Post
by Andy Bittner » Fri Jun 16, 2006 11:53 pm
I don't know Ron Bennett, and I've certainly got nothing against him personally. I seem to recall he was a buddy of Hobie Alter, and I kind of like the Alters. However, as for Mr. Bennett's products... I wasn't impressed then and I don't expect to impressed this time. Despite having a quick, responsive geometry, Bennett Trucks were some of the worst engineered, most prone-to-failure products in the whole of the 70s skate era. After awhile, it seemed Bennett could only sell his trucks by loudly trumpeting his 100% replacement guarantee on certain broken parts, particularly baseplates. Most manufacturers seem to offer such guarantees in a "it'll never break, but if it ever does..." kind of way, with Bennett, it may as well have said, "No matter how many times it breaks, and it will break many times, we'll keep sending you more of the same!" Never mind the fact that the target customers were children and that, somehow, the expectation was that we could go without trucks (or skating) for the days or weeks it might take to transact such a part replacement. After awhile, I was surprised Mr. Bennett didn't start using slogans like, "Not nearly as bad as our last truck!" for each successive attempt at making the same old crap work. Maybe he finally got it right with the Vectors, who knows? By that point in time, every skater I knew had experienced far too much Bennett-burn to even care about the next Bennett Truck. I sure broke my share of Bennett Truck baseplates and bent my share of Bennett axles back in the day. I was injured by Bennett Trucks breaking under me, on more than one occasion. When I finally gave up trying to make Bennett equipment, or pieces of Bennett equipment, work, I never missed the Bennett headaches.