Summer Carving Craving Cured?
By Jack Michaud
8/00
© CarveBoard
Like the common cold, unfortunately there is no true, complete cure for the summertime blues if you are an alpine snowboarder, short of traveling to the opposite hemisphere. However, there are a few products out there that relieve the symptoms, some of which do such a good job that you forget for a few hours that there's anything wrong with you. Of course there's wakeboarding and surfing, but how many of us have access to a nice boat, or live near real surf? And if you are lucky enough, how often do you really have time to get in a good session? You can't exactly jump off the couch and charge off to go wakeboarding or surfing whenever the feeling comes over you. Even if you could, the feeling is good but it just isn't the same. Wakeboarding means playing tug-o-war with the towrope, and surfing dictates throwing the exaggerated body gyrations that you spend all winter trying not to do.
Finally, after about twenty-five years of people sliding sideways on snow, multiple summertime substitutes began to surface roughly four or five years ago that directly addressed the woes of jonesing snowboarders. Now there are off-road and street-going devices whose prime directive is to reproduce the snowboarding sensation in the summer heat. Ladies and gentlemen, these toys are what you've been waiting for.
The Skateboard That Carves
Back in 1994, a few guys were sitting around in their garage when they
decided they weren't going to settle any longer for the weak approximation
of the carving sensation that skateboarding attempts to provide. Six
years later, the dream is realized as Flowlab introduces the world's
first carving skateboard. A remarkable example of clean-sheet engineering,
the Flowlab board boasts the lack of the ubiquitous skateboard trucks.
Flowlab sought to create a turning mechanism that would be devoid of
speed-wobble causing elastomeric bushings.
The result is fourteen roller-blade type wheels mounted on two curved axles, seven wheels per. The design is unlike any other vehicle to ever roll down the street. The axles are raked out at an angle that determines the board's "sidecut". The axles are mounted to the deck with rubber spacers between the deck and the axle feet. Strategically tightening and loosening the mounting bolts squeezes the spacers to adjust the rake angle of the axles, thereby adjusting the board's turning characteristics. Raking the axles out away from each other tightens the turning, enabling shorter turns that can be executed in a narrow lane and at slower speeds. Angling the axles closer together lengthens the turning, giving the board a more GS feel, and making it more useful at higher speeds. At the neutral setting, the turning is fairly tight already.
At first glance, the deck appears to be your typical skateboard, with upturned nose and tail that imply ollie-ability. Sadly, my skateboarding years aboard a skimpy-tailed Lance Mountain deck never resulted in any ollie skills, so the trick factor of the Flowlab board remains untested. Yes, I was a poser... but so were my friends. Big schmeal, this is a carving review, right? Flowlab's website says skateboarders who learn to ride their board are sticking kickflips in minutes. Look a while more at the Flowlab deck and you'll notice it's longer than a typical skate deck. It's not anywhere near being a longboard, but the length gives you a broader range of foot placement. Like a snowboard, the deck has some camber, but unlike a snowboard, it has very little flex. It would seem that the purpose for this is to preserve the turning geometry of the board at its particular axle setting. The website teases about a composite (flexible?) deck in development.
The Flowlab board may suffer the same fate as the alpine snowboard, where your average yahoo will take one ride on it and belch out "huh huh, this sucks". Which would be a real pity, because all good things come to those who persevere. Sort of like a bicycle, the Flowlab rides on only two wheels at a time, and must be learned to be ridden. The very first impression is one of instability and nervousness, but if you're a carver, you know to look beyond that. You know that getting there is half the fun. Fortunately, it doesn't take long at all.
I thought that skating an effectively two-wheeled board would be impossible, but I was surprised by how quickly I became accustomed to pushing the thing around. As with most board sports, speed helps. Build up some momentum, and most of the twitchiness disappears. The rest is up to you to learn out of your system. Without any bushings or springs to prop you up, the angle of the board is regulated solely by your ankle muscles. Stability is comparable to a skateboard with really loose trucks. At very low speeds, near a standstill, stability is nil, again like a bicycle.
Skateboarders and Rollerbladers will quickly recognize the sound, feel, speed and terrain handling characteristics of the urethane wheels. The solid wheels resonate with the deck, giving that familiar skateboard "roar", and on rougher pavement administering the thousand-fingers foot massage. Thanks to the rubber spacers though, the vibration transmitted is less than on a regular skate. Cracks and bumps demand attention from the rider, but smaller road features are nothing a little unweighting can't surmount.
Being about the size and weight of a longish skateboard, the Flowlab board is very easy to tote around, and it stows easily in small car trunks. It would be no imposition to carry the thing into shops and eateries, or onto a bus. The design and construction are smart, elegant, and attractive. Graphics are tasteful and reserved.
The Flowlab board was the first to arrive. So, fueled by a dangerous cocktail of excitement and overconfidence, my first run on the Flowlab was a near disaster. I let the board run, approaching snowboarding speed. Scaring myself and a few pedestrians right silly prompted the question "ok, what did I do wrong?" Trying to turn at that speed dictated making a body lean angle greater than the board angle, in other words, reverse angulation. That was strange and difficult at first. At such speed, the board wants to turn too quickly and sharply, but that was my fault. Re-reading the warning label, I saw the words "Do not ride faster than you can run". Ah ha. Woops.
The next run, I remembered that, as in carving a snowboard, speed is controlled by turning more, and further across the hill. The next run proved highly successful. I carved turn after grin-inducing turn down the public park driveway. It felt much like making a run on a snowboard, not just turning where the road goes, but turning for the fun of it! The transition from turn to turn is seamless and quick. Since the wheels are on a curved axle, there is no "base" to speak of, so the momentary thump during the edge change on a snowboard is pleasantly absent. The carving is responsive, and the board is highly maneuverable. And just like snowboarding, the better your technique gets, the more fun the ride gets.
Flowlab advised that after I got used to riding the board, I should
"get right up front and let the back slide." So I did. Inching
forward on the deck, placing my front foot over the front axle and rear
foot just ahead of the rear axle, I was rewarded with smooth, predictable,
and oh so satisfying slides. The front wheels track right on course
and the rear slides out just enough to feel groovy. But this sort of
slide is different (better?) than a snowboard slide-turn, because it
is more carve than slide, feeling more precise and under control. Very
cool. Don't want to slide? Simply inch back on the deck.
 © Flowlab |
Flowlab Stats: |
Lightweight
/ highly maneuverable
Free
foot massage on rough pavementThe ATB
Mountainbiking has always been a decent summertime fix for snowboarders.
But something is missing there; it's not sideways. So logically, mountainbike
+ snowboard - snow - bike = MountainBoard! This occurred to the MountainBoard
folks back in '92, and handmade prototypes followed in '93. The first
production run hit the shops in '96, and they've been improving on the
design and offering more and more models ever since. Some ski mountains
now rent MountainBoards as well as mountainbikes in the summer, providing
lift access to their slopes.
Invented by snowboarders, the MountainBoard is geared towards providing a marriage of the snowboard and mountainbike rush off-road. However, as one of the earliest companies to tackle the issue of what to do when you can't snowboard, it was only proper to invite them to the review. The company MountainBoard Sports (MBS) is generally credited with the invention of the sport of off-road boarding.
Disclaiming that this was to be a carving review concerned mainly with street riding, I asked if they had a board that would perform well in that regard. They wasted no time sending out a pristine specimen of their Razor model, complete with a hand-held brake. The package includes an excellent instructional video, narrated by none other than former world-champ and snowboarding ambassador to the world, "Revvin' Kevin" Delaney. The vid covers everything from safety equipment and maintenance, to your first run, to power slides, to advanced riding and freestyle.
The fit and finish of the Razor is impeccable. The deck is a snowboard-like composite, replete with triaxial glass, double cap construction (top and bottom), and handsome sublimated graphics. The MountainBoard employs modified skateboard style trucks that use springs rather than the elastomeric bushings found on typical skateboard trucks. The springs give you something to lean against in the turns, and they provide a degree of suspension on rough terrain. MountainBoard provides optional foam dampers that can be inserted into the coils of the springs to stiffen up the action of the trucks and provide more shock absorption. Leave them out, and the trucks ride looser and turn quicker, which was more fun on pavement. On other MountainBoard models, the spring positions are adjustable to provide different stiffness options, but not on the Razor. No biggie.
The Razor's round profile pneumatic rubber tires give a smooth, quiet, pleasing ride on the street, unlike any skateboard. Pump them up firm for faster carving, let some air out for off-road or learning. Either way, bumps, cracks, and rough pavement are a non-issue for the MountainBoard; you simply roll along, minding your own business. But what if you're carving the streets and you come across a nice big grassy hill that just begs to be had? No problem. The tires have just enough tread in the form of several small circumferential grooves to grip dirt and track on grass. The only drawback there is that the tread does sacrifice a little speed and makes a little noise while street carving.
Two features offered only on MountainBoards are foot straps and a hand brake. The foot straps come pre-mounted in a duck stance, which I felt to be unnatural for carving. But this way the board is usable by goofies and regulars alike, since the board is unidirectional and you don't have to put your foot in the rear strap if you don't like riding duck. If you want to change the strap angle you'll have to drill through that pretty deck, but they cover that in the instructional video. The straps proved unnecessary for just carving, but were useful for bunny-hopping curbs since the board can't be ollied. They also help keep the board under your feet during a bouncy romp off-road. The hand held brake is an optional addition. Having it ready to slow the board was comforting when attempting steeper hills, and would probably be useful in traffic, if turning isn't an option for scrubbing speed. However, holding on to it when you don't need it tethers one hand to the board, and is about as much fun as holding ski poles (gasp!).
But how does it carve then? Very well, yessir, very well indeed. The overgrown skateboard-like trucks provide familiar and predictable action, but the rubber air-filled tires grip the road and provide smoothness like no urethane can. Lean and go, don't worry about loosing traction. The snowboard construction deck flexes like a snowboard (duh), but a rather stiff one, in order to handle the forces of off-road riding. On-road, the flex feels decent, but there could be more of it, for my weight (165lbs., 75kg.). The flex is probably better for someone more fully packed than yours truly, if street carving is the main concern. The turning characteristics of the board produce a sweet spot where the right combination of speed and turn radius result in a purely inclinated carve. This was fun and felt like leaning into one of those lazy mellow-speed snowboard carves on fresh packed powder where you know you aren't going to loose the edge. If you let the board speed up out of this sweet spot, you'll have to reverse angulate a bit in order to lean in enough. This effect is the exact opposite of angulating on a snowboard. It is felt on all the boards here, but not drastically. Once you figure it out it's easy to work with and doesn't detract from the feeling of carving turns down a hill. Skating the Razor around is easy once you learn to push a little further away from the deck to avoid catching the rear wheel.
 © MountainBoard Sports |
MountainBoard Razor Stats: |
The Indy Car For Your Feet
The CarveBoard was conceived in 1996 by a surfing father and son duo
in California. Fed up with days of flat surf, they were determined to
design a new board that would recreate the carving sensation of laying
out bottom turns and slashing top turns like surfing, but on the street,
and only on the street. They succeeded. Fortunately for us snowboarders,
the sensation afforded by the CarveBoard is nearly identical to that
of carving a snowboard.
CarveBoard utilizes spring loaded trucks similar to the MountainBoard, but without any damper options. That's fine; they're not needed on the street. The CarveBoard has all the carving capabilities of the MountainBoard, but with two aces up its sleeve. One of the two features that set the CarveBoard apart is the rounded-square profile pneumatic slick rubber tires that resemble miniature Indy car tires. You've seen an Indy car take a corner, right? Not satisfied to simply pick tires out of a catalog, these tires are CarveBoard's own design. It was worth it. They run quiet, fast, ultra smooth, and with a wider contact patch, they grip like mad. As long as there's no sand or gravel in sight, you know you aren't going to slide out of your carve. Go ahead, push into the end of the carve with your back leg, the tires will push right back. The complete lack of tread means no off-road ability, but never mind, the speed gained means you carve more. Less time is spent skating or letting the board run straight to gain speed. These wheels also scoff at road flaws and deliver a very comfortable ride on fresh and rough pavement alike.
The other beauty of the CarveBoard is the flexy 9-ply maple deck. Sure it's low-tech, but it works great. The deck is the softest in this crowd, and is perfect for this application. The up and down flexing action of the deck adds another dimension of fun, and brings the experience that much closer to actual snowboarding. Shorter turns are quick and lively, giving you those tasty moments of weightlessness between turns. Longer turns finish with snap and exhilarating rebound, with which you can practice cross-over or cross-under carve transitions. With this deck, you don't feel as though you are standing on top of the two sets of wheels, rather that you are slung between them. If you were to close your eyes while carving it, you would imagine a snowboard decambering beneath your feet, and the sidecut of a 157 digging into fresh corduroy.
The CarveBoard arrived with a handy mini-pump, a palm-sized privately labeled tire pressure gauge, and a video of the pros carving it up. While it is not an explicitly instructional video, it teaches by example and gets you stoked to start carving. At first I was surprised that the riders in the video wore no safety gear. After riding the board, I realized this was probably due to the confidence-inspiring stability of the CarveBoard. The budding company also has a composite deck in the works, and offers many different color/graphics options.
The CarveBoard is easy to skate, since the deck is fairly low to the ground. Just make sure to kick a little further away from the board. The fast wheels mean each push sends you much faster and further than on a typical skateboard. Like a longboard, there is no kicktail so there is no pivot turning, just carving.
CarveBoard said they have no plans to offer a brake, citing the freedom
from holding anything in your hand, and asserting the importance of
learning how to control speed by turning. A good point too, because
you do have to plan ahead for the hill you're about to charge down.
It's better to carve more than you need to at first, then gradually
allow more speed. If you begin your descent with too much speed to start
with, it can be tricky to scrub speed in the middle of a slope if you
get going too fast. A series of many quick short turns is usually enough
to get things back under control; otherwise look for a grassy landing
pad. The included instructions warn against traveling faster than 15mph,
against riding straight down a hill, and that speed wobbles may occur.
This seems entirely possible, since they are spring-loaded trucks, but
the CarveBoard can easily be ridden at speeds well into the speed wobble
range of your typical skateboard without fear.
 © CarveBoard |
CarveBoard Stats: |
Big Foot
Land Surfer first set out to provide an on-shore off-snow sideways alternative
back in the '80s. The example sent for this review is a roughly three-year-old
design. The biggest, sturdiest, and fastest vehicle here, the Land Surfer
was born looking more like mountainbike dad than skateboard mom... a
quadcycle, if you will. Much like a mountainbike, the Land Surfer uses
a tubular aluminum frame that does not flex, and big 12" diameter
dirt tires. A wooden deck is mounted atop two frame rails. Turning is
achieved by a unique axle and swivel mechanism. Instead of spring return,
friction plates provide lean resistance. These serve three functions:
one, to do away with trucks, two, to offer adjustable resistance, and
three, to prevent runaway boards. Without spring return, the axles remain
turned even after you fall off. The angles of the axle swivels are adjustable,
so turning characteristics can be fine tuned for desired speed and radius.
The board can even be set up to steer like a car, with only the front
wheels turning and the back wheels remaining straight. This setting
is for maximum speed, and experts only.
Land Surfer was reluctant to send a board for review without being able to provide a riding lesson in person. I talked them into it, wanting to round out the review, and because their website had me intrigued. After trying to ride the board, I understood their hesitation. They advised that the Land Surfer was best used on large open spaces like an empty sloping parking lot, or a large grassy hill. With the largest wheels in the group, the board definitely wants to go big and go fast. Like the Flowlab board, Land Surfer's springless friction-plate axle system leaves the board angle completely up to your ankle muscles and your balance. Therefore, turning the board is a new and different skill, and required the most time to learn. After a rather discouraging first attempt and an unscheduled get-off (on grass), a call for help was in order. Greg Flynn at Land Surfer was very helpful, concerned, and persistent that I become a believer. I'm glad he did. He recommended tightening the turning radius and loosening the friction plates to make the board more responsive at lower speeds, and to try a more gentle slope. After just a few turns like this, a big smile came across my face combined with that "Ha ha! Look at me!" feeling I had felt so many years ago when I first linked two turns together on a snowboard.
A few more runs quickly developed more skill and balance, and therefore more speed, carving, and fun. Land Surfer argues that its board turns more naturally, and more true to the physics of a carved turn, because without spring loaded trucks, the board simply goes where you point it, and you simply lean against the centrifugal force of the turn. With more practice, I did feel this effect. With the infinitely adjustable turning radius, it is possible to fine tune the board to turn exactly like a snowboard, where lean angle, speed, and turn radius all converge. And since the adjustment is tool free, you could tune it for slalom one run, and super-g the next. However, the completely rigid frame gives the ride somewhat of a robotic feeling. Land Surfer sees their board headed towards beach use with a sail. They're even working on mounting a motor. These applications would certainly require the rigid frame. For simulating snowboarding, the extra realism provided by the flexibility of the other boards is conspicuously absent.
 © Land Surfer |
Land Surfer Stats: |
The Verdict
A few very good remedies for the summertime blues here, each a valid
choice with its own strengths and limitations. The development of these
devices is testament to the advancement of the sport of snowboarding.
We are now far better off from the days when the best way to simulate
snowboarding was to strap on your board and go for an imaginary ride
on your bed, hoping that nobody would open your bedroom door and catch
you in the act.
If you want something that is easy to carry, carves great turns, and won't look funny next to your skateboarding friends, the Flowlab board is an excellent choice. It has all the maneuverability and familiarity of a skateboard, with its own unique deep carving ability. The MountainBoard wins the versatility category, with its off-road ability, jump straps, hand brake, and very good on-road carving. The Land Surfer takes a different approach, relying on centrifugal force rather than springs to lean against in the turns. This results in a longer learning period, but also the satisfaction of mastering something new. For all-out carving fun (the whole point of this righteous e-zine) the winner is clear. It's the board that says "carve" right in its name. The Land Surfer may harness the physics of carving more accurately, but the CarveBoard's flexible deck just feels more like snowboarding. Nothing else on this planet comes as close to the movements, skills, sensation, and rush of carving a snowboard as the CarveBoard. At last, whichever weapon you choose, summers won't seem so long anymore!
Notes:
Wheelbase: the length between axle centers.
Track: the width between tire centers.
These boards are designed to operate at speeds significantly slower than either snowboarding or bicycling. Speed descriptions in this article are relative only to these boards.
Riding these boards without a helmet and other safety equipment is not recommended.
