The mother of all downhill races
That feeling when you wake up in the morning and go “I’m going skating”
Then remember you live in Australia and it’s been raining everyday for the past 2 weeks.
Review: Orangatang Durians
Durometer: 86a (yellow)
Diameter: 75mm
Contact Patch: 45mm
The gist of it: Decent slide wheels but not the greatest. Grip when necessary, slip when wanted.
The rest of it: The Durians are an interesting, but solid, offering from Orangatang in the department of slide wheels. I rode the 86a’s which are the hardest Otang offer in any of their wheels. They’re intended for sliding and freeriding and they’re definitely up to the task. They come with standard slide/freeride features: rounded lips (both inner and outer) and a stone-ground finish which is nice because it removes the ‘break in’ period of regular wheels. They aren’t particularly fast and the acceleration isn’t fantastic but neither is a real problem.
Their big problem comes, I believe, from the interesting feature I alluded to before. The wheels are made of the Happy Eurethane that Otang uses for their other wheels including the InHeats and 4Pres. This formula is a particularly grippy one, which is fine given that it was intended to be a freestyle/carving wheel with a lot of grip, the problem is that the Durians aren’t a carving wheel and they don’t need a lot of grip. Consequently the wheels get A LOT of chatter, much more so than you would expect. The wheels slide perfectly well thanks to the rounded lips, stone-ground finish and (in my case) the harder duro but the chatter is excessive. Up to you whether you want to deal with it but I’d shop around for another wheel first.
The wrapup: Durians are great sliding wheels if ‘ability to slide’ is your only consideration. However they chatter loudly, aren’t especially fast and are not particularly cheap.
Getting close at the Maryland DH race.
