“Hey, we’re longboarders!” That was the first reaction when we had this skateboard show up, it was shorter than the space between the axles of any self-respecting longboard typically ridden by the Longboard Consortium. But, retro-lines and inlayed teak veneers do tend to find a soft spot in our hearts. Plus, Garrett Hurley just kept grinning about his new mini-board whenever the subject came up. So we took a break from the daily drudgery of riding new longboards to try out a mini. For this review, the Longboard Consortium reached out to skaters on both coasts to suss out the GFHurley 24” Pug complete. By the time we were done, this well-traveled little board had impressed us, generated grins on every rider that dared step foot on it and left us asking for more.
As any Silverfish Longboarding reader knows, sometimes the “little things” matter a lot when setting up your longboard for the perfect ride. At the Longboard Consortium, both the completes and the “build-ups” we review are ridden by a wide variety of riders, and we occasionally need to alter things, or even to change setups to improve or address ride characteristics of the longboard. A quick call to “Khiro Bob” resulted in a box of stuff just perfect for our needs: a broad selection of Khiro’s excellent bushings, shock pad risers, hard risers, wedge risers, the new “wedge rail” riser kit and the Max-7 hardware pack.
Over the past year or more, Silverfish Longboarding members have read about and seen longboards built with Roarockit’s “Thin Air Press” vacuum-bag lamination kits. The Roarockit longboard kits include virtually everything one needs to construct a 40”, 7-ply maple pintail deck in your home, and several have reported how easy it’s been to make their board using the system. Last Spring, we also read about “Longboard Building 101”, a class offered to UCSD students that resulted in over a dozen of the Roarockit pintails hitting the streets. While stoked over the idea of building our own boards with Roarockit’s system, The Longboard Consortium wanted to know, “How do these boards ride?” Well, it’s time to find out! For our largest testing process to date, we’ve ridden a lot of miles, put the boards through everything from teaching a new rider to skate to commuting, cruising, high-speed carves and even sliding sessions.
Chuck Barfoot has been surfing, skating and building custom skateboards for almost 40 years. Like many old-school deck builders, he also got into snowboarding, early in the game, and has been recognized as an innovator in that genre, too. But it’s not innovation that drew the Longboard Consortium to Barfoot: it’s surf-style nostalgia. Barfoot shows his commitment to the legendary surfers that influenced him on the water and the pavement with a line of “Legend Surfstyle” completes that are designed with the input of famous surfers. One of those surfers, David Nuuhiwa, first made his name in the waters of Waikiki in the 1950’s and helped popularize nose riding in the ‘60’s. Years later, Nuuhiwa still surfs and builds boards, including a 9’8” woodie he calls the “Noserider”. Our Barfoot is a replica of Nuuhiwa’s board, right down to the inlayed stringers on the top.
Early in the formation of The Longboard Consortium, we realized that swapping wheels back and forth during testing sessions could be a real pain in the neck. We’ve changed wheels 4 or 5 times per board in a single riding session. Lining up spacers, finding “speed rings” (“Did it stick to the bearing on the other wheel or is that it, caked onto the axle?”), setting bearing tension just right… all this made the “wheel guys” grumpy, except when we were swapping wheels equipped with Biltin bearings. So, we called up Sk8Trip Distribution and set up a review of the entire Biltin Bearings line. Our wheel-swappers have been happy ever since. The Consortium riders tested all three levels of Biltin Bearings: labeled as abec 3, 5, and 7.
Consortium Reviews 
“Hey, we’re longboarders!” That was the first reaction when we had this skateboard show up, it was shorter than the space between the axles of any self-respecting longboard typically ridden by the Longboard Consortium. But, retro-lines and inlayed teak veneers do tend to find a soft spot in our hearts. Plus, Garrett Hurley just kept grinning about his new mini-board whenever the subject came up. So we took a break from the daily drudgery of riding new longboards to try out a mini. For this review, the Longboard Consortium reached out to skaters on both coasts to suss out the GFHurley 24” Pug complete. By the time we were done, this well-traveled little board had impressed us, generated grins on every rider that dared step foot on it and left us asking for more. 
As any Silverfish Longboarding reader knows, sometimes the “little things” matter a lot when setting up your longboard for the perfect ride. At the Longboard Consortium, both the completes and the “build-ups” we review are ridden by a wide variety of riders, and we occasionally need to alter things, or even to change setups to improve or address ride characteristics of the longboard. A quick call to “Khiro Bob” resulted in a box of stuff just perfect for our needs: a broad selection of Khiro’s excellent bushings, shock pad risers, hard risers, wedge risers, the new “wedge rail” riser kit and the Max-7 hardware pack. 
Over the past year or more, Silverfish Longboarding members have read about and seen longboards built with Roarockit’s “Thin Air Press” vacuum-bag lamination kits. The Roarockit longboard kits include virtually everything one needs to construct a 40”, 7-ply maple pintail deck in your home, and several have reported how easy it’s been to make their board using the system. Last Spring, we also read about “Longboard Building 101”, a class offered to UCSD students that resulted in over a dozen of the Roarockit pintails hitting the streets. While stoked over the idea of building our own boards with Roarockit’s system, The Longboard Consortium wanted to know, “How do these boards ride?” Well, it’s time to find out! For our largest testing process to date, we’ve ridden a lot of miles, put the boards through everything from teaching a new rider to skate to commuting, cruising, high-speed carves and even sliding sessions. 
Chuck Barfoot has been surfing, skating and building custom skateboards for almost 40 years. Like many old-school deck builders, he also got into snowboarding, early in the game, and has been recognized as an innovator in that genre, too. But it’s not innovation that drew the Longboard Consortium to Barfoot: it’s surf-style nostalgia. Barfoot shows his commitment to the legendary surfers that influenced him on the water and the pavement with a line of “Legend Surfstyle” completes that are designed with the input of famous surfers. One of those surfers, David Nuuhiwa, first made his name in the waters of Waikiki in the 1950’s and helped popularize nose riding in the ‘60’s. Years later, Nuuhiwa still surfs and builds boards, including a 9’8” woodie he calls the “Noserider”. Our Barfoot is a replica of Nuuhiwa’s board, right down to the inlayed stringers on the top. 
Early in the formation of The Longboard Consortium, we realized that swapping wheels back and forth during testing sessions could be a real pain in the neck. We’ve changed wheels 4 or 5 times per board in a single riding session. Lining up spacers, finding “speed rings” (“Did it stick to the bearing on the other wheel or is that it, caked onto the axle?”), setting bearing tension just right… all this made the “wheel guys” grumpy, except when we were swapping wheels equipped with Biltin bearings. So, we called up Sk8Trip Distribution and set up a review of the entire Biltin Bearings line. Our wheel-swappers have been happy ever since. The Consortium riders tested all three levels of Biltin Bearings: labeled as abec 3, 5, and 7. 
