Today’s article is a review of the Rolling Tree Acedia. The Acedia is one of the best longboard decks in the game. It is high-quality, affordable, and stylish. What more could you want? In my review, I’ll give you the low down on this deck and more. Check it out.
Specs:
- Length – 35in
- Width – 9.4in
- Wheelbase – 22-25in
- Concave – Wheel flares, dong w concave, rocker, hourglass shape
- Lightweight – 4.25lbs
- “True Width” – 9inch over rear mounting holes. <9inch over front mounting holes
Rolling Tree Acedia Review
The Acedia is one of the best longboard decks I have ever ridden. The concave feels great and the board looks amazing. As soon as I stepped on it I felt at home and comfortable. With the many mounting options, I was able to experiment with a lot of wheelbase options and how my trucks and feet interacted with the concave, and at which points I stood.
The deck felt great for both freeride and downhill. I felt locked in for freeride and found the concave useful when kicking out and hooking back up from slides. It’s clear to me, that the Rolling tree Acedia is one of the best decks in the game. You get a lot for what you pay for.
Looking for a beginner longboard deck for sliding? Check out my beginner’s guide to downhill decks here.
How do I have my Acedia setup?
For downhill, I have my Acedia setup with:
- Trucks – 140mm Savants, 43/28,
- Bushings – 81/81a, 93/90a
- Wheelbase – 23.5in
- Wheels – Seismic Alphas/Venom Magnums
- Grip – Seismic Lokton
- Footstop – Riptide Mini I/O
For freeride, I have it set up similarly. It has:
- Trucks – 165mm Ronins, 42.5/30,
- Bushings – 90/90a, 95/95a.
- Wheelbase – 23.5in
- Wheels – Snakes, various
How does the concave feel?
The hourglass concave
The Acedia has an hourglass concave. Different parts of the concave sit higher and lower than each other. For example, the wheel flares and middle sit higher, while the parts in between are sitting lower. The picture below should illustrate this better.
*This is the 2019 version of the Acedia with CNC cut wheel wells. I have the version with the sanded wheel wells.
This concave feels perfect. It’s perfectly aggressive, but mellow too. I think it matches up well with my size 9(UK) feet. The wheel flares give me something to push on when tucking, doing toesides, and just turning right. And the lower parts give me something to dig my heels into when tucking left and doing hard turns. It is also very comfortable to stand on.
Finally, the wheel flares in the back make for great bumps to rest my legs against when tucking and to push against when doing toesides. They especially inspire confidence for fast stand-ups, as I feel like my foot is locked in and won’t slip off. The same goes for fast hands down toesides too.
The Nick Broms GMR deck in the Insta post below uses the same concave. It illustrates perfectly how the hourglass concave is shaped and how it contours through the length of the deck.
How does the W feel?
Unlike some boards, the W on the Acedia is only in the back. If it were in the front too, it could lead to an uncomfortable ride as it would likely interfere with your foot placement and comfort. So yeah the W is in the right spot. That said, the W looks, is shaped and feels like a dong, it’s crazy. It almost feels wrong to step on it … I wonder who it is modeled after …
The Nick Broms GMR deck in the Insta post below uses the same concave. It illustrates perfectly how the hourglass concave is shaped and how it contours through the length of the deck. It also perfectly shows how big and large the dong W is.
That said, the W is one of the best I’ve used. It is aggressive and comes in the perfect size. It is aggressive enough that you can feel it underfoot when tucking and riding, but it doesn’t get in your way at all when you riding and shifting your feet. I’ve been pushing a lot and found this W to be quite unobtrusive.
Standing on it wasn’t particularly uncomfortable and it didn’t get in the way of any skogging or pushing Mongo. For comparison, the concave on the Loaded Tesseract is wider and more defined. You feel it underfoot and it can make for a very uncomfortable ride when just cruising around. I think Rolling Tree has found the perfect shape for W concave.
What about the rest of the rear concave?
The rear part of the Acedia where your foot goes is unique. It has W, rocker and wheel flares. Quite a number of features. To be honest, you don’t feel the rocker. You can kinda feel your foot pushing against something, but this feeling is lost when you’re riding. You do, however, feel your foot in a sort of pocket when you’re tucking.
So yeah, this combination of W, rocker, and wheel flares allows you to have pockets in the rear. These pockets are great for resting your back foot in the truck, and they’re also great for pushing against when doing toesides or when you’re just generally railing corners.
The carbon looks amazing
The Acedia is one of my favorite looking boards. The Carbon bottom sheet makes it look sleek and sexy. It’s simple, but it gets the job done, and I love it. The 2020 version with the CNC cut wheel wells looks even better with the mirror Carbon. I’m very tempted to get another one … and I just might tbh.
It has a lot of mounting options
The Acedia has a ton of mounting options. You can set up your trucks on any wheelbase to set it up in a position that feels comfortable for you. For the first time, I got to set up my footstep higher up on the board, allowing me to stand on top of my front truck more. This gave me more leverage over it and helped improve my turning a little bit.
I like how consistent the width is
The width of the deck is more or less consistent throughout most of the mounting options, which is about 9inches. This gives you consistent leverage when experimenting with the different options, and gives you accurate input over your similarly wide 9(ish)inch truck and wheel combo.
This width is more or less, the “true width” of the deck because this is where your feet will go. Unless you’re standing further back on the board, you will be here over the trucks. So if your trucks are 9.6inches wide – going off the advertised width, you won’t have the best control over them. Because where you stand and actually interact with the trucks a bit narrower.
It is affordable
You pay about $169 to get this deck. That is super affordable in comparison to the other decks on the market and the value you get for your money. $169 might be expensive for some budgets, so I don’t entirely recommend it to someone just dipping their toes into downhill skating.
What size trucks work well with it?
165mm trucks will work well with freeride wheels on this deck.
140mm trucks with big downhill wheels will rail match well on this deck.
What’s not so good about the Rolling Tree Acedia?
The shape looks kinda ugly
The Acedias shape does look kinda ugly, ngl. Especially the nose. it looks like a crocodile snout. I was kinda hesitant to get it because of the shape. That said, I do think most DH longboards have kinda ugly shapes. The tapered rocket shape isn’t the best looking.
That said, it isn’t a big issue and doesn’t affect the performance at all. And I think the slightly shorter updated 2019/2020 version looks a whole lot better. They changed the shape of the nose subtly and I think it improved the looks, though it isn’t very clear from the picture below.
What I didn’t like about the concave
It made me change my slide style
I had to modify my sliding style a bit, especially for heelside slides. I’m used to sitting on top of the deck and pushing down into my wheels. This gives me a lot of control and makes me slow down a lot. I couldn’t slide like that on the Acedia. The concave wouldn’t allow me to comfortably sit on my heels and it would instead force my front leg to lean slightly towards the front.
The image below shows what my slides were more or less like on my old deck. I did eventually figure out how to position my body so that I was comfortable sliding the Acedia.
I found that sitting lower and pushing behind the deck more helped me get my form right and make the slides feel better. I also found that putting more weight on my front leg and bringing my back leg down to be more parallel with the deck would make the slides feel a bit more dialed in. So problem solved I guess.
The whole heelside thing was quite frustrating. I liked the deck and the concave, but there was this one thing holding it back. I’m happy I figured out a solution, but it did take a couple of weeks to find a body position that worked. That said, I do think it’s common to slightly change your riding style when you get a new deck, so we can count this as the learning curve for getting a new deck.
Finally, if you have good lower body flexibility, this shouldn’t be much of an issue to you. But if it is a problem for you, fortunately, you can use the “working solution” above to help you figure out something for yourself.
The rear concave forces your feet in position
I like to have a small stance when I am tucking. The same goes for when I am sliding either side. As I said earlier, the rear concave has pockets where your feet naturally want to go. This is bad, as it doesn’t accommodate for shorter stance, especially if your feet are far up on the deck.
This kinda threw off my riding style a bit as it made my stance wider. Everything was affected, from heel sides to tucking, to rallying corners, etc. However, I have adjusted to it and it isn’t a problem now. I can now tuck with back foot unaffected by the rear concave, but again, there was that learning curve – which you could argue is normal when it comes to riding a new piece of equipment.
It takes a while to figure out what you like
Though I mostly see this as a good thing, it can take a while to figure out what you like with all the mounting options and concave features. By figuring out what you like, I mean, where you’ll want your back and front truck, your foot stop, and where your feet should go in all that mess. It can be a bit frustrating.
I spent a lot of time moving my front truck and footstop around. I found that I liked to be ontop of my front truck, but not all the way up there or it would feel a bit tippy.
It is eventually quite rewarding when you find a position you do like. A position that compliments your style and lets you use the features in the way you see fit.
A tiny bit of torsional flex
I expected a deck with carbon to be properly speed stiff and not have any flex. However, if you place your leg on one end of the Acedia and the other on the other end, you can make the board twist (slightly) in different directions. I do think most boards have a bit of torsional flex so this isn’t such a big deal. I still thought it was worth noting.
More feedback from the road
When I first road the Acedia, I felt like I was getting more feedback from the road and could feel more vibration and harshness when I hit a bump or rock. I think this is because of the stiff carbon ply on the bottom. Because it is stiffer than maple, it should reflect vibration a bit more. I am used to it now, but it might make a new rider feel a bit uncomfortable.
And it doesn’t affect your riding experience much.
Who should pick up the Acedia?
I think the Acedia would be a great fit for most riding styles, so pretty much any rider can pick it up. I would hesitate to recommend it to a complete beginner who wants to learn slides. Because it is a top-mount deck, it will be a bit more snappy and harder to control in the slides. That said, you can learn to slide on any deck, it will be just a bit harder on this one.
Looking for a beginner longboard deck for sliding? Check out my beginner’s guide to downhill decks here.
What do you guys think?
If I had to give it a rating, it would be 9/10. This deck has been enjoyable for me to ride, and I think it would be the same for you.
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Thanks to Patrons Jed, Mowgii, Kasajja, and SuperBadJuJu for the support so far.