Three things will always remain constant in life. Death, taxes and Apples ability to shock the general public with their price tags. Obviously, this didn’t change when we saw them launch the Apple Mac Pro Wheels Kit which will cost you RM2,799 for a set of four wheels for your desktop computer.
But, I think what can sometimes be even more interesting is what people then do with those expensive parts. And in the case of these desktop wheel set, people are actually turning it into skateboards.
The first I saw of this was when professional take-stuff-out-of-a-box-er Unbox Therapy laid out the first blueprint for what a Mac Pro “skateboard” would look like. But, he just threw the set of four wheels onto the front panel of a Mac Pro, so I don’t know if you can really call that a skateboard.
Then, we saw the boffins over at Braille Skateboarding take things up a notch by using a proper skateboard deck and hardware to attach these expensive rollers, then try and do tricks with the finished product.
Now, I probably shouldn’t say try because the boys actually landed quite a few of those tricks (though the treflip wasn’t possible because of the weight of the whole thing).
That said, these wheels—while probably great for a Mac Pro—are not ideal for a skateboard (gee, who saw this coming). That’s because while skateboards steer with their trucks, the Mac Pro’s wheels could each turn in 360 degrees. This makes steering a board like this even more difficult than something like Freeline skates. Then, there’s the issue of the fact that each wheel was only attached to one screw so bent hardware was a real problem. After a while, the boys at Braille did attach a set of Penny trucks so they could grind on stuff, but the wheels still flopped around a little too much.
Still, the thing I was most impressed with was with how durable these wheels were. I don’t think they were ever designed to withstand grown men landing on them with all their weight, but by the end of the video, the wheels still seemed smooth as butter.
Braille are obviously no stranger to skating all kinds of weird things. In fact, the Mac Pro’s wheels aren’t even the first Apple product they’ve skated because they also made a skateboard out of an iPad as part of their Skate Everything series.
[VIA]
