Knowledge of Bushing for Electric Skateboard.

Many people who bought a branded e-skateboard will never focus on the bushings until it is worn out. The fact is, bushings play a big role in the truck you can't even turn without the bushing. Various bushings change the riding drastically. Let's get to know the bushings.

What are bushings?

The bushings are the rubber rings that fit around the kingpin on the trucks. Made of polyurethane. It plays a big role to affect trucks' behave and flex, how your board turns and how you feel about it.
The bushing is the cheapest way to change your feelings with the ride, spend somewhere, and It can take a dead feeling board and make it feel like a brand new one.
On each of the 2 tracks of your board, there should be two bushings. One on the kingpin above the hanger on the deck side. The second bushing is at the bottom (roadside), on the kingpin between the hanger and the baseplate. The flexibility of the turn depends on the bushings of the deck side, and you can make the truck more or less responsive by tightening or loosening the bottom bushings.
The bushings impact all aspects of your electric skateboard including the speed wobble, speed stability, flexibility, and responsive ability to turn The big main point is the safety in riding regard.

Bushing shape

First, let’s start with a shape, I will list all the advantages of each shape of bushings.

Cone

If you want your board to be lively and responsive at slow speeds, but less stable at high speeds, a cone bushing is for you.

A cone bushing has a very low durometer (hardness), so it's very turny—there's not much urethane there to resist the movement of the truck as it leans over on a turn. This makes it great for transportation and carving because it offers about the same resistance as you lean the truck over in the turn.

However, they don't provide much stability at high speeds because there's not much urethane in them to keep your wheels from slipping out from under you when you're riding fast or going down steep hills.

Barrel

If you're into free riding, downhill, and aggressive skating, barrel bushings are for you.

Barrel bushings are designed to fill the entire bushing seat, so they offer more resistance as you lean your truck over. This gives you more stability for those more aggressive turns that are so much fun on an electric skateboard board!

You've probably noticed that when you turn hard on a regular bushing, it gets easier to turn further and easier to return to the center. With barrel bushings, it's the opposite—the harder you turn, the harder it becomes to turn further. This makes them great for heavy skaters who want stability and a progressive lean when riding.

Stepped Barrel

The diameter of the stepped barrel shape bushings is usually the same as the ordinary barrel shape. That means the other shape of the bushing is always wider than mentioned 2 bushings (barrel/stepped barrel) in diameter. This bushing is used downhill or any other time you don't want the truck to turn fast. It offers more potential for more stability without having to increase your durometer hardness. Thus giving you more stability.

Bushing hardness

Despite the washer and bushing shape do matter to the truck performance but the key point to getting your truck stability and responsive is the correct hardness of the bushing. The harder your bushing is, the harder your truck will be to lean and turn. The more high hardness of the urethane bushing got, the more massive stability and resistance offers to the truck to handle riding at high speed. The softer your bushing is, the more reactive and turny your truck will be, and the less resistance the bushing has as you crank it over.

Conclusion

We usually choose the bushings according to our weight and main manner of using it, No one will save up for a set of bushing's money if preparing 2 sets of bushings (soft, hard) is more convenient in daily use. So you will taste the meat when you go high speed or leisure cruise.

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