The Loaded Pantheon Trip Collab is Loaded’s first true drop-down longboard aimed at long distance and fitness skating athletes.
Pantheon Longboards has teamed up with Loaded to revamp and redesign Pantheon’s original 33″ “Trip” double dropper.
The resulting board is a mix of Pantheon’s original Ultra skater features and Loaded’s high-tech construction and advanced board design.
Check out the Trip Collab here on Loaded’s site
The Trip Collab in short
This board is very easy on the knees when pushing. It has great stability for distance and skogging. Yet, the Trip Collab is quite carvy and pumpable.
Slide initiation is easy on this board. The Caguamas wheels are very grippy and facilitate shedding speed.
Trip Collab pros
- Super low, built for LDP and commuting
- Super fast roll with the Caguamas
- Freeridable, easy slide initiation
- Carvy, grippy, and pumpable for a drop down
- Stiff for speed, but some flex for comfort
- Great for learning to ride (and beyond)
Trip Collab cons
- Not as turny as a topmount e.g. for inner cities
- No real kicks (for quick turns and tricks)
- May be too low for some bumpy terrain and for some big-footed riders
- Big wide wheels require more effort for breaking traction
See the Trip Collab page here on Loaded’s website.
Who is the Loaded Pantheon Trip Collab for?
The Loaded Pantheon Trip is first and foremost a board for distance commuting, distance racing, and fitness skating.
Its ancestor the Pantheon Trip shined in the Ultra Skate competition, which involves 24 hours of continuous skating over maximum distance. The Trip has been skated on over 300 miles in that time lapse many times.
The new Loaded Pantheon Trip is an advanced version of the Trip, similarly aimed at long-distance skating and distance racing athletes. It’s also a very good beginner longboard and a capable freeride board.
Let’s take a look the specs and features of the Loaded Pantheon trip, then we’ll go over which riding styles this board is most suitable for.
Loaded Pantheon Trip specs
The Loaded Pantheon Trip Collab is a compact (33.25″) drop-through & drop down longboard with a wide and very stable 21.6″ dropped platform.
The board rides very low to the ground for pushing efficiency, and can run very large wheels wheelbite-free for high speed and comfort riding.
| Loaded Pantheon Trip Collab | |
| Shape | Double drop, wheel cutouts |
| Length & width | 33.25″ x 9″ |
| Wheelbase | 27.25″ |
| Foot platform | 21.6″ |
| Weight | 3.6 lb (deck) – 8.6 lb (complete) |
| Max rider weight | 370 lb |
| Profile | Rockered |
| Concave | Subtle |
| Trucks | Paris V3 165mm 50º |
| Wheels | Orangatang Caguama 85mm 80A |
The original Pantheon Trip was slightly shorter and wider at 33″ x 9.25″. But the main difference is in the construction – keep reading for details.
Check out the Trip Collab here on the Loaded website
Trip Collab construction
While the original Trip was a 100% maple deck, the Loaded Pantheon version features Loaded’s signature composite construction:
- 6-ply maple core
- Epoxy-infused cork top layer
- Fiberglass & carbon fiber bottom layer
The result is a thin, lightweight, and stiff platform ideal for hardcore pushing and speed.
The old Trip used a full 9-ply construction. The new hybrid Trip Collab with fiberglass has a more lively flex and won’t become saggy over time, and won’t ever break.
The cork top layer dampens the vibrations from the pavement. Along with the large soft wheels, the cork reduces the impact of vibrations on your muscles and joints for long distance rides.
The Trip Collab is slightly stiffer and sturdier than the original Trip and provides more vibration dampening. The use of of multiple materials also helps with noise cancellation.
Outline shape
The Trip Collab has a wide symmetrical outline with large wheel cutouts, and a small tail and nose tips where the trucks are mounted.
The large cutouts around the nose and tail are designed to allow for very large wheels without wheelbite.
The nose and tail tips connect into the foot platform through significant 1-inch high “crescent drops – you can see a crescent shape on the bottom of the deck at the intersection between the nose/tail and the platform.
These drops result in the platform sitting very low, only 2.5″ above the ground – measured by myself in the center of the deck with the stock 85mm wheels.
Rocker
The Trip Collab platform has a slight lengthwise rocker that lowers the deck even further around the center line.
Pantheon mentions a “mustache” rocker with a subtle bump between the feet in the middle of the deck. To be honest, I can’t really see any bump in the middle, only a nice nose-to-tail rocker.
Concave
The Trip Collab deck also has a notable concave widthwise with raised edges (Loaded style). This not only helps keep your feet stable at speed but it gives the board a really nice and responsive feel when turning and carving.
The slightly tapered waist adds to that responsive feel – almost like a topmount.
Subtle foot pockets result from the concave and crescent drops intersecting near the nose and tail – these come in handy at higher speed.
Nose and tail
The Trip’s nose and tail aren’t real kicks – you can still kick the board off the ground to grab it with your hand, but you will need to kick hard. Forget about real kick turns, ollies, and kick tricks – unless you’re REALLY good.
The board is so stable you could even ride with one foot on the tail or nose without the board budging.
One notable aspect of the nose and tail is that the baseplates cover the tips of the deck (the tips are actually open ended) providing impact protection as the truck metal takes the hit first during impacts.
Check out the Trip Collab here on the Loaded website
Trip Collab design & graphics
The bottom side of the deck shows the beautiful black textured carbon fiber layer, decorated with colorful, brown, yellow, turquoise and white comics-style graphics.
The graphics represent the road from Colorado (Pantheon’s home) to L.A (Loaded’s home), with desert plants and cacti, birds and clouds along the path between the two homes.
The top side of the deck has the attractive top cork layer showing through the nicely cut grip tape. The grip tape stops about half way up the drops, leaving the cork layer fully visible on the tips around the trucks baseplates.
Slightly offset from the center of the deck is Pantheon’s logo cut into the grip tape inside a cork circle. The Loaded and Pantheon names are also printed in white on top of the grip tape, as well as black wavy patterns on one half of the deck along the length.
Loaded Pantheon Trip Collab setup
Trucks
The Trip Collab is drop-through mounted – the trucks are mounted through large wholes cut inside the tail and nose, adding to the low ride for this board.
The Trip is designed specifically around RKP trucks, namely thanks to its significant drops. The default setup comes with 165mm Paris RKP trucks (50º).
With the stock setup, the wheels stick out slightly from the sides of the deck, so some hardcore pushers choose the slimmer 150mm trucks option to reduce the risk of kicking the wheels.
The stock RKP trucks have just enough flex for a comfortable ride and absorb all cracks and bumps very nicely – reinforced by the vibration damping cork layer.
Some riders choose to run TKPs (shorter than RKPs) on the Trip which makes it super-extra-low – possibly too low with a risk of bottoming out on bumpy pavement. TKPs also push the wheels further out from the deck resulting in a more flexy ride.
Wheels
The stock 165mm trucks fit the huge 85mm Orangatang Caguama wheels (see here for details) wheelbite free. The latter are super smooth with lots of grip, and will roll over anything.
Note that the old version of the Trip could accommodate the Caguamas with almost no wheelbite for a larger rider as long as you ran double barrel bushings and an extra speed ring inside the wheel.
The 150mm trucks, on the other hand, pair up well with 85mm Speedvents or the new McFlies. Riders often find no real difference in speed between the Speedvents and the Caguamas. The McFlys are soft, fast, and slide quite well though (Caguamas are wider).
OK, now that we’ve looked at the specs, let’s see what the Trip is best for.
Check out the Trip Collab here on the Loaded website
Trip Collab riding styles
Distance, speed, commuting
This is where the Loaded Pantheon Trip shines the most, and what it’s primarily designed for.
- Ultra low ride, lowered center of gravity: perfect for long distance pushing (LDP)
- Long wheelbase, wide platform, drop-through trucks: stability at high speed, great for skogging & racing
- Huge wheels, tall RKP trucks – among the fastest rolling longboards out there
- Lightweight & compact board: easy to carrying in transports when commuting
Many LDP riders use the Trip Collab for commuting in place of a car, or as last mile to and from public transportation.
Beginner longboarders
Besides being a performance distance board, the Trip is also a fantastic beginner longboard. The low ride and super stable feel definitely boosts a newbie’s confidence for learning to balance and turn on the board.
The Trip is a high quality longboard and will grow with the learner. Despite the “non-beginner” price tag, the Trip is probably a good investment for a newbie as it will reduce the learning curve and later allow you to transition into faster, more technical riding styles.
Freeride & downhill
The Trip Collab is not a specific freeride board but it’s very comfortable cutting speed with slides. It’s a little damp and just a little bit flexible, but totally freerideable:
- High stability gives you confidence at speed
- Foot pockets secure your feet during downhill rides
- Rocker and concave provide decent comfort at speed (though no W concave)
- Super low platform makes slide initiation easier for learners
On the flip side, the highly stable deck and the large grippy wheels require some effort to push the Trip into a slide.
Some advanced freeriders may also prefer a topmount for more control during the slide.
Carving & pumping
The Trip Collab is surprisingly carvy for a double drop. As you may know, the carviest and turniest boards are generally topmount since your feet sit on top of the trucks (or close) providing a lot of leverage and hence extra responsiveness.
On a drop deck, your feet sit lower than and further from the mount points, resulting in less leverage and slower turns. The lean to turn ratio is also higher – you need to lean more to achieve as much turn compared to a topmount.
With the compact Trip, however, leaning hard into the rail makes the board carve really well. This is partially due to Loaded’s signature concave and uplifted rails.
The drop down design and composite layup of the Loaded Pantheon Trip also gives it just enough flex for energetic carving feedback despite the stiff composite deck construction.
Finally, the Caguama wheels gives you amazing grip for hard carving including at high speed.
Freestyle & dancing
Freestyle is generally not the Loaded Pantheon Trip’s forte – it wasn’t designed for this:
- Not true kicks for kick turns and tricks, very hard to pop
- Wheels sticking out can easily lead to wheel kick
- Low deck clearance not designed for jumping
- Deep drops and compact platform not ideal for tricks or dancing
City slashing
The Loaded Pantheon Trip Collab generally wouldn’t be the best choice for inner city slashing. The turning radius is wider than on a topmount, and kick turns aren’t really possible for tight sidewalk riding.
The Trip Collab can’t easily be ollied, and the low deck may bottom out when hopping on/off curbs despite the big wheels.
This doesn’t mean, however, that the Trip isn’t a good board for city riding. As discussed earlier, it’s an amazing longboard for city commuting, particularly bike paths and smooth pavement.
Overall I find the Trip Collab to be one of the smoothest, fastest, and most enjoyable boards for transportation I’ve tried so far.
Frequent rider remarks about the Trip Collab
- The Trip’s low ride height can lead to toe drag for big footed riders (e.g. 12.5+ shoe size). However, this is mainly an issue for those with snowboard stance, riding with your feet angled e.g. about 45º generally eliminates the issue.
- The Trip Collab is a good replacement for the Landyachtz Switchblade or Switch for LDP. The latter are primarily freeride boards that can be used for LDP whereas the Trip is an LDP board that can also be used for freeride.
- The Trip Collab feels is sometimes compared to the Landyachtz DropCat 33 but feels ways bigger and more comfortable.
