Thinking about getting the Hamboard Pescadito?
You’re in the right place because I bought it, shredded it and have a solid idea of how it rides.
If you’re new here, I’ve tested, YOW, Smoothstar, SwellTech, Carver,
Here’s my official Hamboard Pescadito review to help you decide if it’s right for you or not.
Who Is It Best For?
If you want a larger surfskate that has an aggressive rail to rail feel and you don’t care about pumping from a standstill, then the Hamboard Pescadito could be a solid option for you.
Riding Feel
I feel like one of the most important parts about these board reviews is focusing on how it rides and if I’m gonna be honest I think I’ve been focusing too heavy on the parts section.
I’m slowly going to be transitioning into a heavier focus on riding outside with a mic on me and talking as I ride, as well as involving some of my friends. I think that’ll be more entertaining to watch rather than just sitting here in a chair with a boring background, explaining stuff.
So with the Pescadito you can turn on a dime but what I’ve realized is the momentum isn’t carried through like on a YOW or Smoothstar.
I’m not 100% sure why this is but I have a feeling that since the Hamboard has springs on both the front and back truck, it has something to do with that.
With the other surfskates when you do a radical turn and you go into a standstill, you can fairly easily get back into a pumping motion and pick up speed again.
Once you do a gnarly turn on the Pescadito it’s pretty much impossible to get back into that flowy pumping feel, unless you’re on some sort of hill.
After loosening the kingpin, there was a noticeable difference and I was able to get into a better flow, but I needed that first initial speed to get into a pumping motion.
Now that I think of it, the wheelbase is around 28 inches, which is massive and that definitely has an effect on getting into a flowy pump. I’m eventually going to be testing their new Twisted Fin so I’d be curious to see if I can pump more efficiently on that.
Basically there’s a point of no return with these boards after you do a crazy turn. Now, is that a bad thing? Well, it could be but it really comes down to your personal preference.
I’ve seen quite a few people ride these with the skate paddle, which is essentially a stick with a piece of rubber at the end so you don’t have to use your foot to push. But that honestly makes the most sense for this board because you can keep and maintain speed with it. So if you do a sharp turn and lose speed, I can see why they have those sticks.
The one thing that you can do on the Hamboard and not with the other surfskates is ride backwards. So you can throw some shoveits or really anything you can think of if you switch up the direction of the board.
I’d say the ideal scenario for this board is a long, low key hill so you can kinda of soul surf. I enjoyed riding this much more when I was riding down a slant so I didn’t have to pump.
So I hope that gives you a good idea of what it’s like to ride the Pescadito with the HST200.
Parts Breakdown
Length: 43″
Width: 14.5″
Wheelbase: 30.5″
Weight: 11.8lbs
Height: 5.75″
Hamboard HST Trucks
I wanna get into how this thing rides but first will briefly go over their trucks because they approach it differently than other surfskates and I think it’s important to understand.
I mentioned in my article about surfskates that typically they use some sort of spring-loaded adapter that allows the front truck to pivot aggressively back and forth. And then the back truck is usually a standard kingpin truck with bushings.
But what’s different about the Hamboard trucks is that they have a spring in both the front and back truck, which reminds me of the Original Skateboards trucks.
Now, this is where I’m a bit confused because after doing some research it looked like Hamboards actually used Original trucks on their previous setups. So maybe they licensed the idea or just improved upon it… I not completely sure so if anyone knows, let me know.
And I’m not gonna get into the specifics about how these trucks work because Hamboards already has a video on their channel of someone taking it completely apart so if you want to see the components, check it out here.
Basically you can see that when you shift your weight from one side, the spring compresses and as you shift your weight back towards the center, depending on what spring you have it’ll either have 20 or 25lbs of restorative force.
I’m sure the people at Hamboards are cringing right now because I know there is a lot of thought that goes into these trucks, but that gives you a rough idea.
Now I wanna go over some noteworthy things about this board.
The deck is super wide – the widest surfskate I’ve ever rode in my life. That’s what Hamboards is pretty much all about though – their signature is approaching their surfskates with similar sizes to actual surfboards. Like they even have one that’s 6.5 feet, which for a longboard skateboard is massive.
The pescadito is 43 inches long, 14.5 inches wide, about ¾ of an inch thick, weighs a whopping 12 pounds and sits about 5.5 inches off the ground.
So all of this kind of goes against what other surfskates are doing right now. You look at Carver, YOW, Smoothstar,
Bearings
The bearings are SAN-O turning bearings with grease and overall they’re solid. They’re capped on each side but its easy to pop the shields off and clean them.
Wheels
The wheels are 60mm 80a and really the only thing I could think about that would be valuable for you to know is that since they’re 80a, they slide pretty easily.
Pretty much anytime you do an aggressive turn, the wheels will slide out.
Personally, I think it does make sense since it’s not the type of surfskate where you’re gonna be doing an aggressive turn and translating that back into motion since you can’t really pump from a standstill on this board.
