The New Smokies

[Watts]

Damn... they sure are purdy.

[turtle]

Woah. These look spiffy...

Is the price the same on these?

[Sam]

those are sexy, and sexy board napes

[McGoon]

They are intimidated by his mad board building skills so they gave them to him to "test" in the hopes that they would explode when he hits 80km....  

[Rob]

Saw them last night on Russell Hill - they are beautiful, but I think they machined off way too much material to make these last long-term.

I can see them as "race-day" trucks, but don't think I would trust them for day-to-day riding and normal thrashing.

Just my opinion.

Rob

[Jermanicus]

For what it's worth I agree with Rob.
Sick looking trucks, great for racing, but they honestly don't look like they'd hold up to more hardcore Gnarometric Thrashosophizing.
Curb fodder.

[Chicken]

I have to side with Rob on this one as well. After seeing them last night, they are not what I would solely put on my DH board. There is too much that could go wrong on a system like that with the kinds of forces RACING puts into trucks. I'm sure if you have too much money and want something flashy to cruise around at 60kmph on, they're perfect for you.

[justin]

im pretty sure they thought about that... doesn't seem like they would make a truck that breaks.

but only time will tell

[Joker]

Are you kidding me justin?   People make things that are intended to break all the time, why do you think you get a new cell phone every few years?      These trucks are meant to give people who already have a lot of skill a small weight saving advantage, they arent meant for the average rider, when your racing in a world cup race you need every advantage you can get, thats why they were made.     And i can say with out a doubt if you rode those trucks every day sooner or later they would snap in half.  If you can bend a 10mm jimz doing stand up slides (Paul kent!) you can for sure snap a smokey lite.

[justin]

you can break everything when its not used for its intended purpose

i just think people are stressing way to much on how much they pulled out, its unlikely they will fail if your not doing anything stupid.

[Charlie]

I've never done anything stupid on a skateboard intentionally...

[Chicken]

you can break everything when its not used for its intended purpose

i just think people are stressing way to much on how much they pulled out, its unlikely they will fail if your not doing anything stupid.

If you look at how they did the cutouts, it's definitely for "how much can we remove to make it look good". They fucked themselves on the axle. If you can imagine a  "Y" shape, and the vertical bar is your axle, what do you think will happen when met with a torsional impact. Not only will it bend, but because of the missing material, the angled pieces will also have the possibility of twisting, which would leave you not only without axles, but also without a straight hangar to replace your already broken axles.

This being said, the cutouts is an awesome idea, and has been bounced around a fair bit over the last couple of years. It's nice to see people doing it and experimenting, but I think that this particular model has some redesigns in its future. There are too many "what-ifs" at the moment.

[Charlie]

Napes, what is improved about the pivot points?
I don't see any differences from my disassembled smokies in front of me

[Napes]

take alook at one of the pics i put up, the small spherical bearing used to be firmly attached to the hanger, but now its just slides off for easy dissasembly and replacement. atleast that is the conclusion i came to compareing my old smokies vs these ones. also they have taken some material away from the center where the large bottom bushing goes, is this better? not sure ill post up some more pics later comparing the two.

[Charlie]

lol your bearings just siezed to the pivot
this happens if you don't grease it when you first get them
I don't think there is any difference, there wasn't on any of the lite sets i saw