A cool detailed breakdown by German Freestyler Christian Heise of his Skull Skates freestyle model complete. For the full effect, Imagine a strong German accent while reading:
"I want to introduce my board for you out there, its my Freestyle Model from Skull Skates. This is a mid size double kick freestyle deck. 7.5 inch width and 29 inch long with a 13 inch wheelbase. It comes in a contemporary concave and not too high nose and tail kick. The fact it's a bigger freestyle board makes it easier for me to switch sometimes to my street/ramp set up and skate everything. For me it also feels like it rolls cleaner, stands more stable and Ollie tricks are possible. The shape is developed by me, the square tail is not too long and useful for all truck and pogo tricks. The nose is more round to flip better and higher for railflips, but with a small square place on the peak, because I also do a lot of no hand truck tricks and pogos on the nose. The Board shown in the picture I've skated now for 2 months almost every day, the deck is still very stiff and it feels new like in the first week. Skull Skates really did a great job with their excellent wood. Made in Canada! The graphic shows me mixed with a feline skull, all my decks shown in the past, a cat. I like the light elegant style of cats, their strong liberty mind and it is also a homage to my cat Smokie who lives with me since almost 15 years. The gloomy Berlin artist Razoreater has made this graphic for me. To protect the Deck and have a better hold at fingerflips and caspers i use skull skates freestyle tail and nose skidplates. They are 10 mm high, comes with the right mounting hardware and are very long lasting! A strips of griptape under the nose and tail helps for more grip for all your casper tricks; I love casper tricks and use clear griptape as not to hide the graphic. I skate with 4.5 inch Polster trucks with hard riser pads that helps to stand more solid in a rail position and give you some more stand place for your foot at pogo tricks. Suitable are almost all 4.5 inch trucks on the market. Hard bushings are also very helpful, so that the board reacts quickly and easily tilts into the rail position. Together with the Momentum x Skull Skates Kevin Harris Freestyle wheels gives it the right board to stand solid in the rail position. With some washers behind the wheels you can fix it perfect in width. The wheels are 99A hard and 55mm big. The generous offset covers and protect the axle nuts from your trucks at all your rail tricks. I like harder freestyle wheels, they are faster and great for my one wheel wheelies. Also the size is great; thick chunky wheels would make the board unnecessarily heavy weight. Good speed and control I have with the momentum bearings I use, always use spacers to enjoy longer bearing use. I hope you have a small insight into my set up and have a few tips given here for your own freestyle set up. Have fun skating.
- Christian Heise"
The Christian Heise freestyle model deck is available for mailorder from Skull Skates HERE.
