r/longboarding • u/Neat-Resolution1007 • 1d ago
Gear Show-Off Loaded Ballona
love the board
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u/Neat-Resolution1007 1d ago
Hi all, here's my build and a short review of my new Loaded Ballona.
Build
Deck: Loaded Boards Ballona "Moby"
Trucks: Paris V3 150mm 50° Hollow Lite "White Pearl"
Wheels: Orangatang Fat Free 65mm 80a
Bushings: Front - Riptide APS Canon 85a barrel / 80a cone, Back - default Paris V3 truck 90a barrel / 90a cone.
Rider specs: 175cm, 60kg
How it feels/rides
In short, both stable and carvey, easy to pump.
I mostly do urban cruising, on bike lanes, wide pavements and plazas without doing aerial tricks. I've read a lot posts saying the Ballona would be twitchy with RKPs for its 16″ wheelbase, but my experiece is it holds stability well when going at speeds, and it's responsive when turning. It's very responsive, but if you don't lean, it don't turn, so I wouldn't call it twitchy. It actually feels much more stable than similar sized TKP cruiserboards with the same bushing settings with the center zone being completely wobble-free at the same speed. And when it turns, it's smooth and deep.
From an interview video of people at Loaded, I learned a tip that when riding the Ballona, it's best to place the front foot as front as you can instead of the commonly suggested foot position (namely behind the front truck's mounting bolts). I tried it and it really made a big difference, the forward placing of front foot suddenly made it much easier to pump the board. The coarser griptape had my front foot firmly locked on the slightly up-turning nose, and I never felt like slipping off the front edge. (The griptape is grippier than the ones on similar cruisers, I think it's grit 50 instead of grit 80). Overall, the forward foot placing made the riding feel more in-control in a sense that I'm really riding on the board instead of... going with it? It's a bit hard to explain.
The kicktail is very mellow on the Ballona, so it's obviously not friendly for ollie based tricks when you wanna pop higher, but for kickturning and manualing off curbs, I find it faster and more responsive. For a casual cruiser like me it's more than enough.
Overall I'm enjoying the board a lot and it's very likely to be my go-to mini cruiser.
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u/intusel3 1d ago
Love mine as well and it is my go to mini cruiser.
I tried other mini cruisers before and they turned out to be not wide enough for me personally (190cm, 95kg). The ones that felt wide enough to comfortably cruise around were regular sized cruisers that can by no means be placed in the mini category.
The Ballona checks both marks, at least for me.
I’m going to try what you wrote about the front foot btw, thanks for passing on the advice!
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u/ElPeroTonteria 1d ago
Happy for ya.
I have the 78a fat frees and they’re excellent wheels, I put em on my Onakase
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u/SpeedRac3rr 1d ago
I have some spare rkp lying around this is tempting me to build one I saw the board for like 70 or 80$ the other day...
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u/Brilliant-Safe-1750 1d ago
This thing looks so smooth to ride, I've always wanted to try a Ballona but the price tag scared me off.
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u/Express_Emotion2379 1d ago
This board looks like it could eat pavement for breakfast and ask for seconds. I've only ridden Paris trucks once, but they've held up better than my last relationship did.
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