Steve here, with Surfskate Love here to review
the Curfboard from Germany.
Now, if you look up close at the Curfboard,
it has a very unique truck design.
It works on two dual swivels.
Now the effect of this truck is
that it has one critical factor that you have
to understand about the Curfboard.
And I'm going to reveal what that is in this review.
But first come with me for a little demonstration test ride.
Okay. So like I said,
there is one important thing that you have
to understand about the Curfboard.
And if you have a trained eye,
you may have noticed it in that test ride.
And before I get to that,
let me just tell you what I like about this board.
First and foremost, this board is very, very easy to ride.
And what that means is that it's great for beginners.
For example, my 11-year-old daughter loves this board.
She can ride pretty much everything that I have
but this is the one that she picked up on
because it's very, very easy for her to ride.
It's also a very comfortable ride.
I really like this deck a lot.
It's a really great size and shape for me.
I also like that this is a very quality board.
All of the materials used in this is very high quality.
These boards, I imagine, will last quite a long time.
Now with all that said, I don't ever ride this board.
And it's for that one reason that I told you.
Let me just show you what this is.
So come down with me.
The bottom line is: when you look at this truck,
because it only has one dimension of motion side to side,
What that means is that you get
very, very little rail to rail lean when you turn.
In fact, you can see on this
how these back wheels will lift up.
If I turn too far, that back wheel is lifting up.
What it means is that I can't do any real
aggressive leaning on this.
So just to compare this, let me show you
how this looks on other boards.
So, for example, here is the SmoothStar Thruster.
Look at the lean you get on this.
Here's a YOW S5. Same thing.
Here's a YOW Meraki.
Here's the Waterborne Surf Adapter.
You can, again, you can see that deep rail-to-rail lean
that you get on a traditional surfskate truck.
Here's the Slide.
We've got a Carver C7 here.
So now that you know what you're looking for,
let me just demonstrate this again,
and I'll talk this out with you.
The very first thing that this lack
of lean means in this truck is
that it doesn't incentivize a true surfskate pump
with compression and extension;
that going up and down movement.
Instead, I have to use my front hip
and my front foot to do a lot of side to side action
because it doesn't without lean.
It doesn't respond to that up and down compression
and extension as much as some of these other boards do.
So again, if you can just see, it's just,
it's a lot of twisty side to side is how this truck works.
Now, the second thing this means is
that I can't get aggressive on turns
because if I try to lean on it,
like I'm used to on other surfskates,
it just, it just doesn't lean.
And so my body ends up kind of just falling off
if I really try to lean into this.
And then also you'll notice that when I'm leaning,
this truck gets kind of squirrely on me.
These front tires will move around quite a bit.
So it's not very comfortable carving at all.
And it's that lack of lean
that is the one big issue that I have with the curfboard.
And that's why I don't ride it very often.
And it's honestly why I don't really call it
a true surfskate.
What I call this is a pumpable longboard cruiser,
because to me that's really what it's built for.
You can go long distances on this.
Like I said, it's very comfortable for long rides,
but you're just not getting that true compression
and extension on the surfskate pump that you want,
and you're not getting as tight carving
with that good surfskate lean that I like.
So who do I recommend this board for?
Honestly, I put this board in the novelty category.
And what I mean by that is, once you've covered your
what I call your five bases, which
in my opinion are YOW, SmoothStar, Carver, Slide,
and Waterborne Surf Adapter,
then you can think about getting a Curfboard,
if you want to try the experience
and just try something new.
I'd put it in the same category of say,
like a Hamboards, where I would absolutely not recommend it
for your first surfskate at all.
It's really just something if you're curious
about the experience, but I can just tell you right now
the number one thing that you're going to notice is
that it doesn't have very much lean.
And that's my take on the Curfboard.