9 Best Longboarding Trucks [2022 Reviews]

Shopping around for the best longboarding trucks can seem overwhelming. We’ve narrowed our list down to the 9 best available. As we’ve stated in our longboarding trucks guide, the main takeaway when shopping is to stay away from cheap Chinese trucks, there are a lot of knock-offs out there from shady online retailers. Stick to the well-known retailers or major online retailers.

Trucks are a crucial element of a longboard setup. Below we’ll examine our top picks, and follow that up with helpful information. We’ll teach you how to find the right longboard trucks for what you need.

Best longboard trucks

[1] Paris V3 180mm 50° Longboard Trucks

Paris V3s could take the cake for best longboarding trucks that we have tested. For full pros and cons, don’t forget to check out our full review of the Paris V3 longboarding trucks. Paris is known for their very divey turn. It’s very common to see them on setups meant for dancing or freestyle.

We’ve covered these back when the V2 was the latest and greatest, and now the V3s are even better. What’s the difference between the Paris V2s and the newer V3s? The V3 trucks are made using Paris’ new, proprietary alloy-forming process, which gives the trucks a molecular structure that provides strength far beyond any other cast longboard truck on the market. The trucks also receive a T6 heat treatment for added durability.

Paris have rake, that combined with a very open bushing seat gives them a very unrestricted turn. They have standard sized pivots, like Randals. Paris are not the best option for faster riding; since the roadside bushing seat has a lot of play there’s some slop in them. 

[2] Caliber II

The most widely used longboard truck for freeride longboarding and downhill. Unraked and with a more restricted bushing seat than Randals or Paris. The turn on Calibers is gradual and extremely predictable. V2 calibers also accommodate stepped bushings better, so there’s more room to tune in your longboard trucks.
Choose from a 50° or 44° baseplate as well as several hanger width options.

Pros: Perfect for Freeride/Downhill, also a great color selection.

Cons: Some claim the included bushings are too soft.

[3] BEAR Gen 6

A reader pointed out that it was a “spectacular lack of judgement” to leave out the BEAR longboarding trucks from out list. Sonny, you were right! BEAR says that the Gen 6’s have been revamped and redesigned to focus on strength, versatility and weight reduction which makes them a no-brainer for our top list. This 6th generation design has been much improved and is absolutely worth checking out.

[4] Sabre

Good looking, light weight and strong. The pivot is thinner so the pivot cup is thicker. Raked but has a very restrictive bushing seat. The new models also come with urethane pivot cups.
Choose from a 190mm or 180mm hanger options. It’s fully compatible with its precision counterpart.

[5] Gullwing Reverse

Light weight and versatile. The hangers are very good for grinding surprisingly – try them out on a flat bar.. Reverses are raked and the bushing seat is very shallow, the turn feels divey and unrestricted.

[6] Newton

The lowest reverse kingpin trucks on the market, it’s even lower than independent trucks. A very light and strong longboard truck, but hard to tune in right. Recommended for LDP.

[7] Atlas

As sturdy as they are heavy. Atlas longboard trucks come with a massive ball pivot to allow for a divier turn. They have a rake and the bushing seat isn’t too restrictive.
Choose from a 48° or 40° baseplate as well as light weight options.

[8] Gullwing Charger II

Another very well done truck from Gullwing, strong and very able to handle speed. They do not have rake and have a restrictive bushing seat, the pivot is standard size.

[9] Cast Arsenal

Beauty in simplicity. Cast arsenals are unraked and have a standard sized pivot, they take tall bushings so they have more turn than most trucks.
Choose from a 50° or 44° baseplate as well as a 180mm and 165mm hanger width option.

Above is what we consider to be the best longboarding trucks available online currently. Let us know what you think, and if you’ve had any experience with them. Just remember that you typically get what you pay for, so avoid cheap knockoff trucks and try out one of the trucks in our list above.


FAQ

Do trucks matter on a longboard?

Of course! A longboard is a board, wheels and trucks. We could say trucks are a third of your longboard.

There’s some highly trusted brands to look into when buying trucks. In this article we’ll take a look at reverse kingpin trucks which are appropriate for the usual longer wheelbases on longboards. If you think the distance between your trucks is too short, use the three shakas rule:

If your wheelbase is shorter than three shakas, use traditional kingpin trucks.

Standard Kingpin Trucks vs Reverse Kingpin Trucks

TKP
noun
1. Traditional kingpin geometry in a longboard truck. On RKP trucks (reverse kingpin trucks), both bushings are behind the hanger – if you look at it from the back you will see both bushing one on top of the other. Looks like an Independent.

If your wheelbase is longer than three shakas, use reverse kingpin trucks. If it’s just three shakas, your choice.

By the way, this is a shaka.

shaka

Since trucks completely define how the turn will be, it’s good to know what to expect from them.

What difference do longboard trucks make?

Trucks may look pretty similar, maybe a few cosmetic differences to the naked eye, but there’s a few things that make them all different when riding them.

The easiest thing to notice on a truck is if it has rake, a raked truck doesn’t have a gradual turn, but instead has a defined center point and turn becomes sharper as you lean – this is often referred to as the longboard trucks being divey or lively. Unraked trucks are the complete opposite; the center point is not as defined and the turn is gradual, it doesn’t become any sharper as you lean.

longboarding truck rake

A main concern with longboard trucks is slop. A very early solution to slop was adding restraints on the hanger around the bushings to keep it from moving around, these restraints are what’s called the bushing seat. Depending on how deep or shallow the bushing seat is, the turn is going to feel more or less restricted.

longboarding truck pivot

Sabre cast truck pivot and bushing seat.

bushingseat longboarding truck part

The pivot is where road vibrations meet the board. To absorb some of those vibrations theres a pivot cup made of delrin or sometimes urethane. How much urethane there is between the pivot and the baseplate is going to translate directly to how much vibration the board is going to get. The pivot itself and also be thicker or thinner, thinner pivots are preferred for going at high speeds.

With all that in mind we’ve developed a complete list of the best longboarding trucks above. Some brands are more well-known than others, but they’re all quality. It couldn’t hurt to try something new either if you’re used to the big three brands.

What longboarding trucks should I avoid?

The market is very saturated, there’s plenty of great products to choose from but also terrible ones to skip over. Anytime you ride your board you are risking injury should anything fail, getting cheap gear with subpar performance, apart from stunting progress, can be dangerous.

Stay away from cheap Chinese off-brand trucks or clones.
Run a google search of the product before buying it: as a good rule of thumb if you can’t find anything good on silverfish, it’s probably bad.
The most common truck clone there is are Randal clones. It’s easy to tell them apart from the legitimate ones, just look at the baseplate.

randal longboarding truck brand

Randal trucks have a hole in the baseplate to poke the pivot cup out, the clones lack that.

Dialing in longboard trucks

Once you have your longboard trucks you’ll want to dial them in to fit your style of riding; stock bushings or pivots might not be the best, or perhaps the turn doesn’t feel quite how you want it to. Read our follow up on how to dial in longboard trucks to find out more.

Longboarding Guide
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