Not a skater here, so I mainly use my board for traveling to work and some easy going joyrides now and then. It’s actually my main form of transportation, very utilitarian.
Now I’d like to upgrade to pneumatics for several reasons:
The noise when going over brick roads is very annoying when in normal traffic, everyone hears you.
I’d like to be able to transport myself (not carve obv.) in light rain.
We have a lot of shallow cobblestone roads here, that would be driveable on pneumatics but neigh impossble on thanes, I accept that real cobblestone is just not gonna happen
I’ve scoured the forums here and think I have a narrowed down list of possible pneumatics:
mini-rant>
The questionmarks are unknowns. It staggers me how much stuff is being sold without clear confirmation of its size. The evolve website has NOTHING about dimensions. How do you guys work with this? To calculate anything I have to combine measurements in both metric and imperial from 3 different websites to get anywhere… Only dickyho has actual measurements and I love him already just for that.
/mini-rant>
Some notes on these tires:
Are both china ebay and china aliexpress from the same guy (@dickyho I presume?)
China has this reputation, I don’t want to go face first at 40km/h because of a bad tire, this makes me hesitant to buy chinese unless you think the quality difference is small?
I live in europe, so sixshooters (or anything american) is likely a no-go due to import tax
Lastly, I don’t want to change anything to my board (my wallet is neigh dead) so the wheels have to fit the default Caliber 2 50 10" trucks that come with the eskating beast. I think it has 35mm wide shafts based on the spotty info I could find.
I do have access to a good 3d printer, but for my sanity I can buy a little more expensive if I don’t have to go out and find myself a lathe, cnc or weights to balance the wheels with. The more plug and play the better. This already rules out Trampa due to axel size.
And how about wheelbite? How do I even measure that?
I’ve seen the names @DragonSwagin and @Maxid pass by here a lot when talking about pneumatics.
What would you choose? Anything I forgot about? Stupid things I said/assumed?
Thanks in advance!
The trucks you have are standard Caliber IIs so there is 25mm of useful axle, most pneumatic wheels have wider hubs. Bergmeisters work on normal trucks but you will need to make a bolt on pulley. I know the China 6x2 wheels are much wider (34mm), but they are very good for the price at low speeds. Six-shooters should also work on those trucks, but be aware they have chunkier tires that are more likely touch the deck, people usually get much wider trucks to run pneumatics
Be aware you’ll need bigger wheel pulleys and belts, and your speed/torque depending on what you get
Edit: I think the Evolve wheels use the wider axles too so probably not those, I could be wrong though
Thanks for the clarification on the truck width. That sucks though, I thought the chinese ones would’ve fit. New trucks probably mean new motor mount as well right? Probably new belt too. I might just go for the bergmeisters as they might save me money compared to the new trucks and tires and motor mount. Do you have any experience with the ride on bergmeisters?
If you want you can buy this, it has new trucks/mounts/belts/pulleys/wheels/bearings. They are $145 plus shipping for the dual mount but you can PM @dickyho and he might take $15 off for a single drive version
I do like this option, but thanks to shipping cost I can get the bergs for the same price and they let me keep my current trucks. So it would be less hassle and even make the switch to and from my current wheels rather simple.
Do you have any idea how to check for wheelbite? If that is an issue I’ll have no choice but to go for the other trucks.
You need to check with a ruler, while turning as hard as you can, I’d loosen the kingpin before doing it
You can also get trucks like these, search for e-caliber and you might find something cheaper. It’ll allow you to use any wheel because it has more axle length
Edit: btw you need to make a pulley, and buy bolts/bearings/belts for it… I’d get extra belts to be safe
Belgian vendor! Perfect, might just go pick it up myself.
Making the pulley and buying the rest should be easy enough. I do have some things lying around already.
An immense thank you for the quick replies, @ZachTetra you’re awesome!
So now I’m in between the Bergmeisters with possible wheelbite, or the extended caliber trucks with the chinese wheels. If the Bergs have wheelbite I can still get the C2’s but then it might get expensive fast.
If you want I can send the .stl for a berg pulley, it’s 60T for 15mm belt with a hollow bore to fit over the hangar (no hangar mods) but it needs a longer motor mount because bigger diameter pulley, it mounts with 50mm M5 screws that I got from a truck mounting hardware set
The minimum center to center mount with that pulley is 60mm, otherwise you’ll need to buy a longer one/design a smaller pulley
Edit: I looked at the site your board came from, assuming 16:38 is actually 325mm belt, the center to center is 93mm at some point which is just plenty for the large pulley. The belt length you would want is 390mm
Edit 2: another mount from them is 67mm center to center so you’ll have to measure your specific one, use this to find the right belt