Category / Featured

by Ryan Lee

Moonshine Longboards – New Year Releases

Moonshine’s 2017 line-up is here! Take a look- you’ll get giddy from glee.

Moonshine has been the fastest growing skateboard company this past year- from a small startup making limited numbers of boards to one of the most successful makers of highly engineered longboards, Moonshine has made remarkable progress this last year.

For the new year, Moonshine is releasing 3 new boards to further expand their grasp over the great aspects of longboarding- freestyle and kicktail slashing, and the perfect art of cruising. Introducing the Moonshine Outlaw, Elixir and Proof.

First is the Outlaw- a board that was born accidentally through the filming of xXx: the Return of Xander Cage. The deck was originally designed for Vin Diesel’s longboarding scene, but after riding it extensively during the duration of the filming, Nick Pappas and Brandon DesJarlais decided that the concave was of amicable enough quality to make it into the official Moonshine Catalog. The Moonshine Outlaw features the classic Moonshine trademarks- urethane rails, waterproof construction and flushmounting. With the mellowcave that you know and love, the Outlaw is bound to be a legend just like the Sector 9 Daisy.

Outlaw Bottom Graphic
Outlaw Top Graphic
Outlaw Profile
Outlaw Details
Outlaw Ride Chart

Second is the Moonshine Proof- a technical take on a classical pintail shape. This one is special though- it has wheel cutouts to help with leaning and powerful carves, a sharp, crisp shape supplemented by a strong, tanky construction and a sleek graphic that everyone is bound to love.

Proof Bottom Graphic
Proof Top Graphic
Proof Profile
Proof Details
Proof Ride Chart

Lastly, the Elixir brings new meaning to quiver-killer. Whereas other decks have had steeper, freeride-oriented concaves, the Elixir mixes Moonshine’s trademark mellowcave with a combination of efficient shape and shallow kicktails to make a board that’s both great for downhill and freestyle. It features lunchtray-like wheel flares, deep wheel wells and a killer green graphic that’s bound to make any slide a looker.

Elixir Bottom Graphic
Elixir Bottom Graphic
Elixir Profile
Elixir Details
Elixir Ride Chart

Get these new treats before they go out of stock!

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by Ryan Lee

Lush Longboards – XTUFF 3D Machine

Lush Longboards’ new downhill and freeride offering will blow your cotton socks off! Check it out.

Surprisingly enough, it seems that downhill longboarding is actually popular in other places in the world! Who would’ve thought, right? The UK is no exception- and it’s been a thing for long while now! Lush Longboards is the UK’s premier supplier of rollyplanks and their reborn 3D Machine is both a nostalgic trip to their early days and a refreshing take on a classic shape that works.

Lush 3D Machine Graphic
Lush 3D Machine Overview

The 3D Machine features a mellow radial/rocker combination concave in the middle of the deck that’s comfortable for your feet when you’re pushing to a spot, but also steep enough to lock you in for tucking and other related shenanigans. The concave also features blocky, geometrically-shaped wheel flares that are incredibly useful for creating toe and heel pockets for sliding and gripping the board in a number of different ways.

Lush 3D Machine Side-View
Lush 3D Machine Concave
Lush 3D Machine Concave

This board is also well-rounded for park and freestyle because of its steep, street-inspired kicktail. There’s no telling how much it pops, but it seems to be useful for pivots and steep enough to give you leverage for bluntslides and tail-drags.

The current 3D Machine is built with Lush’s new XTUFF construction, which is a traditional maple construction that incorporates diagonal fibreglass stringers in an attempt to reduce or eliminate torsional flex and make sure that only some dampening flex is left on the board.  

XTUFF Fiberglass Layup
XTUFF Flex Patterns
Lush 3D Machine Concave Graph
Lush 3D Machine Complete
Lush 3D Machine Concave
Lush 3D Machine Wheel Flare
Lush 3D Machine Concave
Lush 3D Machine Graphic
Lush 3D Machine Side-View
Lush 3D Machine Logo
Lush 3D Machine Topsheet
Lush 3D Machine Overview
XTUFF Flex Patterns
XTUFF Fiberglass Layup

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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

 

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

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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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