Wheel Review: FiveO Royce Pro 69mm
Words: Jonas van Gucht
Spoiler Alert: I Loved them as much as I Love William Royce. So… A Lot!
Specifications
This round lipped – ever-so-slightly offset… basically centerset – wheel has a contact patch of 40mm and a diameter of 69mm. Which makes it an all around wheel, you need to try out!
First Impression
Coming from squared lips of the snipers, I was in the mindset of easily kicking out the rounded lips of this wheel. Although the slide initiation is easy and smooth, it is harder too kick these wheels out at a lower speed. The slide itself is very special. I’ve been thinking about a correct term for a while, but I would call this feeling: “Gummy”. It has this slick, retracting, gummy feeling which, asks more energy to kick them out and speed gets killed easily too. So first slide was a bit of a surprise, by the rigid feeling of the Royce Pro’s. Although the gummy effect of the wheel, the FiveO “Dump Thane” formula once again proves himself right! I’ve never ever ever seen anything like these white fat thane lines! Mr. Clean isn’t anything against it!
The Thane Continues…
This wheel is built for William Royce's skating style. If you watch his videos, you’ll already have an idea of how this wheel will perform. If you skate the wheel, you’ll get the link between the two! It is literally perfectly made for this man. You want to go fast on gnarly small streets with some good hot pavement and the whole picture will be perfect!
So the initiation is a little bit harder at lower speeds, but feels just perfect at a higher speed. After you kick them out you’ll feel this stable, somewhat Gummy, consistent slide, which kills your speed heavily. The hookup is clean and forgiving, pretty easy and solid to take back the slide and skate on! The bigger supportive core makes the roll speed faster, so you’ll pick-up speed pretty easily. Perfect for your faster freeriding and mellow downhilling.
Thane dumps of the wheel, so it doesn’t last that very long. While going into the innner lip, I noticed the gummy feeling was changed by a more buttery slide. The slides get longer and the thane doesn’t kill the speed that much anymore. I noticed that the wheel gets a bit of a larger contact patch, when they get smaller. So this probably the reason how it keeps the same consistent feeling, while the slide gets more buttery. When the wheel get’s smaller, you can take it everywhere! As you know the feeling already, you’ll be able to try some new slides on it and put more spins in your slides, as the consistency stays, but the gummy feeling is somewhat gone.
To the Core
Once in the inner lip, everything went pretty fast. One big session with huge fat, fierce white thane lines and the beautiful bleu core was shining bright around my axles. It was a short but very intense enjoyment with this set Five-O’s. The core supports the wheel perfectly and adds the speed you want from a faster freeride wheel.
Coring the wheel went pretty easy, you thane till they’re dead. I really loved the blue core with in the middle the clear thane which has a blue shine of the core. Probably one of my favorite cores so far!
Conclusions
To conclude, this fat thaney wheels gives you bright white lines which get you all hyped up after a faster run of skating. In the beginning the wheel is perfect for your gnarly, narrow faster spots. The speed shaves off quickly by the gummy feeling of the thane. To me this would be the perfect raw run wheel, which would spray thane even on the camera lens! When the wheels get smaller, you’ll prefer to take them to your local slide spot and throw some 180’s and 360’s on it.
It’s once more obvious that this wheel is made for the one and only ‘Bill Rice’, who did a great job on giving us a wheel who would do everything and everyone.
Another radical stance from a proven politician. Get gnarly, vote 69!
Skate Safe People!
Snag your set of FiveO Royce Pro 69mm's by visiting BustinBoards.com today and join in on Jonas's fun!