Well, maybe it’s more like putting butter under your board. Or butter on each individual wheel or something. Quit being a jerk. You know what I meant.
Point is, these new wheels from Torqueboards are incredibly cushy, have rebound for days, and offer damn nice grip in dry conditions. I first started lusting after these wheels when TB put the pre-order listing up on their site along with their new-at-the-time direct drive motors. Even though the wheels were in lime green and had been ridden a bit, they still looked really promising and called to me like a mermaid to a sailor. Or a hooker to a sailor. Maybe more like crack to a hooker.
Let’s just say there was calling.
I just knew I had to have a set, even if it was only to satisfy my curiosity. You see, I have been primarily using sets of ABEC 97 and 107 Superflys as my daily drivers, and I’m a big fan of both wheels. But I did wonder if they were a bit on the firm side, and word from one of the early testers of these 110s informed the drooling masses that these wheels were indeed wonderfully soft and bouncy.
The Spongebob cutscene goes here.
Soon, they were in my grubby, unmanicured hands. Although I was happy as hell to get them, I was slightly less enthused by reports from others who had already received theirs that they had found issues with the orientation of the Kegel cores.
Here’s what was happening at the time: When the wheels were being made at the factory, the person in charge of making sure the Kegel cores were facing the right way on the mold had found a particularly entertaining cat video and while watching it for the 11th, 37th, and 291st times, put the cores in the wrong orientation on many of the wheel pressings. Because of this, some people got a loose fit on their wheel pulleys and a resulting amount of slop from the mounted wheel.
But the problem was random, meaning you might get four good ones, four bad ones, or a mix and match combo platter. For the looser fit, some shrinkwrap on the pulley splines turned out to be a good hack, but obviously, not ideal.
Let’s play Kegel core roulette.
The first one I tried was firm and brought a smile to my face. One for red. The second was loose and turned that smile upside down. Black and we are tied. The third was also loose and my pendulous man breasts began to sweat and ache as I hit black twice in a row. I promised the gods they could drag my wife shrieking and clawing into the bowels of hell if I could just land on red with this last core. I reached out and placed the 4th and final wheel in place. The nonexistent crowd held their collective breath. To my relief and my spouse’s eternal damnation, an ideal fit.
So with the blem wheels installed on the front where the flipped core doesn’t matter, I was ready to roll.
I ran my usual course that features a mixture of smooth tarmac, average quality curbs and paths, and some stretches of pavement with a foot-friendliness index of stepping on a sharpened Lego. From the first few yards to the very end, the wheels performed like champs. Sections where my ABECS struggled a bit to deliver comfort were handled with a good degree more give and plenty of grip as well.
I’ve since ridden these wheels pretty much exclusively on my main board every day, and I can’t imagine being without them. To me, they’re the level of product that truly elevates your entire board.
Although I haven’t ridden them enough to give a definitive picture of the how they’ll hold up over time, all signs point to these wheels being a really impressive formula after the first 100 miles. I’ll return to this review in a few months to deliver a stronger picture on wear, but I think it will be good news.
But one set of data is in and can be stated without doubt: the ride these wheels offer is the best I’ve ever tried. Much as I like my ABECs, there was no denying that the feel of these TB 110s is quite a bit better and so is the feedback on offer. The difference is not to the point where I would sell off or no longer ride my ABECs, but more than enough to make these magnum rubbers my wheel of choice going forward.
There are a few nitpicks, but small ones at that.
–With the greater diameter of these wheels, you do lose some torque. Not a dealbreaker amount, but you will definitely notice it. But with that comes increased top end, as long as you have the enough motor to get there.
–They are glassy as hell in the wet on surfaces like tile or anything with little grit. Yes, that’s true of any urethane, but it’s pronounced with these wheels.
–The kick on rebound is pretty high. Over blind tiles and such, these wheels will kick out and over more than most at speed. Thankfully, they recover really well and get you settled right away, but it’s a bit startling the first time it happens.
Rating: 90/100
I docked TB a few points for the flipped core thing only because somewhere in the world, someone needs to get slapped with a fish. But that and the other nitpicks aside, these are by far the best 100+ diameter wheels out there, and you owe it to yourself to give them a try.
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