For those of you who haven’t heard of Shark Wheels , you’re in for a shock. These things are truly weird in all regards. What do you expect of a company who claims to have “reinvented the wheel, literally”?
Shark Wheels were kind enough to send us a box of goodies, in which we found the 60mm California Roll wheels in black (thanks!). My first thought was “how on earth are these going to work?”, they’re square. Of course, on closer inspection I saw that they were in fact totally round, but employed a snake-like tread which Shark Wheels claims is based on a cube. You’ll more find information on how these wheels actually work in the video above, we’re here to review these bad boys, not educate you on their geometric physics.
So I unwrapped my brand new California Rolls and, with the help of a handy Shark Wheels skate tool they threw in, I got to work putting them on my deck, a 9″ Witchcraft I’ve been skating at parks and was temporarily to become a cruiser (sorry dear friend). Initially, I noticed how soft they were. Even for cruiser wheels, these seemed pretty bouncy.
I started tearing up and down a street and noticed how quickly and smoothly these 60mm wheels rolled. Something about the zig-zag tread meant that they moved over previously un-skateable terrain with ease; even more so than regular cruiser wheels. I found manually and popping up curbs was really easy, and although I initially feared pebbles and wheel bite, everything seemed okay.
Despite Shark Wheels’ advice, I took my, now cruiser, board down to the park and started using them as regular skate wheels. Obviously the size inhibited the tricks: the weight meant flip tricks were harder, the shape went there was no way of sticking into a crooked grind without being thrown off, and the softness meant powerslides and reverts were a dangerous affair.
I know these weren’t built for this sort of skating, but considering Shark Wheels claim that this shape can be applied to ‘almost any application that uses a wheel’ I thought that regular trick wheels shouldn’t be such a leap. Changing the hardness and weight of the wheels can’t be too hard, so I can see how this would translate to regular 52mm wheels.
However, the shape seems inherently problematic for some skate tricks (crooked grinds, as mentioned) which require locking with the trucks. I found that rolling back into a quarter pipe from a 5-0 or nose-pick was much more complicated than with round wheels. Without changing the trademark shape, I don’t see how these are going to work for trick boards.
Let’s not be negative though, we should open our minds and trust that Shark Wheels may be able to pull this out of the bag. The thing that made me realise it was time to write this review was after one week of skating around Norwich (a historical city with many cobbled roads and uneven paths) on these California Rolls, I hadn’t felt anything but smooth skating the entire time. That’s a plus in anyone’s books. I even managed a 30-minute walk in 15-minutes on board.
In conclusion, they’re weird, and i’ll be totally honest, they’re pretty ugly to look at. But I’d say they did the job pretty damn well, and that’s what really matters. At the end of the day, I’m glad I’ve got a set of Shark Wheels so I can get to and from places without worrying about getting on and off my board every two minutes. It just might mean changing my wheels back to my trusty round ones whenever I roll up to the park, until they bring out their harder, smaller ones. All in all, a pretty good start from Shark Wheels.
You can buy your very own set of California Rolls (60mm) from Shark Wheels website now!
Keep pushing…
