by Chris |
Last Updated: September 1, 2021 Summer’s here in the UK so I finally decided to upgrade my Boosted Mini S with a set of sweet new wheels. Since roads here suck and I wanted to go BIG, I opted for the new Slick Revolution Foamies. I thought these 120mm beasts should get me pretty much anywhere and they looked awesome. As soon as I saw the Atomic Orange were available I jumped on the site and bought them, along with the convenient Boosted Board wheel pulley kit, some risers and longer screws.
You can find everything on Slick Revolution’s website:
- Boosted wheel pulley conversion kit
- 50 mm bolts and nuts
- 12 mm riser pads (Slick Rev site) – (Amazon) – (Boosted Board’s model on Boosted USA or Fatdaddy)
- Foamies wheels (only Go Green available at time of writing)
I couldn’t find any video showing how to “mod” the Boosted Mini S with both Foamies and riser pads, so I decided to write this step by step guide. Especially if you’ve never done something like this and your board has been untouched it can be tricky and time consuming. Let’s dive in and follow along.
Here’s my order with actual prices (in £). Shipping in the UK was free (I actually live 10 mins drive from the Slick HQ, but hey, social distancing).
Yes, someone could say the whole thing is pretty expensive. But I thought these could come in handy even on another belt-driven board – and I really wanted to just freaking try them.
After a couple of days I received my order:
Here’s what you get again as shown in the picture above:
- 12 mm risers for your trucks
- 50 mm screws and bolts
- Wheel pulley conversion kit (includes some belt covers, but they’re not gonna be used on the Mini)
- Foamies wheels
These things look absolutely amazing and yes, they’re huge. For comparison take a look at how they stack up against Boosted’s 80 mm and Backfire’s 96 mm wheels. You can see why you need risers on the Mini. A ton of people tried putting them on without riser pads and then complained about wheel bite. Go figure.
Just for fun here’s some definitions of “wheelbite” if you have no idea what that is (from Urban Dictionary):
In skateboarding terminology, when one lands too much off to one side causing the wheels to make contact with the deck which in turn makes the board come to a complete stop resulting in the skater to eat shit.
When you buy a shitty skateboard and the Wheel comes in contact with the deck . It results in full stoppage of the board and Newton’s Ist Law makes you eat dirt of the ground.
1. Set up your work table
Make sure you have everything set up and handy. This process will take anywhere between 1 to 3 hours depending on if you’re familiar with it or not.
What you’ll need:
- Your Conversion kit and wheels
- Hex keys: 3 mm to remove the motor/belt cover and trucks + 2.5mm to adjust the motor guide when putting on the belt
- Skate tool: you will need the Boosted skate tool especially for the rear truck because of how thin it is
2. Remove the wheels
Using the skate tool, remove all 4 wheels, front and rear. You should have 1 nut and 2 spacers for each of the front wheels and 1 nut + 1 spacer for each of the rear wheels. Set them aside and don’t lose them!
Removing the wheels will make it easier to remove the trucks. Once you’re done, time to move on to the front truck.
3. Remove the front truck and install the new riser pad
Using the skate tool for the nuts and the 3mm hex key for the screws on the board, remove the from truck. If you’ve never done it on your Boosted Mini, you’ll notice there’s a connector and cable popping out from under the truck. That’s the auxiliary connector for any lights you might want to mount on your trucks. You have one under each truck.
Put on your new, longer 50mm screws and stack one of the two new 12 mm riser pads on the original one. Now you’ll notice a problem. If you’ve purchased the pads from the Slick Rev site, they won’t have the cable slot, which means you’ll have to press them on it. Not ideal. If you can get proper Boosted riser pads, you’d be golden since they have a slot for the cable.
Here’s where you can find them again:
- 12 mm riser pads (Slick Rev site) – (Amazon) – (Boosted Board’s model on Boosted USA or Fatdaddy)
In my case I couldn’t get Boosted’s ones and I had to go the brute force way.
The result was quite good…
Despite a crack right in the middle of the front truck’s new riser. We’ll see if it gives me problems after a few rides. So far so good.
4. Remove the rear truck and install the new riser pad
Now this is a trickier process due to the amount of stuff you have mounted on the rear truck. Start by removing the belt/motor covers using the 3 mm hex key. You should have already removed the wheels so after that, just pull the motor pulley + belt towards you while rotating it to remove the belt from the motor.
You’ll be left with this:
Now use the Boosted’s skate tool to reach the truck nuts one by one and from the other side use the 3 mm hex key to unscrew the truck.
Once the 4 screws and nuts are gone, you’ll be able to lift the truck with everything attached to it. Disconnect the motor cables from their holders to allow you more manoeuvrability before adding the new riser.
You’ll be able to set the truck aside while putting on the new riser pad. As you can see you get the same auxiliary light connector here as well. Either go with Slick universal riser pads (or modify them by cutting a section out of them), or get the Boosted risers if you can.
Here’s how everything looks once you’re done putting it all back together with the new riser pad.
Luckily no cracks this time.
5. Put on the Foamies
Here’s the components sheet you get with your wheels. It shows you the exact order in which you have to put stuff together. The main difference from front to rear is that the from wheels will have one bearing on each side, while the rear wheels will have a bearing on the outside (where the wheel nut is) and none on the inside. That’s because on the rear, the inner bearing will be placed after the pulley as you can see in the instructions below.
In this illustration you’ll notice they recommend 4 spacers (included with the kit) between the inner bearing and the belt. That’s because of the width of the wheels. Make sure you use the right amount, one more and the belt won’t be aligned with the motor.
Your Foamies will come with bearings on each side, so you’ll have to remove the inner ones. Just use a flat screwdriver and pull them out.
Take out the bushings that you’ll find inside of the rear wheels. You won’t need them.
Put on the 4 spacers on each side of the axle as mentioned above.
Next step, put your pulley (without wheels for now) and belt back on. You might need to adjust the tension of the belt, so follow this video:
With your belt and pulley on, put your belt cover back on. Make sure it’s right in contact with the plastic guards.
Now this is important: if you don’t want the inner side of the rear wheels to touch the belt cover, you’ll need to add a spacer between the pulley and wheel (one is barely enough, maybe 2 would work better, but I haven’t tried).
For this I used the spacer that would be between the nut and the wheel. Like this:
This is how much room I’m left with between wheel and belt cover:
Either this or you don’t mount the belt covers which can be dangerous if you start getting rocks or dirt in your belts.
So far after a few rides all good even though I might try adding another spacer. As for the front wheels, just put them back on with the same way they were with the original wheels.
That’s it. Sounds more complex than it actually is, but just if it’s your first time doing it.
Here’s everything you’ll need again:
- Boosted wheel pulley conversion kit
- 50 mm bolts and nuts
- 12 mm riser pads (Slick Rev site) – (Amazon) – (Boosted Board’s model on Boosted USA or Fatdaddy)
- Foamies wheels (only Go Green available at time of writing)
Final thoughts
I’ve used the board with these wheels for a couple of weeks so far, and I can say a few things:
With these wheels you really only want to use speed mode 3 on the Mini (especially the Mini S)
This is because you lose quite some torque and while it’s not as bad as your riding experience goes, it can get pretty dangerous when you have to break. A bigger diameter means faster top speed (I think I got around 20/22 from the original 18mph) so if you can’t break reliably and quickly you’ll be in serious trouble. Speed mode 3 gives you the right balance of torque.
This wheel/board combo is not for beginners
As mentioned because of the weird balance of fast speed and lower break responsiveness, you need to be familiar with riding eskates to use this. You also have to be good with preventing and controlling speed wobble, because it will happen as the board now is also higher from the ground than originally.
Your Boosted Mini is a nimble tank
The added weight of the wheels is surprisingly not that annoying. On the other hand, riding this thing is super fun and comfortable. Especially if you live in a place where roads suck (like the UK). I literally feel like I can ride through anything and I love the added speed. It’d be interesting to know how these wheels feel on the Mini X.
Anyway, I’ll probably write an in depth review of the wheels after more riding. In the mean time here’s some cool pics of the final result.
