoothness, but good enough for most longboarding situations Last longer than smaller wheels back to top.

Things are starting to get faster now. Wheels this size are capable of higher speeds than their smaller cousins, and will hold momentum over rougher surfaces way better. This size is awesome for freeriding and higher speeds downhill skating, where you need a larger, solid wheel under your board.

A good medium-large size for all kinds of downhill skating and freeriding Watch out for wheelbite - if you're freeriding, you'll likely need some big wheelwells or cutouts in your deck to keep things low and safe. A plush, smooth ride over rougher surfaces make this size ideal for cruising around You should expect to get a bit more life out of wheels this big - assuming you can keep them round!

Big, soft wheels will make your board seriously fast - though their size and weight will take longer to spin up to speed, once they get going, your board will roll over anything and hold a line over the roughest of surfaces! Look out for large cores to keep weight down and increase wheel rigidity to prevent flatspots. Super-wide cores have become something of a resurgent trend in large longboard wheels recently, with good reason - you wheels will slide more predictably, roll faster and last longer.

A bit of air venting also helps stop your bearings overheating! The wider the contact patch the more grip and less progressive the slide, but the less likely you are to get flatspots. You can narrow down your selection of wheels by "Width" in the "Longboard Wheels" Section of the shop, which will give you an approximation of the contact patch width.

The edges or lips of the wheel affect how it slides sideways across the road and how much grip it has. There are three kinds of edges:.

A square or sharp edge profile wheel tends to be very grippy. They're best for downhill, slalom and fast carving, where you need as much grip as you can get. They have so much grip because the square "lips" of the wheel and distort over bumps in the road surface. After a bit of carving or drifting you will "blow" the edges of your wheels out - you'll round those square lips off.

Wheel designs that rely on their lips to create grip will suddenly become much easier to slide at this point. Halfway between round and sharp lips is a bevelled edge - where the wheel is moulded, machined or lathed at an angle to the rest of the wheel. It's not as grippy as a square edge, but less progessive than a radiussed edge.

It does, however, stay the same shape as you wear it down. As the wheel is shaped with a nice circular edge it travels across the road sideways much better than a square or bevelled wheel, but it also lets go a bit earlier and more progressively. This makes it easy to loose speed by drifting the board sideways or sliding at slower speeds, but not so good if you need loads of grip.

A bigger radius will last longer as the wheel wears down, and will be less grippy than a smaller radius. The core spreads the heat through the wheel and stops the bearings which get super hot at speed melting the Urethane.

Exposed cores work better for heat dispensation than internal cores. Keep your bearings clean and lubed The core also helps to maintain the circular integrity of the wheel, which helps to prevent egging and flatspots.

A wheel with a big core is more likely to stay spinning when sliding sideways, so it'll stay round for much longer than a coreless wheel. Cored wheels are also faster on smooth surfaces, as there is less urethane to compress and rob you of your speed - but this means that large-cored soft wheels can be quite chattery over rougher surfaces.

However, on a smooth surface, a very large core gives a lot of support to the urethane, allowing high roll speeds and ultra-smooth slides- good for bigger race wheels. The position of the core in the wheel also makes a big difference to how the wheel grips, slides and wears. Centerset wheels also wear down slowly, as the load your weight! However, a centerset core position is not the most efficient design for creating grip, or producing a good slide.

Recently some manufacturers have tried to compensate for this by creating super wide shapes with centerset wheels, for maximum grip and a long life on rough roads. This creates a very slidey, progressive wheel, as the inside edge of the contact patch the bit that does all the work is very supported.

If you want a freeride wheel, we think backset is the way to go. The disadvantage is that they will cone faster. The maximum grip point of the wheel shape is usually somewhere between the inside edge and center of the wheel - so some of the grippiest wheels available are sideset.

Exact core positioning to create maximum grip is a black art, and many other factors lip thickness, inner edge profile, contact patch width etc come into play when creating maximum grip.

Anyone who has ridden both these and modern urethane wheels will vouch for the increased speed, better grip and overall improved ride quality of urethane wheels. This is mainly down to the ability of urethane wheels to rebound, ie return to their original shape quickly after being distorted. Modern urethane is significantly "higher rebound" than older urethane - you can test the rebound or a wheel by dropping it on the floor and seeing how high it bounces.

When you put your weight on the board, the wheels compress slightly at the leading edge as the wheel rolls on to the road, and then as the wheel roll on the back edge rebounds pushing against the road and returning the energy used to compress the wheel in to forward momentum.

If your wheels were too soft they would not rebound fast enough and this energy would be lost, if they were too hard the road surface distorts slightly and tarmac rebounds very slowly, again wasting the energy. The theory is something has got to give somewhere so you might as well try to minimise the energy losses.

This is because shortboards are used on very hard, smooth surfaces where harder wheels are faster. On a rough surface a hard wheel will be much less grippy than a soft wheel, as the soft wheel will compress over all the tiny bumps in the road surface whereas a hard wheel won't.

However, on a really smooth surface like a concrete skatepark , hard wheels will actually have more grip than soft wheels - but when they slide it'll be a sudden snap and they'll go forever, whereas soft wheels will be much more progressive. For longboard applications, where you are on rough roads a lot of the time, a softer wheel 75a will be grippier, with a "grabby" slide, and a harder wheel 85a will be slidier but also can be hard to control and bring back into grip.

Another thing that affects the grip of the wheel is the state of the running surface - IE the bit of the wheel that rolls along the ground. All wheels used to come with a very smooth running surface, still with the mold release agent on them. Wheels like this need to be "broken in" with a few big slides to get the surface roughed up - once this is done, they will slide a lot smoother. These days you can choose your finish as you buy your longboard wheels, as some wheels come with a Stoneground "Pre Broken In" finish.

They have a shiny "skin" on them, which gives you a lot more grip initially, but once the wheel has been slid a few times, some of this grip is generally lost. You'll see racers switching wheels after a few big slides for this reason - they need maximum grip to win. In contrast, the smaller wheels will accelerate faster but not have as much speed on the top end. The most common range for wheels is in the 63mmmm range. Look for a board with a cutout or deeper wheel wells to avoid wheelbite with larger wheels.

Longboard wheels are made of polyurethane and will range in hardness. The durometer of a wheel determines how hard its polyurethane is. In terms of performance, the durometer has to do with how the wheel grips to the surface you are riding on. The most common durometers for longboard wheels will be on the softer side when compared to standard skateboard wheels and fall in the 75aa range. We are not molecular scientists and will not explain the differences between scales.

Similar to durometer, the lip profile of your longboard wheel will determine how well your wheel grips the riding surface. The core setting hub placement is the position of the wheel core. In the most basic sense, the core placement effects the traction and durability of your wheels. So if you have a wheel with a core right in the middle, it will have a balanced amount of urethane from left to right.

When you offset or sideset the core, the wheel becomes more forgiving on the outside making it more suitable for a looser or less grippy feel. In terms of durability, center set wheels offer the most longevity allowing you to flip them around when the outsides begin to wear unlike offset or sideset wheels. There are 3 common core positions across the longboard wheel spectrum that each differ how your board rides. Those include offset, centerset and sideset.

The most common core setting with the core slightly set in from the inside area of the wheel. They provide a nice balance of traction and slide and accomodate a wide range of riding styles with their versatilty.