Hey, Steve here with Surfskate Love. In this video, I'm going to review 15 surfskates in 15 minutes.
I've spent the last few months scouring the planet to buy every surfskate I could get my hands on
to give you a good review to make the best decision of which surfskate is right for you.
If you go down to the video description, you'll find a link to a downloadable infographic that compares
all of these surfskates on 7 different variables.
Now I've organized these boards into three different categories.
The first category is the 8 brands that in my opinion should be the ones you should focus on actually considering buying.
The second category is, "Don't waste your money."
And the final category is "novelty boards."
So let's start with your "must-know" brands. The first two I'm going to start with are Smoothstar from Australia and YOW from Spain.
You'll notice that I have two YOWs because I have an S5 on the YOW Malibu and I have the brand new Meraki on the new Pukas Dark.
I've put these two together because these are what I would call the Mercedes-Benz and the BMW of surfskates.
These are your luxury brands. They are the top-of-the-line. They are your smoothest, glidiest, most surf-like feel.
They are the absolute best surfskates money can buy.
In comparing the two YOW trucks, the S5 versus the Meraki, personally I do find the Meraki to be a big improvement.
I do find it to be smoother. It's a bit wider range of motion. And the biggest thing for me is it doesn't squeak like the S5.
When you compare the YOW Meraki to the Smoothstar Thruster, I really don't find that much of a difference. To me they ride pretty much the same.
Personally, I want a surfskate to feel like a hoverboard on my feet. And YOW and Smoothstar are just that kind of a hoverboard feel.
It just doesn't get any more glidey than that. The biggest difference I find between Smoothstar and YOW is the deck.
The Smoothstar deck has a much deeper concave, it's wider, and the YOWs don't have much of a concave at all, and even the kicktail isn't very sharp.
And for me, that makes a very big difference in the ride. It just locks you in tighter, and you feel a lot more stable and nimble at the same time.
And that's why for me, if I had to choose any one surfskate to ride for the rest of my life, it would hands down be a Smoothstar.
Having said that, there are two challenges with the Smoothstar. First and foremost, they're almost impossible to get in the US.
And the second thing is, they do not sell the Thruster separately. You have to buy a complete. Whereas the Meraki on the YOW is sold separately.
So for that reason, if you can't get a Smoothstar, grab a Meraki and put it on any deck and you're going to get the best surfskate truck money can buy.
The next brand you need to know is Carver, the original surfskate. Carver has two trucks: the C7, which is the first surfskate truck ever invented, and the CX.
The C7 has a wider range of motion, it's smoother, it's more flowy, it's a little bit more of that smoother, glidey, surfy feel.
Versus the CX, which is more snappy, sharp, tight.
So if Smoothstar and YOW are the Mercedes-Benz and BMW of surfskates, I'm going to call Carver the Toyota of surfskates.
I'm going to call the C7 a Toyota Avalon. It's a little bit more upscale, it's a more luxurious, smoother ride.
And the CX I'm going to call a Toyota Camry.
Toyotas are reliable, they're high-quality, they're dependable, they run forever, and they work for just about everybody.
But they're not necessarily that higher-end luxury brand like Smoothstar or YOW.
But just like you can't go wrong with a Toyota, you can't go wrong with a Carver. Carvers work for everybody, they're really a great beginner board.
Carvers are also much more affordable than YOWS and Smoothstars, which run anywhere from $300-$350,
whereas a Carver is going to run you about $250.
Now moving on to SwellTech. SwellTech is in a league all its own.
To use the car analogy, I'm going to compare SwellTech to a Ferrari. A Ferrari is a car that has amazing capabilities, but only if driven by the right driver.
SwellTech trucks have a full 360-degree rotation, which makes them really quite hard to stand on, to balance on, and to ride.
They're extremely sensitive, and if you're not balanced just right, you're gonna pay for it.
So you can find Youtube videos of really, really great riders really riding those SwellTechs amazingly well.
But that's not me. It's out of my league and it's not my style.But if you are a very advanced rider and you're looking for that surf training specifically,
then you may want to consider a SwellTech.
The next surfskate truck I think you should know is the Waterborne Surf Adapter.
The Waterborne Surf Adapter is something you can buy on Amazon for $69 or $79, and you can retrofit it to any board, and you can customize it a lot.
So I compare the Waterborne to a Jeep Wrangler. It's versatile, it's customizable, it's rugged, it's durable, you can do a lot with it, but it's not for everyone.
Now in terms of a surfskate truck, simply how it rides, I find the Waterborne to be a fantastic truck. It's smooth, it's glidey,
In fact I find it to be almost comparable to a YOW or a Smoothstar in terms of its range of motion and its smooth, glidey feel.
The pro of the Waterborne is that you have limitless customization options. You can try it with any combination of board, trucks, or wheels,
board lengths, board types. But the con of the Waterborne is that you HAVE to customize. And if you're not good at that sort of thing,
or if you don't have a lot of options lying around, it may not be the best option for you.
And honestly, ultimately that's why the Waterborne isn't my favorite, because I'm not a big customizer.
I've tried the Waterborne on many different set-ups, I've tried it on five different boards, different lengths and styles, I've tried different trucks and wheels,
I’ve found combinations that I like, but nothing that I really love.
But if you’re that rider who has lots of boards and parts lying around, and you love that tinkering and customizing process,
then you’re going to have a lot of fun with the Waterborne, playing around with it.
The next brand I think you should know about is a little-known brand out of the UK, Mindless. Mindless makes a fantastic little surfskate.
I call it the Volkswagen Jetta of surfskates. It’s small, it’s cute, it’s zippy, and it’s really quite perfect for college students.
I like this Mindless board a lot. I have a lot of fun with it. My kids like it too. And it’s also very affordable. I think I paid $159 or $169 for this board.
One thing to be aware of with the Mindless is that it can be very squirrelly and slidey. Now that can be a good thing or a bad thing.
Now personally, it’s a little bit short for me, so I have to be kind of delicate with the balance, I can’t really let loose with it.
If you’re a really good slider, which I’m not, you could actually have a lot of fun with this board because it slides very easily.
When you look at the truck, you’ll see that the design is almost identical to the Carver CX, and that’s pretty much exactly how it rides. It’s that sharp, snappy, zippy feel.
And the final surfskate brand I think you should know about is the Tailor Shape.
They’re a very little-known brand that you can actually get on Amazon for I think $159 or $169 like the Mindless.
So I put Tailor Shape and Mindless in the same general category: they’re really great affordable beginner boards and really great for kids and college students, things like that.
To use our car analogy, I would compare the Tailor Shape to, say, a Hyundai Accent.
It’s kind of a smaller, lesser-known brand, it’s a well-built car, but it’s kind of just your basic beginner car.
Like the Mindless, the Tailor Shape truck is built very similar to a Carver CX and also rides very similarly.
The biggest thing I don’t like about the Tailor Shape is the deck, for two reasons: number one, it’s very flat, it has no real concave to it at all.
And the second thing is that the grip tape isn’t very fine, which makes for actually kind of a slippery deck. Your foot can slip around on that board a lot.
Now let’s move onto the category of boards, where, trust me, you don’t want to waste your money on these boards, I’ve tried them.
And we’ll start with the Flow. The Flow is one of these affordable, cheap boards that you can get on Amazon, I think for $159.
To use the car analogy, I’m going to call the Flow a Fiat. If you know anything about Fiats, they’re notorious for being the worst lemon cars of all time.
And that's the Flow. The truck is horrible. It has a very limited range of motion, and with its limited range of motion,
it has a hard stop to it, which means it’s actually very difficult to pump, even for an advanced rider.
So it’s sold as a beginner board, but it’s not even a good beginner board because it’s actually quite difficult to pump.
It’s also set very low to the ground, which means you have very little lean to it.
So all in all, I don’t recommend the Flow to anyone, for any reason whatsoever. It’s not good for beginners, advanced riders are going to hate it.
I can guarantee you that it’s going to be something that once you ride it, you’ll want to upgrade. So it’s going to be a waste of money anyway.
The next surfskate brand that I recommend that you don’t waste your money on is the Surfeeling. This is a new company out of Brazil
that just recently entered the US market. I grabbed one and personally, I’m not a real fan at all.
When you look at the truck, it has only one dimension of motion. Now you can change out the bushings to make it looser or tighter.
But I changed out my original ones to the loosest bushings they have, and that didn’t make a very big difference for me.
I’m going to compare Surfeeling to the car brand Saturn. When Saturn came out, they were kind of a unique concept, they were new on the scene
and they were trying to compete with imports, but they weren’t the highest quality and they didn’t have anything really differentiating about them.
And that’s what Surfeeling is to me. It’s an interesting design, but it’s not very well built, and it doesn’t have anything differentiating about it at all.
I don’t like this ride. The wheels are small, it’s high off the ground, the kicktail is sharp, and it’s very light,
all of which make it a very squirrelly and slidey ride, which is not my style at all. If you don’t get the balance just right, the wheels can tip on you very easily.
So it’s not a comfortable ride at all because you constantly have to stay balanced just right. If you really let loose, you’re going to slide out.
And it’s not very nimble. It doesn’t have a very good range of motion.
The next surfskate I highly recommend you avoid is the Landyachtz surfskates.
So Landyachtz offers two boards that they call surfskates, the Butter, which I have, and the smaller Pocket Knife.
They use what they call the Bear Banger truck. And if you look at it up closely, it has kind of a design approaching a Carver CX-ish,
but it’s not a surfskate truck at all. At best, it’s kind of a glidey little cruiser. So to use our car analogy, I’m going to call the Landyachtz,
it’s not even in the same category, it’s not even a car. I’m going to call it a scooter. It’s cute and yeah, you can get around on it, but in a very, very limited way.
I don’t even know what to call this board. It’s not a skateboard, it’s not a longboard, and it's certainly not a surfskate.
It’s not fun to ride at all, the trucks are very tight, it’s very hard to start pumping on, it’s not very nimble, the board is flat, there’s no concave to it,
they don’t fit any useful category at all to me.
And the final surfskate that I strongly recommend that you don’t waste your money on is the Waterborne titanium boards.
I have the Scorpio. They have three of these and I’m including these because they sell these as their complete surfskate system.
I’m going to compare these titanium boards to the Pontiac Aztek, one of the worst cars ever made.
It came out with an interesting shape, and that’s really all it had going for it. And it wasn’t even an interesting shape, it was an ugly shape,
and nobody liked the car, it didn’t function well, and so it just disappeared. And that’s exactly what these titanium boards are to me.
It’s an extremely strange design to me. It’s as if they were engineered in a vacuum, not having anything to do with surfskates or the Waterborne adapter.
The biggest design flaw of these is that they have a big cutout where your back foot goes,
which is the most important aspect of a surfskate because your back foot drives all the action.
So it’s like they were built by someone who’s never even ridden a surfskate before. These ride horribly, they’re not comfortable at all.
There is nothing positive I can say about this board at all.
Our final category is novelty boards. These are the boards that, you’re probably not going to buy as your first board,
but if you’re the rider who has a lot of stuff and you want to try a new experience, hey, you might want to try one of these.
So the first one I want to start with is the Curfboard from Germany. The Curfboard is an interesting truck design.
It does have a wide range of motion, but for me it has one design flaw, and that is that it has only one range of motion.
It will only move side to side, but you don’t get the lean dynamic like you get out of other surfskates.
And so for that reason, I would call the Curfboard really, honestly not even a surfskate at all, but a pumpable longboard cruiser.
I would compare the Curfboard to a minivan. It’s roomy, it’s great for road trips, but it’s not necessarily the most exciting ride, but it’s fun and it’s interesting.
Next we have the Penny High-Line. Now Penny was smart. Instead of creating their own surfskate truck, they just teamed up with Waterborne
and slapped a Waterborne surf adapter on their own custom-built deck, which is 29 inches long and 10 inches wide.
I call the High-Line the Volkswagen Bug of surfskates. It’s cute, it’s fun, it’s zippy, it’s good for kids, but it’s tight, it’s small.
For me, at 6’2”, it’s pretty difficult to ride because it’s so small. It can get very squirrelly on me, so it’s not a very comfortable ride.
It has a feel similar to a Mindless for me, where it’s that kind of zippy, sharp feel. And if I maintain the right balance,
I can really kind of squirrel around with it and have fun with it.
One thing I don’t like about it at all is that the wheels are small and hard, which makes it very hard for urban environments. It does not like pebbles and concrete cracks at all.
For me, the Penny High-Line is a cute, fun board, maybe for the person who has a lot of other stuff and just wants to give it a shot.
And our final surfskate is the Hamboards Pescadito. Hamboards are interesting. They’re kind of in a class all their own.
I honestly wouldn’t even call them a surfskate because their ride is so much different than traditional surfskates. Their truck moves only in one dimension.
Now they do put the same truck on both the front and the back, which makes for a fairly tight turning radius.
For me, a Hamboards is honestly a boring ride. It is good for one environment, and that’s just for flat, open areas and maybe even a slight decline.
I would compare Hamboards to an old classic car. It’s cool, it’s fun, it’s unique, but it probably only comes out of your garage a couple times a year.
They’re heavy and they’re big, which means they’re not portable. It’s not something that you can just grab and go.
I’m not a Hamboards fan, it’s not my thing, but there are lots of Hamboards enthusiasts out there.
So if you like that ride and you wanna give it a shot, if that’s your thing, cool, go after it.
But again, I really would recommend that you start with other surfskates before you got to a Hamboards.
So there you have it: 15 surfskates in 15 minutes. Now I want to remind you to go to the video description,
where you’ll find a link to the downloadable infographic that compares all of these surfskates on seven different variables.
And hopefully you’ll find this video and that infographic useful so that you can find the best surfskate for you and your riding style. So go have fun.