- Hey friends, Steve here with
Surfskate Love
and I've just purchased a set of Gullwing Sidewinder trucks.
Now if you look at these up close,
you'll notice that they have
a very interesting double kingpin design.
These kingpins are stacked on top of each other,
both of which have bushings.
And they say that this makes
for very deep and smooth carving.
Now you'll also notice that
like the Hamboards HST200 truck,
it's the exact same truck on the front and on the back.
Whereas a typical surfskate truck
you're gonna have a more stable TKP on the back
with the surfskate truck on the front.
And the question on my mind,
is how well these work for surfskate trucks.
And before we do that,
obviously we have to define
what we mean by a surfskate truck
because there's lots of different stuff out there
in the market that are called surfskate trucks.
And as you know from some of my reviews,
there's many of them that I don't really
consider to be surfskate trucks.
So for me, how I define a surfskate truck
is, it really comes down to two basic functionalities,
and that's pumping and carving.
So I'm gonna install these on my Carver Greenroom
and we're gonna take it out
and see how well these work for pumping and carving
and whether or not we can call them
a technical surfskate truck.
(upbeat music)
Okay, there we go.
We got them installed.
Follow me and let's go give this a shot.
Before I get started on my test ride,
I wanna give you just a little bit more of a visual
of how these trucks work.
So you can see
from the front here
that we've got quite a bit of rail-to-rail lean.
In fact, as I look at this,
I'm a little bit worried about wheel
bite. We may have to put a riser on this.
Then you can see from the side here again,
same exact thing on the front and back
which makes for that very tight turning radius.
It's the same concept on the Hamboards.
You can see how that goes side to side
and you get the tight turning radius
because those are both the same
on the front and the back.
So we'll see how closely these perform.
Good and the first thing I wanna test is
how well this pumps just starting out.
So let's give this a shot.
Just hit some wheelbite there.
So we're absolutely gonna have to put a riser on this.
So I'm noticing the exact same effect
that you do on the Hamboards truck,
where this is very difficult to start pumping.
And it does not...
Oh, there's wheelbite now
I'm gonna have to put a riser on this.
It doesn't respond to up and down compression.
Wait, Oh, here we go.
A little bit.
It doesn't really incentivize a true surfskate pump.
It's more of like,
I have to really work it side to side with my hips
to get this to move.
And like the Hamboards,
It will pump a little bit easier
once I get it up to speed
but this does not pump starting out well at all.
And the pump requires a lot of side to side.
Instead of, you can see it just doesn't really
respond to a full pump.
Okay, I'm not liking this at all so far.
It does pump a little bit and it does carve
but it's not comfortable at all.
It's very what I would call a tippy.
It's the same effect as the Hamboards,
where it's just very like tippy side to side.
Yeah.
It's not comfortable.
Let me ride this a bit
and then we're gonna take this in and put a riser on it.
There's more wheelbite.
(upbeat music)
Here's my wheelbite.
Let's go put a riser on this thing.
(upbeat music)
Okay we've got a one inch riser installed on this thing.
I'm hoping these longer bolts
aren't gonna interfere with anything,
but let's take this out and see how well this performs.
And here we go with test two with one inch risers.
Oh, this is better, but it's hard.
It is better in terms of preventing wheelbite
but it makes, it's almost too divey.
It's very incredibly tippy
and same thing as before.
This is not really pumpable at all.
It's very, very awkward
and not a fun pump at all.
So to answer our first question, does it pump?
Yes, not very well at all.
(upbeat music)
Okay, here's the deal.
I don't even have to ride these anymore.
You can just visually see.
So to answer a question,
do going Sidewinders work for surfskate trucks?
In my opinion no.
We asked if they pump it in their carve
and as you can visually see,
they'll pump but not very well at all.
It's very, very hard to do.
It does not incentivize kind of a up and down compression
and extension that you want out of a surfskate pump.
Instead what you have to do, just like the Hamboards.
It's a lot of like hip side to side
because dual trucks in our pump
almost compete with each other.
It's like they take power away from each other.
And does it carve?
Yes.
Same thing, it carves,
but not very well and not very comfortably.
It's what I would call divey.
So it's just like the Hamboards where
you're standing on the top here balanced.
But as soon as you go this way,
it's gonna go hard and fast
and tip your board almost too much,
to where that's uncomfortable to stand on.
So it curves almost too tightly and not intuitively at all.
It's like a very delicate balance,
you can't really get lean into it and get aggressive.
The one possible use that I could see for these
would be somebody who's coming from
a longboard cruising background.
And you're thinking about getting into surfskating.
And this could be kind of like
a transition truck for you to get used to,
the deeper leaning of a surfskate truck.
But honestly, when you compare how this feels
to any other legitimate surfskate truck on the market,
I wouldn't recommend them for anybody
because you're gonna be way better off
just starting with like a Carver.
They're much easier to pump.
They're easier to carve.
You can get a lot more aggressive with them.
You can pump harder and faster, easier.
That's my take on the Gullwing Sidewinders.
They don't function well for a surfskate truck.
And I really don't recommend them to anybody
is my honest opinion.