soft risers vs hard risers

Ian the Groove Worshipper · soft risers vs hard risers

I am curious if someone could explain what the tradeoffs are to using soft shock pad risers versus harder risers. Clearly the shock pads would reduce vibration, but at what expense?

Thanks in advance.

pavedwave

you're basically giving up some of the more technical response -- when you send weight down your body into your foot, through the board, into the truck, to turn the hangar -- that little bit of "squish" you get from the soft riser makes your turn just a little less exact. but we're talking a pretty subtle difference here, in the long run. i'd almost say an analogy would be hard versus soft snowboard boots, but that's too dramatic a difference.

fact is, I've set up quite a number of boards with 2 soft risers in the front and rode them many, many miles, and never really thought it felt significantly less efficient than if it were all hard angled risers. and since the trails I ride can be pretty rough and nasty, it probably helped.

but if you want to really maximize the efficiency of each pump, and have a less "cushy" feel to the ride, try to get some hard risers. the only issue I really have with most angled hard risers is that they're too fat on the narrow end. the only ones I really like are the steep ones in the Khiro wedge kit -- or the really steep ones I made from my kid's building blocks Wink

this is one of the more common prefs of mine, for front truck:

cheers--