Carveboard & Flexboardz (small movie)

[rcrobar]

Hello

Has anyone had a chance to ride both the Carveboard (Wave) and the Flexboardz?

www.carveboard.com
www.flexboardz.com

Could you explain the differences in the riding characteristics of the two boards?

For the record, I have a Carveboard (Wave model).

Here is a short video:
https://www.extremecarving.com/attachme ... rd_Rob.mov (right click and save on your hard disk)

Rob

[fivat]

Nice movie Rob! You rock!

I like to watch your rotation technique (that works for surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, etc.).

Patrice Fivat

[raphael]

Hello

Has anyone had a chance to ride both the Carveboard and the Flexboardz?

Are you kidding ?
You convinced me to buy a carveboard (i own a Stik).
I then tried a flexboardz and posted a review here >
viewtopic.php?p=12770#12770
and here:
viewtopic.php?p=12778#12778

I'm very happy of my carveboard, i begin to feel some improvement on my push-pull and rotation. I'm also doing some slalom, it helped me a bit.

I will make a video of my Carveboard Stik riding soon.
I asked the creator of Flexboardz and he is okay to make a video of flexboarding, but i don't know when we'll be able to do it.

[rcrobar]

Hi Raphael

Thank you for your excellent review! I hadn’t read this post/review and didn’t use the search tool.

I love my Carveboard (Wave) and will NEVER sell it. However, I think you have convinced me to add a flexboardz to the summer quiver; because of your statement “All in all I think the two are quiet complementary.”

The problem for me now will be explaining to my wife why I need to buy more equipment!

Cheers
Rob

[raphael]

Don't rush.
Wait until i make further tests and the video.

I think you have to keep in mind the flexboardz requires wide open roads, i don't think it is something easy to practice in town.

[rcrobar]

Hi Rapheal

Reading your review(s) has inspired me to contribute a bit of feed back on the Cavreboard-Wave Model.

Speed Wobble

Located on the bottom of the Wave model is a sticker that warns against going too fast, because of speed wobble.

After many, many days of riding the wave I have never experienced a speed wobble even though I consistently ride between 25 and 30 km per hour. ( I had a friend drive beside me in his car.) My feeling is that as long as you are always ‘carving’ you can go quite fast with out getting into trouble. When you are locked into a carve the Wave feels VERY stable. If you ‘bomb’ straight down a hill (no turns) at 30 plus km an hour I think you experience a good crash ... I haven’t tried this!!

Leg Strength

The hill in the small video is about 2 km long. I can tell you first had that when you push-pull from the top to bottom of this hill your legs scream and burn in pain. I have found the Wave to be a great way to stay or starting getting into better condition for the boarding season.

Street Surfer helping Technique

I agree 100% with Rapheal, any board is very good way for a rider to improve his/her technique. I personally feel that I have learned about and corrected just as many of the errors, in my technique, on the road with the Wave as I have on the snow.

Carveboard Feel

Rapheal stated that the ‘Carveboard Stik feels like surfing (or light-powder-snowboarding) the street.’ Again I agree 100% To me the Carveboard-Wave Model also feels like you are riding a standard freeride board or a Swallowtail. To me the it feels like riding a freeride board, with an 8 or 9m side cut radius, on a perfectly groomed run. I also find the wave VERY similar to riding my Undertaker ST, in great pow, through openly spaced trees!

Grip

Comparing the Flexboardz and Carveboard-Waves’ ability to grip the road is the comparison I would most like to hear about from someone.

The Carveboard-Wave has incredible grip. That said, the grip is directly related to the air pressure in the tires. Finding a balance between the easy rolling speed of hard tires (40-50psi) and the grip of soft tires (20-30psi) is the trick of the Wave.

How does the suspension system of the Flexboardz, tilting skinny wheels, affect the grip in a hard carve? How does this compare to a Carveboard Waves’ fat wheeled grip in a hard carve?

Can anyone comment? Rapheal, could you ask Patrick Pierron to comment on this thread?

Thanks in advance
Rob

[raphael]

Some photos of me on my carveboard Stik

My girlfriend Garance made them.
She's not trained at all in photo-making.

I'm very proud of her work.

(i cropped them a bit for easier viewing in the forum, this was done without considering artistic aspects, i'm sorry honey )

[raphael]

photo again

[raphael]

Hi Rob, thanks for sharing your experiences.

Regarding speed wobbles, i think your comment is very interesting but could be misleading.
I think you have a good "swiss-surfing" technique, and i agree with you that with good technique everything is okay. But i don't always have such a good technique and i often lend the carveboard to longskaters who obviously dont know how to handle it. So i witnessed some wobbles. With good rotation technique there's no problem, but if your a little unstable, there is a speed at which the model constituted by you and the board starts to resonnate, you get wobbles and trying to correct them tends to make them worse. The only way to get out is stopping responding to wobbles (trying not to fall) but use them as some intentional slaloming (anticipating and forcing the natural movement of wobbling), and progressively try to push this slaloming into carving longer turns. I agree with Rob, as long as you carve, you don't get wobbles. But when you are not very stable, for exemple when your a beginner you can get them pretty quick. Doing push-pull your very safe.

What most people maybe won't imagine is that this board angulates effortlessly and that this effortlesslness tends to increase with speed, and tends to become more and more of an issue. When your pretty fast (nowhere near downhill skatebording fast) you feel less and less carried by the board. If you are not in charge, no one is. And then it gets dangerous.

Most people consider this to be a problem. I did too. But i practised a lot of slaloming this month, and i discovered that when you enhance your technique, it becomes very rewarding. Because when you are going fast you don't feel the board, you anly feel your technique, the street, and the grip of your wheels, nothing gets in the way. That's what makes carveboarding very close to surfing (or light powder snowboarding).

Deep fast carves, dont feel like alpine snowboarding (not bomber-style at least). Because the board does not respond.
It is not harder angulating more. Tightening turns does not take harder pushing. You just angulate a little more and the turn gets tighter. So you easly can turn too tight unintentionally. This is the contrary of downhill longskating (or even flexboarding) where you need to push in order to turn. With a carveboard Stik the reason you need to push is only in order to increase grip. The faster you get the more you regret that the board does not respond, and the more your legs have to do the work. That's where good rotation becomes necessary. You need to rotate faster than the board or you'll loose control. And the "Stik" turns real fast.
Maybe the "Wave" feels as having a bigger turn radius.

Anyway i'd say with speed you may feel unstable even in the turns. This not necessarily a big issue because better technique seems to fix it and even feels very rewarding. But don't imagine a very stable board at speeds, if you're not, then it's not. This is different with flexboardz at least with the tuning i tried.

So i'd say carveboards (Stik at least) tends to wobble. Past a certain speed, the faster you go the less stable it may feel. But this sensation may be very rewarding with good push-pull and rotation. And the wobbling speed seems to increase with your improvement. At first i felt wobbles after slaloming 8 cones, i now end the 20 (accelerating because of the hill and even pumping) and i don't reach wobbling speed yet, so i don't even have to use wobble-handling techniques.

[raphael]

Flexboardz need more pressure from you to carve tight turns so it feels like a harder carver. I can't compare with the carveboard Wave. But i felt the grip was excellent. I hope i will be able to test it harder next time.

Most Flexboardz model don't have "skinny" wheels, maybe the Karrika, but the others certainly don't. The main difference with the carveboard Wave's wheels may be the shape, Flexboardz wheel's base is round. Something very specific i felt is: at very low speeds, turning seems to slow you down, as if the grip on the side of the wheels was rubing. At normal and high speeds it totally disapears.

Can anyone comment? Rapheal, could you ask Patrick Pierron to comment on this thread?

Ok, I'll mail Patrick Pierron about this thread.

[mrjamie]

Thanks for the awesome video. Good choice of music too.

Where is that hill? Sometime I will visit you and you must let me get a ride on that board down that hill .

Concerning some things>

Speed Wobble

My cousin had a carve board and was bombing a narrow bike trail without much turning, and he had a wicked fall thanks to wobble. Like you say, if you can carve there's no problem but if you don't have room for carving -- yikes! I agree with all Raphael has to say on this.

[rcrobar]

Hi Rapheal

Your well worded clear explanation, and the fact that the bottom of the wave has a sticker warning about speed wobble, leads me to believe that you are correct.

Your explanation of how to get out of a speed wobble is also excellent. I agree that you need to ‘drive/steer’ the board, don’t let the board ‘drive/steer’ you. I really hope I didn’t mislead anyone!

One comment on controlling speed and speed wobble has to do with the timing of the leg extension. Experiment with extending your legs later and earlier in the turn, combined this with turns that are ‘)’ shaped and a full ‘C’. Ideally a rider should be able to maintain a consistent speed, top to bottom, avoiding a wobbly crash!

Your thoughts on how easy the board is to angulate or steer reminds me of when my friends, who do not snowboard but are quite athletic, have tried to just stand on the none moving carveboard. They tend to find it VERY tippy, it looks like they are trying to balance on a three legged chair. In a very short time them seem to get the hang of turning it while moving.

I didn’t realize the wheels on the Flexboardz were also wide, the video and animations on the web site lead me to believe they were more like a bicycle wheel. The Carveboard wheel is literally a ‘Dragon Paw’ race car style wheel, they seemed fatter and rounder.

I also found your comment ‘at very low speeds, turning seems to slow you down, as if the grip on the side of the wheels was rubbing. At normal and high speeds it totally disappears. VERY interesting!

Do the Flexboardz guys change tire inflation as is done on the carveboard? Perhaps this feeling is related to tire inflation pressure?

Thank you very much for contacting Patrick Pierron!

Cheers
Rob

PS - MrJaime - The hill is in my hometown, which is a 10 hour drive straight North of Vancouver. If you travel this far North it would be my pleasure to show you the hill and let you ride my board

[Felix]

what about a comparison with the t-board?
http://stoked.at/tierney_rides_boards.html#tierney

(Actually this t-board looks like something I have build with a friend 10 years ago, We took to weels that where able to turn 360° and fixed on a 5cm long iron piece and screwed it under the middle part of a cutted skateboard, and indeed it provided some sort of carving feeling)

[raphael]

Your explanation of how to get out of a speed wobble is also excellent. I agree that you need to ‘drive/steer’ the board, don’t let the board ‘drive/steer’ you. I really hope I didn’t mislead anyone!

What you said was maybe incomplete (we always are anyway) but you made a very good point by saying wobbles aren't necessarily an issue. Because most people believe speed wobbles to be a very big issue with this board, while most of the time wobbles come from the rider, not the board.

One comment on controlling speed and speed wobble has to do with the timing of the leg extension. Experiment with extending your legs later and earlier in the turn, combined this with turns that are ‘)’ shaped and a full ‘C’. Ideally a rider should be able to maintain a consistent speed, top to bottom, avoiding a wobbly crash!

I felt that.
It's what i like about push-pull: it can make you accelerate, or slow down, even make the wheels grippier, it all depends of when you push and when you pull. It's not easy to master, but if you do, it gives you a lot of control on your speed and grip.

I didn’t realize the wheels on the Flexboardz were also wide, the video and animations on the web site lead me to believe they were more like a bicycle wheel. The Carveboard wheel is literally a ‘Dragon Paw’ race car style wheel, they seemed fatter and rounder.

Some photos of the different models would help. Anyway the wheels are pretty different from your Wave's wheels, i think.

Do the Flexboardz guys change tire inflation as is done on the carveboard? Perhaps this feeling is related to tire inflation pressure?

I'm not sure. I think i remember it is done on the bigger models, probably not on the smaller ones.

Thank you very much for contacting Patrick Pierron!

Your welcome, i think Patrick will be interested in this.

Cheers

Raphael

[raphael]

Here you'll find some photos of the Karrika model (shorter with smaller wheels):

http://www.silverfishlongboarding.com/f ... hp?t=12254