Author / Ryan Lee

by Ryan Lee

Subsonic Longboards – Blackout Series

Subsonic’s new Blackout Series including the Shadow 37 and Talon 37 are sure to blow your brains out!

When it comes to manufacturing longboards, not many companies have taken on the endeavor of making custom longboards with custom concaves and custom shapes for the customer- most companies engineer a diverse lineup of boards and sell them throughout the year. This means that in many cases, the rider’s style comes to match the board- not the other way around. Now you might think that it should be that the board is made to the style of the rider, and the guys and gals at Subsonic Longboards feel that way! Since 1999, Subsonic has been creating boards of all kinds for all different people.

This year, they emerged with a new, sexy line of boards that are pre-made, but nonetheless incredible. The Blackout Series features a high-contrast graphic made of a white overlay on a black background. The graphics are then accented by colored side-rails of various bright colors, which really gives the boards a futuristic look.

The catch on these boards is that they’re extremely cheap- that’s because they’re actually cosmetic blems that Subsonic has repainted and refurbished to sell as their Blackout lineup- and if I may comment, that sounds like they’re reducing waste and making sure each longboard goes to a loving place!

This year, they have many variants of two boards- the Shadow 37 and the Talon 37. All boards come with the signature black and white graphic, but are stained on their sidewalls and wheel wells.

The Shadow 37 is 37 inches long with a hefty kicktail on the rear end. The board features slight rocker on the front end to give it a +4 degree wedge, and has Subsonic’s proprietary tri-plane radial, which is a smart mixture of large tub and radial concaves. There’s a small, half-inch microdrop at the front and the board is overall, 9.5 inches wide.

Dark Blue Shadow 37
A Variety of Shadow 37s
Shadow 37 Concave
Shadow 37 Kicktail

The Talon 37 is a board of the same length, with a unique wedging scheme going on for pumping, dh, and long distance pushing. The +12/-12 degree wedging scheme is extremely powerful when it comes to dh and pumping, and it doesn’t have a bulky drop like some other wedged drop decks. There’s also a slight taper, which is comfortable to stand on. It’s great for drfting, as your back foot doesn’t have to move as much between rails.

Dark Blue Talon 37
Yellow Talon 37

 

Blackout Boards
Shadow 37 Kicktail
Shadow 37 Concave
Dark Blue Talon 37
Yellow Talon 37
Dark Blue Shadow 37
A Variety of Shadow 37s

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Rayne Deep V Nose
by Ryan Lee

Rayne – New Year Updates!

This wet Vancouver spring, Rayne is making it Rayne again! Check out the new updates to their lineup!

Rayne’s been busy for the new year! These past few weeks have been hectic at the factory, and the work has only just slowed down enough for our Rayne Representative to get back to us with a report and wrap-up of everything that’s happened at the headquarters this holiday season.

First off! For Black Friday in 2016, Rayne gave to us 4 boards in Quad-Beam Deelite Technology, the latest and greatest in Rayne’s special constructions! The new construction is hand-made in the Rayne factory, with 4 foam cores meticulously placed into tight chambers CNC’d in-house. Then, it is saturated with bonding agent, and laid over with a sleek carbon topsheet which reduces torsional flex and increases the longevity of the deck. The 4 boards offered in this construction come with a sleek rainbow graphic, newly designed by Rayne artists! As always, these graphics are sublimated under durable topsheets.

The 4 decks currently offered in this Quad-Beam Deelite Technology are the Demonseed, the Darkside V2, the Exorcist, and the Genesis. They are made to order, so you know they’re of top-notch quality.

  • Rayne Carbon Deelite Genesis
  • Rayne Carbon Deelite Exorcist
  • Rayne Deelite Demonseed
  • Rayne Carbon Darkside
  • Rayne Deep V Graphic

For Boxing Day, Rayne revealed two very exciting prototype boards- the Rayne Ego and the Rayne Deep V, two incredibly shapes that Rayne’s never tried before- pre-wedged downhill decks.

The Ego is a +7/-7 wedged drop-through board which pays homage to the original days of downhill, when everybody rocked downhill boards with gnarly wedges to them- they’re making a comeback, and Rayne’s new board is a top contender.

The Deep V is a front-wedged deck that gives the rider a nice +12 degree wedge, creating both a large pocket for tucking and a turny front truck to really dive into corners like you mean it. The shape of the board also creates a front-leaning board, which helps relieve muscle aches and pain during long tucks, which many riders will find to be a plus.

  • Rayne Deep V Perspective
  • Rayne Deep V Side
  • Rayne Deep V Nose

Check all of this out at Rayne.com! Some boards may be sold out.

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Ahmyo Proto Available Now
by Ryan Lee

Ahmyo – Proto Wheels Review

Check out Ryan’s take on the new Ahmyo Protos!

A few months ago, I received a set of Ahmyo Protos to test ride and review. Because of the snow and blizzard-ey weather that we have up in Canada, I wasn’t able to ride them, but I had a weekend to test them out and I have some very interesting thoughts on them!

The Ahmyo Protos were released without much information about them at all- the most we knew was that it was some dark blue urethane around a generic white core. We didn’t know if it was an old urethane formula or what else it was. So it was incredibly interesting to figure out what formula it was.

Ahmyo Proto Groupies

After riding them substantially and looking at the lines they left and sharing them with other members of my community, I came to the conclusion that the Protos were in fact stone-ground, rounded off versions of Merkabas, Ahmyo’s grip and rip wheel offering. This is a commendable decision by Ahmyo as some of the best freeride wheels on the market are round-lipped versions of their most popular downhill wheels, some examples being the Orangatang Skiffs and Cult Centrifuges, which are both made of ridiculously grippy urethane formulas.

In terms of speed; the Protos are quick to get up to speed- however they do reach their cap pretty quick around 40-50 km/h and then start to slow down in terms of acceleration pretty quickly. Which isn’t that large of a problem seeing that they are stone-ground and you honestly don’t want to be taking a freeride wheel around any sweepy corners at speeds faster than that.

C/o Skateslate.com

The slide of the Protos is unique. There’s a smooth, gradual line between grip and slip, so they’re definitely wheels that you can lean back and just ease into the slide with. This is a bit unprecedented as most wheels made of a proprietary downhill wheel formula have a hard-defined line between grip and slip, but these don’t seem to have that and that results in a good, relaxed sliding experienced. In terms of grip, they’re not incredibly grippy, but they do take a good bit of speed to get going, and the inner meat of the wheel is definitely slidier than the cured outside.

All in all, the Ahmyo Protos were a glorious experience and if these ever make it to the production floor, they’ll be a worthwhile investment.

Ahmyo Protos

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Omen Longboards 23" Classic
by Ryan Lee

Scrapyard Project – Omen Longboards

New from Omen is a project to reuse and repurpose factory seconds into unique, limited offerings. Reduce, reuse, recycle!

Omen has been one of the most active companies in the longboarding scene. They offer great concaves at great prices, and it’s common knowledge that Omen boards are near indestructible. Tanks. It also turns out that Omen hates wasting perfectly good decks, which sounds pretty good to me because in this day and age, we could use some waste reduction. Global warming and all.

This month, Omen launched the Scrapyard Project, where they take B-grade decks from their scrap pile and birth new cruiser decks and unique, limited offerings. All of them have original Omen graphics and construction dating back to various years, but nonetheless, they’re better than your homemade chop jobs. The edges are sealed, rigorously quality tested and released to the public for substantially less than the retail price. A great deal all-around, and if you invest in a certain deck, it might make it to the regular line-up! An awesome initiative in my eyes. Here are the first batch of scrapyard decks.

The 23” classic is made of blanks with failed “accelerated rocker” pressings. Because of their short platform that’s cut right out from the center of the board, they’re plenty mellow but have enough concave to seriously be nimble. Great for a trip to the grocery store or the movies!

The 9” Barfight is a perfectly good Omen Barfight that’s been shaved an inch down the rails to give you a gnarly freeridable, downhillable, positively monkey toe-able beast of a board. And it’s at nearly half price!

Hit the link to view Omen’s scrapyard collection and pick up one of the limited run while you can!

Omen Longboards Spawn Warrior Graphic
Omen Longboards Dropship TM
Omen Longboards Buzzkill Malibu Graphic
Omen Longboards 23″ Classic
Omen Scrapyard Assortment
Omen Longboards Barfight 9″
The Scrapyard at Omen Longboards
Omen Longboards Griffin Champion Graphic

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DTC Wheels Ray Setae Side Ribbed
by Ryan Lee

Ray Setae – DTC Wheels

Ray Setae from DTC builds on their Victory Concept – Big Core, Wide Contact Patch.

Want more grip? Welcome to the Ray Setae from DTC.  Established in 2006, DTC has steadily raised the bar with each of their new releases. Many of their products are ahead of the game by years. They’re revered for high-quality and their unflinching commitment to performance. Known as trailblazers of urethane and unique shapes, they definitely live up to the reputation.

The Ray Setae is a wheel built for grip. Over two years of development went into refining it towards that goal. They built on their already well known Victory concept of a big core with a wide contact patch and super-sized it. The result is a full 66mm of contact patch on a 71mm tall wheel. It doesn’t stop there though. These wheels incorporate other traction improvements as well.

4 fully supported lips provide extra surface area and keep you straight. The core is precision machined in house and designed to evenly support the entire wheel, ensuring even weight distribution and wear. The core is also offset. The Setae features DTCs speciality ‘thane, lasting 10-15x longer than others on the market. They’re not meant to be worn down like any other wheel; they’re meant to be kept skinned or scrubbed, used for Maryhill and long, winding grip courses.

Lastly, you may notice the ribs on the wheel. One of the most unique features of the Setae, they are designed to smooth out and keep you stable on the chunder. Novel idea.

The Ray Setae is 72mm in width and 71mm in diameter, and boasts a large contact patch of 66mm (split into two sections of 33mm). It also features 4 supported lips: 2 on the outside, and 2 on the inside. Hit the link to visit DTC and pick up a set!

DTC Wheels Ray Setae Ribbed
DTC Wheels Ray Setae Side Face
DTC Wheels Ray Setae Face
DTC Wheels Ray Setae Side Ribbed
DTC Wheels Ray Setae Contact Patch

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