I’ve been intrigued by the grind king trucks for a little while now. After returning to skateboarding with a friend in our 30’s, my friend was rocking his 20y old grind king trucks. This had me curious about their performance. As a result, I found myself buying some grind king disruptors in black, sized 5.5 for my 8.25 deck. Lets see how I got on with these.
Grindking Disruptor Trucks Overview
The disruptor trucks are created by Grind King https://shop.grindking.com/, and they have been around for 30+ years. The big thing about Grind King is that they invented the inverted kingpin to assist with grinding, so with this in mind I really wanted to test them out.
Now the thing that stands out is the kingpin, it’s low. Nothing like what I’ve dealt with in the past. I think this is quite cool, but it needs to be tested to see if there is an impact to my grinding.
I also like the colour, because I was looking for something different to the basic metal colour you get on standard trucks, but I didnt want to go to something radical like red etc. Therefore finding a pair of GrindKings in black was a nice idea.
Worth also highlighting here was that I purchased these from https://www.skatewarehouse.co.uk/ and the packaging was terrible. I also purchased a pair of Rampage Pink trucks for my daughter and they had great packaging. I am not sure if this was a result of SkateWarehouse or Grind King. Either way it was highly disappointing that trucks worth 50GBP has worse packaging than trucks worth 15GBP.
Grindking Disruptor Trucks Turning and Manoeuvrability:
The trucks come with some bright orange bushings, which I’m not sure of the strength. I’m used to having hard bushings, so at the moment whilst I work these in, they feel very soft. The softness could be beneficial for those that ride bowls or transition, but for my street skating and flip tricks, I think they’re way to soft. I’ll bed them in, slowly tightening them and see how I get on. If no improvement is seen, then I’ll replace the bushings with something harder.
Update: I’ve been riding these for a few weeks now, I’ve got them tightened to my preference and I’m now starting to like the feel. I have my flips down, I can carve quite nicely and I can tiktak very easily. The kick turns on the banks and quarters also feel quite natural again at this point.
Grindking Disruptor Trucks Grinding Performance:
I’ve had a little play with the Disruptors now, and I can say that they feel much better on the grinding than the default Element trucks I had previously. This is a blessing and a curse. Firstly on my 50/50s’ its great I slide so easily and it’s like butter, but when I go for a crooked grind, I slide straight out, this makes me wonder if my old king pin was helping with stability in some way. Fingers crossed I can get past this with some practice. Overall, do they grind, yes definitely and possibly too well.
Grindking Disruptor Trucks Material Quality:
Huge pain point at this part of my review. I’m UK based and these things need a 1/2 size Allen key. Standard Allen key sets dont include a 5.5mm Allen key. This is needed for the trucks. Normal skate tools also dont include this. You have been warned. I took my trucks to a the park and put them on when I arrived only to realise I had no means to tighten them.
Message for #Grindking include a 5.5mm key in future with your trucks, it costs you nothing hardly and I’d pay an extra dollar/pound for this. I had to source an Allen key on eBay and wait for it to be shipped (This is a huge off put and I almost swapped my trucks back over). My friends trucks that are 20 years old even use a 5.5mm key. Feels like you exclude it to increase sales of your own tools (this is a cheap sales tactic if this is whats happening).
After a few weeks of riding these, they look to be quite strong and honestly they’re holding up well. They only appear to be really scratched where the trucks have collided with a material (e.g. grinding).
Grindking Disruptor Trucks Weight
Weight of trucks appears to be a big thing for some people, and as a result, some will buy hollow trucks or titanium etc. Now the disruptor trucks I believe are made of Aluminium and to be fair feel the same weight as the elements I was using before.
Conclusion
I wanted to provide a quick summary of the Disruptor trucks by GrindKing and say, they grind very well. They’re a standard weight, but have a huge pain point, which is the tools needed to assemble and adjust the trucks. In the USA this likely isnt a problem, but in the UK the key size is hard to find. Good luck everyone, and grind like you never have before on these things.
Note: My current setup is:
Deck: Disconnect Water Element Deck
Wheels: OJ Elite Dressen
Bearings: Bones Reds Big Balls
Trucks: Grindking Disruptors
