RADIKAL TALONS - TRIMMED TO 147MM

angelo_pb · RADIKAL TALONS - TRIMMED TO 147MM

Just wanted to experiment a little. Somebody local had a set of the trimmed Talons in black with sphericals. I secured the baseplates w/sphericals from Keith Hollien of Radikal. Nice guy. He managed to get those out to me before going to TX to compete this weekend.

I have nothing now but mere intial impressions. Keep in mind I was running the Bennett 6.0/Seismic 155 rear so 147mm is actually a little narrower for me. I am running it with 1/4" axles. So this is the narrowest way to run them.

Setup:
Front: 45* baseplate with 10* wedging.
medium-hard bushing on bottom of unknown origin. Khiro soft white on top. This is a little too soft for my 190lbs. Gonna swap the white for an orange (79a).

Rear 35* baseplate with 7* dewedge(soft angled riser)Rad 90a risers top and bottom. I am gonna switch today to the black 95a on bottom.

I did not follow Keith's advice to run w/o wedging at first, adjust via bushings, then wedging.

Good: It's a soulful, surfy feel . And it's fast. Not at all binary and mechanical. Not too much play- seems like a much narrower truck.
You don't need much, if any riser. I am running 75mm. I get all the rise from the wedging. I could go to larger wheels as it currently is.
I have never ridden precision trucks but its quite a different feel in a good way. So it would be unfair to call them glorified randals. They certainly don't feel like randals. But if you just look at them, its tempting.

Bad: you pay a huge WB penalty running reverse KP style trucks. I had to drill new holes to mount the front trucks so that the axle would line up with where the Bennett's was. I did nothing to comp for this in the rear. the current WB is 31.5". But since this board is already Team Viagra, I really did not want to shorten it. You also pay a weight penalty, as the Bennett is much lighter. These trucks on the other hand, are designed to be indestructable, according to Keith. So they are not fragile boutique trucks. Good to know.

Ugly: I had to drill new holes. the trucks are aligned well on the board. But I felt dirty drilling my board. I am not the "drill-baby-drill" type.

I'm gonna spend some quality time over the weekend with this set up and some tweaks here and there.

LDPanda

Wow, darn sexy, if a little on the pricey end for me.

Heres my issue with sphericals in general: its one more thing to go wrong. When im out for a 40 mile ride, the last thing i want to worry about is a bearing freezing up on me, especially one that is difficult to replace and nearly impossible to order (like a spherical). At least with my builtins i can carry around an extra set and pop em in if i have a problem. Also, from what ive seen, having a spherical in the hangar makes changing bushings a giant pain in the ass. I change bushings alllll the time trying to find that perfect setup and this would become really frustrating.

Anyway, yours look great and i hope they work out, but i dont think precision hardware is for me, i like mine a little rougher.

blake

are you bringing it sunday i wanna try it out along with the virages a little more.

angelo_pb

You can at least change the top bushings with no prob. But i hear you. I really know little about them. The nice thing about limited production stuff is its easy to sell if you don't like it. I sold a vanguard this week so that gave me some of the money to buy these. It's pricey, but longboarding is still one of the more inexpensive hobbies. My guess is that these trucks will have a long lifespan.

I think you can get the spehricals all day long but i hear they are not easy to remove. I would probably just send back to Keith for service if that were to happen. At least he is somewhat local for me. At first, I didn't like the Bennett. But its cheap, light weight and it works very well. It just grows on you. But it doesn't stop me from wanting to experiment.

I think its a good thing that the LDP does not require boutique stuff to get performance. In fact, its a great thing.

LDPanda

? blake ? hes not local to us, so i doubt he's coming to our lil sesh on sunday. Plus its the texas sizzler, so im pretty sure we wont be seeing these talons in person for a while Wink

I will, however, try to remember the trucks i borrowed from you for the mistress, theyre sitting in my backpack so it shouldnt be too hard.

blake

yeah i know i dave i just know that jp has a set and i forgot to look at the name haha

angelo_pb

you guys can come here, to Tampa Bay. We will hit the Pinellas Trail, a wide paved "rail-to=trail" that meanders through urban and suburban scenery with fun overpass bridges. Then off to the beach to check out the scantly clad betties and drink some beer. (its spring break now.).

Ian the Groove Worshipper

I can't get these Talons out of my mind since giving them a whirl last Friday. They are awesome. They definitely don't dive much, for those of you who love the dive - I do too, but appreciated the unique feel of these trucks. And because they don't dive, you can really dig deep without fear of wheelbite.

The sphericals really change the feel at the deepest edges of turning. Rather sharply giving out and diving to wheelbite/hanger hitting KP, they really hold a rail when you put all your weight into a hard turn. I can't help but to think now that all my trucks would be better with a spherical.

The spherical gives is a whole different feel. It's the precision feel, which is similar to a Seismic. I can see how it might feel kind of sterile to some. Yet it makes it feel like every bit of energy you put into the board gets transmitted into forward propulsion. There is no slop, no waste.

The only worry is how well the spherical will hold up over the miles, with all the dirt and grime that would inevitably get worked into it, and all the force it would sustain from my 200lbs and hard pumps. Do sphericals hold up?

I've thought about doing the epoxy mod to one of my trucks, but I just don't see that holding up.

I want some spherical trucks now.

angelo_pb

Still going strong. No clicking sounds yet from the sphericals. I doubt I have even logged over 40 miles yet. But its in the ball park. I am used to the feel. Starting to do sprinting-wiggle pumps. I still feel like she is riding unnecessarily high. But until they (re)make baseplates in different angles, I am going to keep as is. I timed a mile on a meandering course and several pedestrians and their doggies. 4:51. This means others should be pulling a low-4s cyber mile. I am not that fast. I am also not really missing the fear of wheel bite at all. I kind of feel more confident that I can, and do, dig in more. What ever "soul" is lost from this kind of setup is a fair trade to me.

The paint or powdercoat gets "sandblasted" from ordinary riding. It looks as if I started to grind the trucks. I just used a flat black enamel touch up pen. Looking at the pics, it looks like my rear is riding too low relative to the front. The other pic somewhat exaggerates the height. It's actually lower than my previous Bennett 6.0 was.