Street Tech Formula
Almost every wheel manufacturer claims to use the latest and greatest technology—new urethanes, invincible graphics, Robotron 3000 helium filled cores—many of which are mere marketing hype. With Street Tech Formula (STF), however, BONES could actually be on to something. Skateboard Trade News sits down with BONES front man George Powell, and finds out.
STN: HOW HAVE SKATEBOARD WHEELS ADVANCED OVER THE YEARS?
Powell: In general, if you look at wheel development, you can see a number of big trends that are still driving current developments. Wheels have gotten narrower so they turn quicker, and are lighter. Diameter and hardness have diverged to support specific kinds of skating, like street, park, ditch, rough road and vert. Our biggest innovations have been our formulations and the creation of the double radius wheel at a time when all wheels had sharp flexible lips that collapsed when you turned hard on them. Double radials roll over bumps, cracks, and up walls easier than sharp corners or thin lip wheels do. That’s why everyone has copied the design. Our formulations have led the industry since their inception in 1977. STF, SPF and ATF are all category leaders today.
WHAT IS STREET TECH FORMULA?
STF is a unique formula we have optimized here at our factory to meet the needs of modern street skaters. It is the fastest, best skating and longest lasting formulation in the industry.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
I can’t really tell you “how” it works, but I can attest to the fact that it does work …very well. How it works gets into our proprietary development secrets, and I’m not willing to share that information.
FAIR ENOUGH. WHAT DO YOU ADD TO YOUR URETHANE TO MAKE IT HARDER/BETTER?
Rob talked about “catalysts” and mixed urethanes—can you explain? Controlling the rate of chemical reaction can lead to interesting and unique end products. The rate of reaction is controlled by the temperature of the various materials, the catalysts (a material that speeds up a reaction without actually taking place in it), the curatives, and the chemistry itself. In STF we control all of these to the best advantage.
YOU ADVERTISE STREET TECH FORMULA WHEELS AS HAVING A DUROMETER OF “STF?” WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, AND WHY DON’T YOU USE THE TRADITIONAL A SCALE?
Have you developed your own scale? In a way, we have developed our own scales, twice. Once, when we developed the extension of the A scale to values over 100A by using the B scale and adding 20 points …that is a BONES original. Switching from that to STF was an attempt to point out how special STF and SPF are. It’s not the hardness that matters, but the formulation. The hardness is easy to copy, but the STF formulation is quite special.
HOW ARE STF WHEELS ANY DIFFERENT FROM OTHER COMPANIES’ WHEEL TECHNOLOGY?
They utilize different materials and processing conditions. They are fundamentally different. They are not just an “industry standard” formulation with our name on it. They are truly unique.
Interview by David Small of Skateboard Trade News
The article originally appeared in late 2005. We brought it back to life as interviews like this shouldn’t go the way of the Dodo.
