Thursday, November 15, 2012

Yo Dog, I Heard You Like to Slide? --Divine City Slashers Review

Oh Hello, I Didn't Notice You There,
   But while I have your attention, let me talk to you about Divine City Slashers. Divine has several wheels in their line-up and my roommate actually reviewed a set of their Street Slayers a while back. Street Slayer and City Slashers are both great wheels but are definitely two different animals. City Slashers are tight, light, slide machines that eat quick, fast, and spinny slides for breakfast.
   Divine City Slashers are great for exactly what their name suggests, tearing your roads a new one. Before I go on and on about the wheels let's get into the technical specifications. City Slashers are 64mm wheels with a 34mm contact path. The bearing seat is not 100% center but it might as well be because it is so close. City Slasher come in 4 different durometers 78a, 82a, 86a, and 94a so they range from very soft to pretty hard and all come in the Slasher urethane formula. I have been rocking the 78a durometer wheels, by the way.
Downhill
Well, I'm sure you can guess by their size that City Slashers might not be the best choice for a downhill wheel. Which is why I will keep this brief, City Slashers are too small to get a really high top speed and they cannot grip a corner if you are trying to make a hard turn at speed. If you are looking for a downhill wheel in the Divine lineup then check the Road Rippers which have nice sharp lips and are a little bigger.
Freeride
City Slashers are really really fun to freeride. I have enjoyed killing it on many different hills with these wheels on all sorts of setups. They do not come pre-broken in like many slide wheels nowadays do but the break in time is very short. It's so short because they are so narrow, with a contact path of only 34mm it really easy to kick these wheels out into a slide and shred the mold release off. It took me all of like 20 minutes to have them completely broken in. Once you have them nice and broken in, right where you want them, they slide like a dream. You can really fly down hills with these wheels, fly down hills sideways that is. City Slashers do not lose speed when you slide mostly due to their small size and narrow contact path. The slide is very smooth and goes for freaking days. The only downside may be that they sometimes don't want to link back up right away, which honestly is a "problem" I'm ok with.
Commuting
I don't generally give many wheels top marks in commuting, but these ones have really performed well on the way to and from work. They are just so freaking light and agile that its hard to not like them. Having such a small diameter allows them to accelerate super quickly which is great in my daily commute because I have to stop at traffic lights and intersections all of the time and can then get back up to speed nice and quickly.
Freestyle
Here is where these wheels were designed to shine and they do it well. City Slashers are very compact and light. If you are into freestyling you will enjoy these wheels. Being so light makes them great for hitting things like ollies or any sort of flip trick. I really like that these wheels are light enough to pop up a curb without a problem which is not only convenient but very fun. That small size and rapid acceleration rate I spoke about earlier is great for freestyle too because if you start to slow down the smallest of pushes can get you back up to speed. Having such a very narrow contact patch additionally makes City Slashers fantastic for flatland slides. You can whip these wheels around and about really really easily.
Bottom Line:
Would I recommend these wheels to a friend? I definitely would! I think these wheels are best suited for hybrid style boards that have fat tails because they are so light they are great at getting airborne. If you are into freeride and want a wheel that can break out into a slide nice and smoothly, or you like to freestyle, or you commute around town pretty often then I would consider a set of City Slashers for your ride.
My Current Favorite Setup:
-Original Arbiter
-DIVINE CITY SLASHERS 64mm 78a
-Surf-Rodz RKP
-Venom SHR Bushings Seafoam
-Daddies Bearings