One of the most popular and well liked mid-range longboards, the Landyachtz Switchblade features a drop down deck and a vibrant deck design that changes from year to year. While some think the Landyachtz designs are simple and boring, I think they provide an elegant and finished look to the longboard.
The Landyachtz Switchblade is primarily used as an introduction to freeriding for beginners. In the review below, we at Review Longboards examine why that is and why the Switchblade can be used for so much more.
| Product | Advantages/Disadvantages | Price |
|---|---|---|
Landyachtz Switchblade 40" Complete Longboard 2016 Graphic | Best at Freeriding, Cruising Capable of Downhill Highly Stable Lacks "dancing" capability Board design forces foot position |  |
The Board
The Landyachtz Switchblade measures 40.5 inches long and is 10 inches wide. As a package, board with trucks and wheels, the entire longboard weighs 12 lbs which felt relatively heavy as I was carrying it around.
For the longboard deck, Landyachtz used Canadian maple which gives it some heft and provides a firm structure for the other components. There is little to no flex in this board.
As described above, each year features a different graphic. As can be seen to the left, for 2016 Landyachtz released a graphic called the Chimera which features a crown being placed onto a lion-like creature with an eagles head, wings, and a tail.
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Instead of a full drop down design such as the Arbor Walnut (another great board very similar to the Landyachtz Switchblade), the Landyachtz Switchblade has more of a W shape. This means that the ends of the board slant down slightly instead of abruptly dropping down as other drop down boards do.
While this doesn’t provide as big of a cradle for your feet due to the gradual drop off from the trucks to the main deck of the longboard, it still gives a structure to wedge your feet into during slides and turns.
The board is symmetrical side to side and top and bottom. This creates two slightly shallow concave positions for the rider to place his feet in right at the edges of the deck.
Longboard Parts (the trucks, wheels, and bearings)
The trucks are mounted through the deck of the Landyachtz Switchblade creating a stable drop through configuration. For trucks, the Landyachtz Switchblade uses reverse king pin Paris V2’s with a 50-degree angle
.
The angle of the trucks allows them to provide the longboard with a good balance between maneuverability and stability. In addition, one benefit of Paris trucks is that each truck is guaranteed for life. Have any problems with it? Just send it in and receive a new one!
The wheels on this longboard are named the Divine Street Slayers
which might just be one of the coolest names for longboard wheels that I have ever seen. Landyachtz praises them as being the perfect size and formula of materials to tackle all aspects of longboarding.
The Divine Street Slayer wheels measure 72mm in diameter which is perfectly in between suggested downhill diameter and free ride wheels. They are also semi-soft with a 78A hardness indicating they can be “just as happy pointed downhill and sideways as they are carving to the local market” as Landyachtz states.
The bearings are Bones Mini-logo bearings
which are not to be confused with our ever-recommended brand Red Bones bearings. That’s not to say that these bearings are worse, though! Mini Logo bearings are Skate rated with means they are machined very precisely to ensure your wheels keep spinning.
Additionally, these bearings come pre-lubricated with Speed Cream so that you can take the Landyachtz Switch right out of the box and start riding.
Riding the Landyachtz Switch
Now let’s get to the part most readers are interested in: riding the longboard. And boy oh boy did I like riding this board. After spending a week with the Landyachtz Switchblade, I had a multitude of notes almost universally good about riding this longboard.
One of the most important aspects of this longboard is the deadly combination of truck choice (Paris V2 RKP 50 degrees) and the lowered platform. This combination makes the board feel incredibly secure while still allowing a great amount of control.
For ease of carving, I always kept my trucks very loose which they pretty much came out of the box as. The symmetrical with cutouts design of the Landyachtz Switchblade led to absolutely no wheelbite at all which surprised me as my trucks were very loose and I was trying to push this board to its absolute limits.
Another benefit of the symmetrical design is that it makes riding switch perhaps the easiest I have ever seen. There is absolutely no difference between the front and back of this board which is great when you come out of an 180-degree slide and the back of the longboard is pointed forward!
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One of the greatest comments I got while I was comparing my experience with the Switchblade was about the stability of the board. I absolutely loved it.
“You can still ride the Switchblade with a crate of beer balanced on the front without any breakages.”
Can you imagine riding any longboard with a case of beer on the front of it? Now that’s true stability!
With all of these good things being said about riding on this longboard, I do have to go over some of the weaknesses (in my opinion). One aspect where I felt this board came short was long distance pumping as the concave and drop down of the board forces your feet to several, not particularly comfortable, positions in the center of the board.
Another aspect which comes about as a tradeoff with the stability of this longboard is the lackluster dancing. While the Landyachtz Switchblade performed excellently at carving, I would not describe it as a dancing board as it’s movements are not quite fluid enough for that. If you want a board that can dance down hills smoothly, I would recommend the Loaded Tan Tien as it is around the same price range and is an excellent dancing longboard.
In addition, while I did not experience any problems with this, after talking to other riders there seem to be instances of people struggling to control this board with smaller weight due to the heavy weight and width.
Again, I did not have any problems controlling this board so I can’t say specifically what the problem is. Perhaps the riders got the wrong size of the board for their height. Above shows the sizing chart for the 3 different lengths of the Landyachtz Switchblade.
I would say always err on the side of caution and get the smaller size board for your height. Better to have a small, easily controllable longboard, than an unwieldy monster.
Who Should Buy the Landyachtz Switchblade?
Overall I saw this longboard as an awesome freeride, cruising, and downhill longboard in that order. It fell a little short in long distance pushing and so-called dancing down hills. However, in my mind, it more than made up for its flaws with the unparalleled stability at high speeds and capability to do both free riding and downhill very well. The longboard as a whole is really well constructed and designed perfectly to fulfill riders needs.
That being said, riders looking for an excellent free riding board that is also suitable for a multitude of other purposes such as cruising and downhill should buy this board. I would also recommend this board to beginners looking to get into freeriding as the stability and symmetrical design means that this longboard will feel supportive every step of the way and help keep you from falling more.
