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A California-based company has a new kind of wheel for skateboards that delivers a novel shape and claims a special ride experience. This is the Shark Wheel, not circular, not square, but something more interesting. The wheels appear as square when in motion from a side view but the wheel geometry is more than that. The wheels feel circular to the rider, and viewing them along with more details may help to clear the mystique. The wheels are made of three strips each; these create a helical shape when they roll, and they form a sine wave pattern. When the wheels make contact with the ground, good things happen, say the team behind the wheels - the user gets speed, better grip, and a smoother ride.
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Shark Wheel to Reinvent Skateboarding Experience
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(Score: 3, Informative) by rancid on Friday May 23 2014, @05:45PM
I skated for many years and experimented quite a bit with different wheel widths, diameters, and durometers. It can make a huge difference. Ride with tiny hard wheels on bumpy pavement and you will be miserable, switch to some big wide soft wheels and then ride on that bumpy pavement and it will be a totally different, better, experience.
Skaters hate rocks. When a hard skateboard wheel hits a hard rock it has a tendency to get caught and stop sending the rider flying. My initial reaction to these shark wheels was this design seems like it would help negate that by giving the rock someplace to go, in the groves or deflect away from the wheel completely.
It's been several years since I've ridden, but I'm tempted to get a set of these wheels and dust off my longboard.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 23 2014, @05:56PM
Truer words, my friend, truer words. Back when I skated pads were something your girlfriends* wore every fourth week or so. Even tiny rocks meant you got to go stumbling (extremely lucky) or leave some face, palms, elbows, and knees on the pavement.
* Yes, girlfriends. Computers weren't much of a thing then, so my nerd-dom hadn't yet begun.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 23 2014, @06:22PM
My father skateboarded in the 1960s, on rocks - literally hard clay wheels. In the 1980s I rode one of his old boards - those clay wheels are much faster than the soft poly wheels that were popular at that time.
Any "hard data" testing of skateboard wheels is mostly pointless - you can make a wheel with more lateral grip, or faster downhill speed, or any of those easily measured metrics, but it will always miss the subjective balance: does it deform on turns and slow you down? Do you want that? Answers depend on the rider, not a table of numbers.
And, if the rider thinks that wavy wheels are cool, and they don't suck too bad while riding, then that's all it takes to sell them.
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(Score: 2) by hubie on Friday May 23 2014, @06:35PM
I skateboarded and roller skated in the 70's on clay, stainless, and rubber wheels. Then in the 90's when skateboarding got popular again, the rage seemed to be little, tiny wheels. I never understood why anyone wanted wheels that small because my first thought was hitting a pebble, but I wasn't skating anymore to know how they felt (the skateboards also got MUCH bigger than the ones I used to ride).