Is The Santa Cruz Longboards Brand Really Good?

There aren’t many brands that can hope to match what Santa Cruz has achieved in its several decades of existence. They are arguably one of the most iconic brands with the trendiest line-ups of longboard products.

The artworks on their decks have always been exquisite and attractive.

The best part is that Santa Cruz Longboards never sits on the laurels, they are always progressing.

Currently, they have exclusive rights to Marvel and Star Wars characters and content on their longboard. Here is example:

Santa Cruz Skateboards Marvel Iron Man Hand Mid Complete Skateboard

Santa Cruz Skateboards Marvel Iron Man Hand Mid Complete Skateboard

The screaming hand has one of the strongest brand appeals of all longboard brands. Let’s see what else they have on offer in the longboards.

Specific Features of Santa Cruz Longboards:

  • Great Customer Reviews all around:

One look at the Amazon catalog of Santa Cruz Longboards reveals one thing very evidently: nothing beats Santa Cruz in terms of the encouraging and positive customer feedback.

Be it the built quality, the ride quality or the artwork. Everything is as close to perfection as it can be anywhere else.

  • Santa Cruz Longboard’s best-suited riding styles:

Log on to the website of Santa Cruz Longboards and the first thing you notice is amazing artwork done on their decks. The next thing that you notice is that cruzer (cruisers) are really the thing they are into. Pintails, Drop Through and so many other types of decks are all theirs, but the common theme is cruising.

Santa Cruz Longboards are tailored more to catch the eye than they are to satisfying your niche longboard style fetish. They keep the decks simple in making but more than make-up for it with their artwork on top of the deck.

  • Santa Cruz Longboards in the flesh:

The majority of the Santa Cruz Longboards listed on the amazon page of the brand are listed anywhere between $100 through $150. Now that is certainly not a princely sum to pay for what they are offering, you’d be wrong to expect exquisite bamboo constructed decks and other fancy stuff. The thing is, for beginners, their cruzers just work. As simple as that.

Further, if you observe the philosophy of the brand, they are selling their art and brand collaboration just as much as they are selling decks. As such the focus is on offering unique decks that separate you from the crowd. It is certain fact that these longboards do that job very well indeed. Besides, their latest collection on their own portal reaches close to $200 bucks and some have got better material than others.

However, you don’t buy Santa Cruz Longboards for the deck or the wheels, you buy it for the Simpsons, the Spidey art, Iron Man, and as is the craze right now, for Star Wars artwork. They have a hell lot of that stuff. Go buy some for yourself as well.

  • How good are their decks:

If you go for the top of the line Strip Inlay Cruzer, you are going to get Kevlar in the deck. Now that is something nothing can surpass in strength.

Amongst one of their boards are the Pabst Collaborated pintail boards has in-built bottle opener for when you misplaced yours. Now that is innovation!

With Santa Cruz Longboards, you get what you pay for. Plain Canadian Maple, Bamboo or the seriously strong military grade Kevlar inlaid.

  • How good are the wheels:

The same goes for the wheels of all the cruzers of Santa Cruz Longboards. There are wheels available in all sorts of sizes and shapes that suit different riding styles.

The wheels are all mostly rated 78a on the durometer. However, some are of varying durometers depending on the specific application they are built for. Brands like Road Rider are the norm in the good boards.

As for the wheel sizes, there are wheels of all sizes across the range. Depending on the specifications, they range from 65mm to the 72mm configuration.

  • How good are the trucks:

Santa Cruz Longboards invariably have great longboard trucks. These trucks are almost tailor made for the specific longboards.

For instance, the Santa Cruz Longboard complete stained screaming hand drop through longboard has the Road Rider 180 trucks that make the deck setup able to do all the carving. Santa Cruz PBR Pintail longboard features the B180 Bullet trucks that are blue and white in color, giving it a cool look from top to bottom.

  • The Bushings and Bearings:

The Santa Cruz longboards come configured with suitable Bushing overall to suit the desired performance levels of the longboard concerned. They are long lasting and they can easily be altered in order to achieve the desired level of performance and stability on the board.

The bearings are sometimes only ABEC 3 rated. But that metric isn’t suited to measure longboard bearing performance. Santa Cruz longboards always have long lasting bearings unless you are a very demanding enthusiast. As for shortcomings, you might need to tighten a couple of screws or bolts but that’s about it.

One case where you might need to replace the bearings is the Santa Cruz Mahaka Rasta Cruzer Longboard. However, it is more of the exception than the rule. If you are planning buy a Longboard, i wrote article about best longboards on the market, check it now, it will find out the suitable.

Conclusion

Santa Cruz Longboards are not the most expensive boards in the market. Performance wise, they might not be on par with the likes of Sector 9. However, no board can beat a Santa Cruz longboard for being cool and eye catching. They have a whole bunch of very talented artists that design the deck artwork for use on their longboard. Besides, their partnerships with the likes of Marvel (Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk, etc.), Star Wars, Simpsons and Pabst Breweries gives them a unique advantage that most other completion can only aspire to have. They are very good at what they do and you should definitely give them a try. The screaming hand is hard to deny.

Tom Chandler
 

"When your hands hit the floor, they get cut up. When mine hit the floor, they slide with ease"

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