Bear Gen 6 Grizzly Trucks Reviewed: Surprisingly Good!

Full disclosure, I wasn’t a fan of the 5th generation Bear Grizzlies 852. In fact, I haven’t liked Bear trucks in general. I found that the old Grizzlies weren’t too bad for cruising, or using with an exceptionally long wheelbase and wide platform, like the Bamboo Pinner. However, for the most part, the excruciatingly tight bushing seat and lack of a boardside washer was just an annoyance. It felt like your trucks were fighting to recenter, but could never quite make it there. Fighting to off-center, is more like it. For this review, I slapped them on one of my setups and went down a hill a few times. Less than half an hour into my session, I gave up, I hated them too much for freeride. I went home, grabbed another setup I’ve been testing, and spent the rest of my day on that.

But the Bear Gen 6 Grizzlies did away with literally everything I hated about those trucks. It’s as though they were designed by a completely different company. I’d actually compare these more to the Paris V3 truck than the Bear Gen 5.

That’s a very good thing. I love Paris trucks. After testing these in a 50/40 setup on a few of my decks, I decided to get a second set for my new techslide setup. I had actually planned to get the Paris V3’s again, as I have for a few of my setups, but after skating Bear’s latest cast trucks, I realized they’d actually be more what I was looking for in that setup.

So let’s get into what makes these trucks special and why I actually bought two sets of them before I even had a chance to write the review.

At a Glance

• More sizes! Currently just 180mm, 155mm and 130mm hangers to come
• More open bushing seat
• Loads of rake. Very nimble, with a divey, surfy feel
• Solid, little slop and decent control make for a confidence-inspiring truck
• Height-matched baseplates. Currently in 50º and 40º, soon in 30º
• A truck so nice, I bought it… more than once!

As Tested:

• 50º/40º on a Pantheon Gaia. Morning Wood V2, and Sector 9 Meridian
• 50º/50º on Morning Wood V2

Details of the New Design

Landyachtz revealed their new Bear trucks as part of their Spring 2020 launch. The new trucks caught my eye immediately. They looked like Bear’s forged trucks, not their old cast trucks. Furthermore, Bear removed all the issues with the previous generation of trucks and also added many options. Now you could experiment with a variety of setups without breaking the bank. I ordered a set with a 50º angle and a 40º angle right away. My goal was to build a fast and stable freeride machine on the cheap. Something I could push around the park and trust on the steep hills.

Bushing Seat

The worst part of the old Bear Grizzlies is the exceedingly tight bushing seat. You can click a bushing in there like a Lego and it’ll be difficult to pull out. This lead to some unpredictable characteristics of Bear Gen 5 trucks, and made them hard to control. However, the 6th generation Bear Grizzlies have an open bushing seat. It’s more like the bushing seat on a Paris V3 truck. This open seat can introduce slop, but, as you’ll see in the bushings section below, Landyachtz has a different solution for that.

The new bushing seat helps the bushings slide over the hanger more smoothly as they deform. This gives you a uniform feel to your turns. It definitely improves the turning feel of the trucks, giving you a platform that’s predictable and smooth, and not overly aggressive on re-centering, allowing you to adjust to your liking with bushing duro and formulas.

Bushings

Bear ditched the double barrel setup, which I initially wasn’t sure about. For many of my setups, I go with a double barrel, at least for fast freeriding. However, their alternative is interesting. It’s a taller than average cone roadside, paired with an insert barrel bushing boardside. There’s a part of the boardside bushing that goes into the hanger, reducing slop without an overly tight or deep bushing seat.

The bushings are from Venom, if you’re looking for replacements, and a Landyachtz representative told me that the bushings Venom is selling for the Caliber trucks will also work on the Grizzlies. He also said the roadside bushing was a “tall cone.” However, while these are a millimeter taller than standard longboard bushings, they’re not what some companies, like Riptide, refer to as a tall bushing, that is, a 19mm bushing. Still, there’s a bit more extra urethane to cushion your turn, and since it’s on the roadside position, you can swap them out for standard barrels or bushings under 18mm.

Interestingly, Bear includes different durometers for each baseplate angle. They included slightly harder bushings on the 40º baseplate, as more of your weight will be on the bushing, for a more solid feel. On the 50º baseplates, you’ll find 90A bushings, while the 40º trucks have 93A bushings. When Landyachtz was designing these new Bear Grizzlies, they thought of everything.

Hanger/Design

Rather than include the same design from the Gen 5 Grizzlies, Bear pulled from their Kodiak forged trucks. These have a more squared shape. The trucks also feature a serial number etched on them, which could help people recover their setups if they’re ever stolen. The design is angular, with sharp curves. It looks like a serious improvement. Bear claims they’re strong as ever. Soon, they’ll release a version that has hollowed out sections of their hangers. That’ll be perfect for dancers or freestyle riders looking to maximize their pop.

Currently, you can only get these in a 180mm hanger width. But Bear will be launching 155mm and 130mm versions. Those will be great for smaller setups. You can currently only get the 155mm models on the Tony Danza or Landyachtz’ Evo 36 (and I believe the 40 as well).

Baseplates

The new Baseplates have a few changes I really like. First, the weird 52º angle is gone. Now it’s just the industry-standard 50º baseplate. However, you can also get it in 40º and (soon) 30º baseplates. The trucks in each of these angles are height-matched. This means you can throw 30º trucks in the back and 40º up front, for a cheap downhill-ready setup. They seem strong with weight-conscious cutouts where appropriate.

Rake

Everything comes together with a truck to define its feel, but the rake of a truck truly changes the dynamic. Rake is the distance of the wheel axis off center from the pivot axis. A lot of rake along with other characteristics can make a truck dive into turns rapidly. If you’re not expecting it, it can surprise you. However, if you know it’s coming, you can use it to your advantage.

Update: This section has been corrected.

The Bear Grizzly Gen 6 trucks have less rake than the Paris V3 trucks, but only by 0.3mm. The Bear Gen 6 Grizzlies have 4mm of rake, while the Paris V3 trucks have 4.3mm of rake. It’s a small difference, yet the Grizzlies feel as though they dive into turns more than Paris trucks. It’s a sharp, admittedly surprising turn in. On level ground, it’s a surfy, lively feel. On a hill, it’s a hard cut. It makes for an exciting experience, yet, along with the other characteristics of the truck, still doesn’t feel out of control.

Axle Length…?

Bear continued their tradition of adding just a bit more to the threading of their axles. I’d prefer shorter hangers and a spacer so I could reduce the width, but I’ll admit, I’ve found it handy when rail matching with their TKP trucks. Bear adds just a bit more threading, so you can use speed rings (1mm spacers) to widen your setup slightly. Perhaps by as much as 2mm on each side.

How Does it Feel on…

A Long Wheelbase With a Drop Through?

This is actually the setup I got my first set of Bear Gen 6 trucks for. I wanted to replace the Gen 5 trucks I had on my Sector 9 Meridian so I would actually want to use the setup again. The Bear 852 trucks had mostly killed my desire to ride this setup. That’s a shame, as it’s a decent deck for pushing around the park and some lighter freeriding (it tries to make up for a shallow concave with a wide width, it’s imperfect).

I put a 50/40 split on here. Overkill for the deck normally, but with inexpensive cast trucks bringing split angles and height-matching into play, why not? The long wheelbase (30.5″) makes the turning a little slow. Still, thanks to the aggressive rake on the Bears, the front end remains reactive, giving it a surfy feel when pushing around. Bombing a hill, it feels completely stable up to and surpassing 30MPH. While I didn’t find the setup as reliable, precise, or stable as my Paris Savants, the Bears still feel remarkably solid, resisting wobbles even up to higher freeriding speeds.

Despite the fact that this is a long wheelbase, I didn’t find it too unwieldy on narrow streets. I could still get the front end to dive into a turn and whip that stable back end around. I really liked the 50/40 setup on this deck. It gave me a lot of confidence to achieve speeds I typically reserve for my Pantheon Gaia.

An Oversized Popsicle Deck?

This setup has just been joy-inspiring. And I’m not just saying that because I’m using it to escape COVID confinement. I threw on some icy 86A Orangatang Skiffs and 50º Bear Gen 6 Grizzlies on a Zenit Morning Wood V2. It is just such a blast to slide around the asphalt. Those Grizzlies help me turn in really rapidly, and give me a ton of control throughout the slide. On more than one occasion I had to tighten up a slide significantly and was pleased with how little effort it took to tighten up slides and stay completely in control. This setup is definitely going to help me get into techsliding. The Bears feel made for it.

A Freeride Masterpiece?

How else should I describe the Pantheon Gaia? It’s the Goldilocks freeride deck. Just right width, length, concave, and great little microdrops. 180mm trucks are a bit too wide on it, I’d recommend a max of 165mm on this deck, but I gave it a go anyway. Surprisingly still enjoyable. I prefer the Savants on this setup, they do feel more stable and predictable, but the 50/40 Grizzlies still made for some fun.

I found the same things I saw on the longer wheelbase. A surfy, stable feel, with a lot of rapid turn in. The split angle made it great for freeriding at speed. These aren’t the trucks for this setup, but they still felt good enough on here to enjoy for a few hours.

Vs. Paris V3?

I compare these a lot to the Paris V3 truck. The Paris V3 is a fun and versatile truck with surfy characteristics from its signature rake. The formula was so well-loved that Paris didn’t mess with the hanger design between the V2 and V3 versions. They only strengthened everything and height-matched the 43º baseplate. However, Bear’s Gen 5 trucks were so disliked that they changed everything. As a result, they became more Paris-like. They feature an open bushing seat like the Paris trucks, as well as lots of rake. But they’re still very different trucks.

The Grizzlies dive into turns faster, at a sharper angle. Both have open bushing seats, but the Bears have a larger opening in the middle for the kingpin. This is so you can use insert barrel bushings from Venom, originally made for the Caliber II trucks. Finally, you’ll notice the pivot is different. On the Bear, the pivot is less rounded at the bottom, a little thicker, and slightly longer. The idea is to reduce slop, though I wouldn’t accuse the Paris V3 trucks as having an overabundance of slop. Still, even Paris acknowledged this when they made their Savant trucks, which feature a thinner, more cylindrical pivot for stability and slop control, and I find I enjoy Riptide’s Canon bushings on Paris trucks, which are a bit wider to reduce slop.

For my preference, I think I slightly prefer the Paris V3 trucks for everyday use. Still, when it came time to make a technical sliding and freeriding setup, I reached for the Bear Trucks for that super snappy turn in. They just make carrying momentum into rotation a bit easier. I still think they’re great for freeride, and even as a cheap downhill setup with a 40/30 baseplate setup and 155 or 130mm hangers. The Paris setup feels like it’s more balanced. Still, if you like a snappy turn in, even for downhill, the Bear trucks might be the ones you pick over the Paris V3s.

Summing it Up (tl;dr)

If you’re looking for a truck with a really rapid, almost twitchy initial response, but remains stable, reliable, and predictable through your turns and slides, this might be the truck for you. Grab a 40º or 30º baseplate for when you want to slow that initial turn a bit. Then you’ve just got a stable feeling truck with a quick response and aggressive lean to turn ratio. A 40/30 split would make for a great cheap way to get into downhill. The 50º is great for a nimble setup or techsliding. It can really help give flair to your cross steps in dancing too.

Bear really outdid themselves with the Gen 6. The Gen 5 might have set a low bar, but this truck leaped over it. I love the surfy feel on a longer wheelbase and super rapid turn in on shorter ones. There’s no one perfect truck, but for me, this one was good enough to buy a second set for another setup.

Unfortunately, Bear’s not putting out all of their stock yet. You can snag some 40º and 50º baseplates, but you’ll only find the 180mm hangers. Eventually, however, Bear will release 155mm and 130mm hangers, as well as 50º, 40º, and 30º baseplates. They’re all height-matched too, so you can ride a 50º up front and a 30º in back for a stable yet nimble freeride setup. Bear will even release hollowed out hangers for lightweight dancers and freestyle setups. Play around! I know I will.

Author’s Note:

Hey, all, it’s the author here. I’ve heard some feedback that my reviews and posts can be really long. I’ve been blogging for many years now, but even when I was writing papers for school, teachers would sometimes give me the same complaint.  I swear, they started implementing page maximums because of me. I love to write, I love to detail things, and I want people walking away from a Quick Quiver review thinking, “Gosh, I feel like I rode the thing around for a hour.”

However, the average English speaker reads at 300 words per minute (wpm). The average time spent on a site is often under 3 minutes. That’s about 900 words, and this article is over 2.7k. People just don’t want to spend all day on a site. The internet has made us all easily distracted, and, trust me, I’m the worst. Despite reading much faster than average, I still take forever to read my own articles for proofreading purposes.

So, to make things easier, I’m going to have “summary sections.” Basically quick details at a glance, like I was trying to answer a Reddit question about them without 7 paragraphs. I’ll still keep the long and detailed review, however, I’ll add many subsections. Browsers can allow you to bookmark subsections and tabs (click the section in the table of contents near the top, then bookmark). That’ll help you save your place for later. But I’ll try to keep everyone in mind by creating good summaries as well as detailed reviews. Thank you for sticking around, thank you so much for your feedback, and get skating!