I got into skateboards because it was a way of getting the kids out of the house during lockdowns.
With the aid of google and advice from a neighbour, we sort of managed to ride around a local cul de sac. As is often the way, the kids moved on to other interests and left me with 3 boards to play with.
I’ve taken to using the Longboard on the right because this one in theory would be the easist to ride, but actually it isn’t, so it became a challenge for me to ride it and ‘fix’ it’s handling problems.
On the advice of the neighbour, I started off by tightening the trucks to make it real stable and prevent any chance of wheel bite (the wheels can catch on the board, causing an ungraceful stop), This meant though, that it made it really hard to get it to go around corners.
It’s taken me a while to work out that tightening the trucks was a bit of a bum steer. The instability problems were caused by me standing too far towards the back of the board.
In the meantime, I went back to google and brought some new bushings, and I’ve experimenting with the tightness of these for some time.
I started off with a hard bush in the back and a medium one in the front, and I’ve methodically easing off the truck tension about a 1/4 of a turn everytime I go for a ride. I got to the point yesterday that the front was so loose that the bushes weren’t doing anything, which caused the board to be wobbly in a straight line. That meant putting softer bushes in the front.
After more experimentation, it all really started to come together when I got the truck tension loosened off to the point where the wheels don’t quite touch the board when I’ve got the board heeled over as much as I can.
The board now has a much better turning circle and now I really enjoy going around corners, rather than struggling with it as I was before.
It’s opened up a whole new way of skateboarding for me.
Uncoffined 
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