200+ pounders.. Advice wanted

[Christophish]

Hey guys.... I'm playing with different bushing combos trying to find the right combo, but seem to suck at whatever I'm running. Thing is, I'm not even sure what other guy my size are running for TS and Hybrid and I'd like to know if I'm on the right track. Also, what wheelbase are you guys running for tight and hybrid courses.

So big dudes with some experience.... Chime in and help a brother out. I'm running custom 88mm Bennetts standard front, offset rear.

Lemmeno

Chris

[Gary in VA]

Chris,

I weigh 225. I'm running a Bennett front truck (100mm) on my hybrid deck. Wedged 10 degrees, orange Khiro barrel on the bottom, white barrel on the top. If the course is fast and more spread out, I switch the white for another orange. A 21" wheelbase with a Seismic Race 100 rear truck set up very stiff. I've been able to run 5.5 foot cones with this setup.

[easy]

~215 here - for TS, rad with clear rads (maybe a white khiro top if it's nasty tight) 20" WB; for HS, GOG with orange and white khiros (double orange if it's fast) 22" WB. Rears are splits with blue rad or blue stim bottoms with green rad tops. Are you wedging that front Bennett? They seem to behave better flat.

[SteveC]

Same here. orange bottom, white top. only rtx...
when I get a bennett I think I'm going to have to drill a longer WB.

[Mister Surly]

Trucks
>Front: Modded Indy 101's & 109's
>Rear: Splitfire on a DH plate

TS/Hybrid
>Front: Khiro whites [both of them "bottom" barrel bushings] ((NO cup washers!))
>Rear: Splitfire w/ Khiro red insert bushing reversed on bottom & red Khiro barrel on top,
or Khiro insert reversed and a tracker blue on top.
Wedging
>TS / Front: 17-18 degrees / Rear: 5-7 degrees
>Hybrid / Front 15-17 degrees / Rear: 5 degrees

GS
>Front: Khiro red barrel on bottom, either a white khiro insert, or a white
barrel on top.
> Rear: Red Khiros in back or Blue under Red.
Wedging
>Front: 10-13 degrees / Rear: Flat

[donald20]

chris
one question and a suggestion:
why do you ride such narrow trucks?

and now comes the suggestion:
i assume you are no real speed freak or superexperienced racer.
the truck width you are using is good for 5footers with offsets in there.
since you will only run am courses in the near future i would suggest that you go for 100mm.
why?
because they turn in a wider swing and that's what you need.
the truck width you are using right now is a preferred truck width for pros who go for techy tight stuff as ramon,luca,cbark f.e..
on other cones ettings you will see even those guys use a wider truck.
narrow trucks tend to lose the pump feelimg inbetween cones(am courses),so you get a feeling of not being tense from turn to turn,thus loosing speed.
is that a sufficient enough explanation for you?

hope that helps you to improve!

[Momona Boe]

230 here - I run green stims on bottom and white Khiros on top, both barrels and flat washers. Orange Khiros on bottom are good too.

Oh, and I'm on RTX/S

I got a Bennett, haven't put it on anything yet

[Christophish]

chris
one question and a suggestion:
why do you ride such narrow trucks?

and now comes the suggestion:
i assume you are no real speed freak or superexperienced racer.
the truck width you are using is good for 5footers with offsets in there.
since you will only run am courses in the near future i would suggest that you go for 100mm.
why?
because they turn in a wider swing and that's what you need.
the truck width you are using right now is a preferred truck width for pros who go for techy tight stuff as ramon,luca,cbark f.e..
on other cones ettings you will see even those guys use a wider truck.
narrow trucks tend to lose the pump feelimg inbetween cones(am courses),so you get a feeling of not being tense from turn to turn,thus loosing speed.
is that a sufficient enough explanation for you?

hope that helps you to improve!

Thanks for the suggestion Donald. I run the 88's as I have run some pretty tight courses (5 to 6 footers) and would like to have that option when I need it. For most courses though, I am running them spaced out to 98mm, which as you've suggested, does improve my pump. For looser courses on steeper hills, such as my last race, which was uberfast,I've even spaced them out to 108mm. I wanted the versatility, I teach, therefore I'm broke,I will buy another set (120-130mm range) as I start hitting more GS courses.

[Christophish]

Thanks guys. When I first posted, I was running a Khiro blue barrel bottom, white barrel top combo in the front, with a blue Stim bottom, Khiro white barrel top. I was thinking these were too soft for a guy my size (6'1" 220lbs), but it seems I am on the right track. I going to try the softer bottom, harder top in the front to help return to center properties. I'm going to run white bottom, blue top in the front (though I have some orange Khiros coming) and blue stim bottom and new Bennett red urethane (same duro as Khiro blue, but a little taller) top. Took it for a tool down the street and it feels pretty good. I'll try it in a course this weekend.

Yours in forever tweaking...

Chris

[Xgecko]

well just to give you another answer (6'1" 210) I'm running an Indy and a Chindy (20.5WB wedged 15*F/-7*R) . The Indy is cut down to about 98mm and has orange Khiro barrel bottom and a white barrel top. My Chindy is kinda difficult to setup, sometimes I get it right and sometimes it doesn't feel right at all. I have a setup for fast hot days, paired Blue barrels, but this doesn't seem to work for me on techie offset HS courses and I haven't found bushings (yet) that feel right but I'm looking (I really want some reflex stims).

[msk]

I'm 215. For tight, I'm currently running a white Khiro barrel/inverted conical blue Khiro (wider end away from the hanger) on the front (RTX), and a yellow barrel/white barrel on the rear(RTS). All cups have been replaced with washers that are slightly smaller in diameter than the bushings, which allows the bushings to distort more, rather than compress, which gives them a more linear, rather than progressive, feel.

[worldwide]

lathed red rads and lathed yellow stims. sometimes khiro orange and white or bitch bushings in the same colour

[Christophish]

Can someone explain the purpose and method of lathing bushings to me? I don't get it.

Also, I got my orange Khiros in and tried a new combo. Front : Khiro white bottom, orange top, Bennett wedged 10 degrees. Rear: Bennett urethane proto bottom (the shorter made for the top), and Khiro blue top, Bennett custom offset dewedged about 6 or 7 degrees (whatever Richy C. sets the Axes up with). I also shortened up my WB to 20 inches. I was running a blue stim in the rear, but I think the harder bushings were contributing to my rear truck breeaking loose a bit. Ran it through a cyber course (6 footers on flat ground) in front of my house last night, and was consistently clean and fast (at least it felt fast). I will try it gravity assisted later, but so far so good!

[Christophish]

All cups have been replaced with washers that are slightly smaller in diameter than the bushings, which allows the bushings to distort more, rather than compress, which gives them a more linear, rather than progressive, feel.

Hey MSK, can you explain the linear vs. progressive concept in a little more detail to me? It's cold in Canada, so our brains are a little sluggish at times.

[RacerBaker]

240 ish here. I run Splitfires, Airflows and a Radical. I never run anything narrower than 107. I have found that I cant hardly turn the narrower trucks, they tend to want to tip at the extremes. It gets even wierder feeling to me if the board is wider than the wheels by too much. I run my back truck as loose as I can tolerate, allows the rear weels to follow the asphault better. Front truck just faries on how I feel and how steep the hill is.
I bought a bunch of Radical bushings and shaped most of them to fit my Splitfires.
To "lathe" my bushings I use a long bolt king pin sized. And grind it on the course wheel on my grinder. If you are careful it will spin freely and stay round. Grind at a slight diagonal to the bolt so the bushing spins quickly. If it stops you will flat spot the bushing. It is the simplest way I have found. A little messy but it works.
Progressive means the feel of the truck turning is progressively stiffer as it turns more. You can cone the bushings to tune their feel. Coned will feel slightly softer, with a longer turn before they stop turning, straight bushings feel stiffer faster as they turn.

[msk]

Hey MSK, can you explain the linear vs. progressive concept in a little more detail to me? It's cold in Canada, so our brains are a little sluggish at times.

With a progressive spring rate, the bushings "ramp up" as you compress them. It would take very little force to lean the first few degrees, and a lot more force to lean the last few. With a linear spring rate, the amount of force doesn't change as you compress it. It doesn't take much more force to get the last bit of lean than it does the beginning.

As an example, if you had a linear spring and a progressive spring that could each compress 4", it might take 100 lbs of force to compress the progressive one 1", another 200 lbs to compress it another inch, another 400 lbs to compress it the third inch, and an additional 800 lbs to get the last inch. A linear spring would take 100 lbs to compress the first inch, another 100 to get the second, and so on. It would take 1500 lbs to bottom out the progressive spring, and only 400 to bottom out the other. They'd feel the same at the beginning, but would feel drastically different the farther you compress them.

By not containing the bushing in a cupped washer, it can deform and squish out of the way, instead of just compressing. The result is a bushing that doesn't ramp up as quickly. I can then either start with my trucks as loose as normal, and lean far enough to get wheelbite with far less effort, or I can start with my trucks tighter than normal, and still be able to get the full range out of them.

This is also why RaceTracks have taller kingpins, and why old trucks like Bennetts and ACS felt so smooth and responsive. By running taller bushings, you get what feels a little more like a linear spring rate, because for the same amount of lean, you're not using as much of the bushing's total capacity, and therefore doesn't ramp up as quickly...

[Christophish]

Ah! Ok makes sense! Thanks MSK!