- Hey friends, it's Steve here with Surfskate Love,
here to show you how to adjust your Slide surfskate truck.
And while we're at it,
we're also gonna cover the Flow truck.
As you know, I don't recommend the Flow,
but it's the same general design as the Slide.
In fact, the Flow is version one of the Slide,
and now what's on Slide surfskates is version three.
Okay. So let me walk you through this.
The first thing I want to point out is I've got a Slide here
with a Carver C7, and you'll notice that the Carver C7,
we just covered this the other day, is a dual axis system,
meaning you can adjust both the spring in the lateral arm
as well as the kingpin nut, which gives you more lean
in the truck itself.
On a Slide truck you do not have a kingpin bolt,
which means that you don't get that same lean
on the truck as you do on other surfskate trucks.
Now that can be an advantage or a disadvantage,
depending on what you're looking for.
Because what that means is
if you look at it this again up close,
it means that the Slide truck is the lowest
to the ground of all of the surfskate trucks.
So you can see kind of the difference there.
It's not a huge difference,
but what this means is I've heard some guys,
if you have a skateboarding background and you can do things
like Ollies and kickflips,
I've heard people talk about the Slide
as a great surfskate truck for that,
precisely because it's the lowest to the ground.
So like I say, advantages and disadvantages
to not having that kingpin bolt adjustment
on there with those bushings.
Okay. So as far as adjusting the Slide,
it's very, very simple.
It's the exact same as we have on the Carver C7.
You have a nut right here
that basically just loosens and tightens, that's it.
So right now we have it on the loosest it'll go,
you'll see that I've got that nut flush with the bolt there.
We can go all the way tight here.
It's just, you know, same thing.
Clockwise tightens it up.
Counter-clockwise loosens it. That's it.
Now, one thing to notice
about the Slide is unlike the Carver C7,
where I can tighten that all the way down,
and tightened all the way down,
I still can pump and carve that thing very well.
I can surfskate on it.
Now, when it comes to the Slide,
let me just show you what happens
when I tighten this up all the way.
Okay. So we've got that tightened all the way,
and what you're gonna notice is this is very tight.
It's so tight to the point where when you ride it,
it's almost like basically having a carvey longboard truck.
And like I say, I'll show you that outside.
So when it comes to the Slide,
my personal preference because I like a looser truck,
and I'm used to riding like a YOW Meraki
that has a much wider range of motion than this Slide.
I basically just loosen the Slide up as much as it'll go,
because personally I find that anything less than that
just tightens it too much,
and I just don't get the range of motion out of it
that I want.
So let me just show you this underneath, what's happening.
Here is a Slide truck underneath.
So you can see how you've got this nut and bolt
which then attaches to these metal pieces in here,
and those have then hooks coming around
and grabbing the spring on alternate sides.
So basically when you're tightening this,
it's just pulling that spring together
and making that tighter.
So you can see this one too.
I've got this as tight as it'll go.
And that's essentially like a longboard truck with bushings.
And then you can watch this visually as I loosen it up,
that spring is just going to loosen up.
And now you can see, see, I even, that's not flush anymore.
So that's even a little bit too much.
I think kind of as a rule of thumb,
I don't think you want those nuts
to be going past that flush point.
So about right there.
That's about the loosest I can get the Slide.
And so honestly, I really don't even adjust the Slide,
other than to make sure that this nut hasn't moved,
I just keep it on the loosest setting.
And that's gonna give you the most play in that spring.
Now let me real quickly while we're here,
show you this Flow.
So really all they did with the Flow,
if you look at these two,
you can see how the original Slide One
that's on the Flow is a lot lower,
and this Slide when it's the same general design,
but the Slide one is much bigger,
because what they did was
when you look under here, first of all,
the Flow is a different spring.
You can see that right there, versus this.
But you can see on the Flow,
you can see how this adjustment arm there,
the arm that the spring attaches to,
when I move this truck,
you see these metal pieces right here,
where your screws go into.
You see how that's hitting?
Just like so.
This right there is that hard stop I talk about on the Flow,
and it's why it doesn't work very well.
You don't have much of a range of motion.
What they did on the Slide was they made it taller,
which makes that arm under there go
underneath those metal pieces.
So now it's the same design,
but it can move freely in there without hitting that stock.
Now, when it comes to adjusting the Flow,
it's the exact same thing.
It's right here.
And one thing you're gonna notice on the Flow is
if I go too loose on this, it creates an effect similar
to that Carver C7 that we saw the other day,
where it essentially disengages that spring,
and now we've got all of this play in here.
Although it kind of doesn't matter
because no matter how much play you have,
when you hit that stop,
that's all the motion that you have on that truck anyway.
But when it comes to the Flow, you gotta just make sure
that this is gonna be tightened up enough
to actually engage that spring,
otherwise it does you no good.
So now we're actually engaging that spring,
for all the good it does us,
because that's the range of motion that we got.
But the exact same adjustment process
on the Flow versus the Slide.
Now, another thing I want to show you and warn you about,
which I've learned the hard way,
is you do not want to over-tighten these slide trucks,
and I'll show you why.
So when you look at this up close,
I've taken this one apart.
This is one that I've learned the hard way on.
You'll see that that spring is gonna sit in there like that.
And this thing is right here is what adjusts that.
Let me just show you what happens
when you over-tighten your Slide spring.
So you can see how this connects to this piece right here,
and then this attaches to that tightening arm.
So when we're tightening this,
essentially what we're doing is,
these hooks are just pulling that spring together,
and look what I did to that hook right there.
I broke that spring by over-tightening it.
So I do not want you over-tightening your Slide springs.
And as I've said, I think you want
to keep your slide truck pretty much
as loose as possible anyway.
Now another thing I want to show you
about what happens when you over-tighten this Slide,
is you'll see this bolt coming out has two flat sides there
and there,
and that's because it's fitting into this rectangular piece,
and that is supposed to sit in there and not turn
at all when you tighten it.
But if you over-tighten it, like I did,
what's gonna happen is,
this actually wore out the metal to where this can now turn.
So do you see that in there,
how that metal kinda broke free there,
and so now you can actually turn that,
and so that's another reason why it won't tighten.
So again, the same point is if you over-tighten this Slide,
you're gonna strip out that metal thing there,
and this is gonna start turning,
which means it's not even gonna affect the spring,
or you might even break that spring like I did.
Okay. So here we are outside.
We're gonna see how adjusting the Slide affects the ride.
So you can see that I've got this pretty much
as tight as it'll go,
and we're making sure to not over-tighten
so that we don't break that spring.
And let's see how this rides tight.
As I said, it's essentially a carvey longboard.
It really makes it so it's not much of a surfskate at all.
Very limited range of motion.
I can, as you can see, yes, it pumps,
but I don't know if you can also see,
but my front wheels, when I pump are coming off the ground,
because it's so tight,
it's catching instead of leaning and turning.
Okay. So the bottom line is, in my opinion,
I don't think that you want to ride the Slide tight.
I think that you want to ride it as loose as possible.
So let's go ahead and loosen this up
and see the difference that it makes.
All right. So there we have it.
We've got that nut just about flush with that bolt.
That's as loose as we're gonna get that.
Let's try this out.
And now we're in business. Now we got a surfskate truck.
It's a world of difference.
It's a really big difference on the Slide.
So honestly, really,
what this kind of means is it's like, yeah,
the slide is adjustable,
but I don't really use the adjustments anyway,
because I just want it as loose as it'll go.
Now, I think where this is the most relevant is
if you're a beginner,
and you want something really stable to start out with,
and that's where the Slide is a really great option,
because not only is it automatically,
even as loose as it goes,
one of the most stable trucks out there,
especially when you tighten it, as you've seen,
it really will just kind of make it more
of a carvey longboard, which is great to start out with,
'cause it makes you very, very stable.
And that's how to adjust your Slide surfskate truck.