There is something I would like to share with you . I thought < after 8 years kiting , owning a total of 10 boards and having tried out probably 100 across all these years > I knew everything about " kite boards " shapes , sizes & styles just to learn recently that …
!!boy I was so wrong !!
So , let me start saying that most probably you ( middle age free rider ) are using an " ordinary " TT ? and you think you are happy with your board ? Well , I have bad news for you , the board you are using is crap , absolutely crap , you have been riding on totally wrong boards ( including me ) for all these years and it´s not your fault , the entire industry got stuck in one design direction 10 years ago and we all have been happy with it .
How the hell did I came to this conclusion ?
Well , let me show you my " usual suspects "
the first is an modern free rider board , the second is a mutant ( or better called : surf twin ) both are top of the line boards & Brand and although they are a few years old I haven´t tried out nothing new recently that gave me the feeling that there has been a design leap during the last 3-4 years …. till a few weeks back .
I´m not going to bother you with the hole story How I got this board and to be clear , it´s not in any terms an " unique " design or something revolutionary , as far as I was able to find out , this board is a " woody " version of the Ocean Rodeo Mako series that have been around since 2008 ? or so but I can list you the " specs "
- Massive rocker
- very little flex
- extreme rounded tips
- 15 mm concave
- twice the volume comparing to " standard " TT´s
Sounds terrible right ?
Ok, I will tell you a bit of the story behind this board ….. I felt in love with it back then in 2009 when John was developing it and saw the first pictures and thought , when I have some spare money , I´ll order one for me and finally did it 3 years latter.
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I was not expecting nothing groundbreaking and I was convinced at that point , it will be my " third " board to play around once in a while and brag about it but mostly likely , I´ll keep it on top of a rack in my room nice clean and shinny …
So , I got the board , put it together when it arrived and luckily got the chance to try it out that same day on what we call : a typical Tarifa winter ( west wind) session with choppy water & heavy swell and you know what ? after 5 minutes I came to the conclusion that I most probably will never touch my other boards in my life since it outperforms them in almost every aspect .
This board " glides " on top of the chop and only on extreme conditions ( when you hit a wave full force ) there is 0 spray , nothing , nada , nichts , niente . really !!!!
Honestly , how many TT´s have you ridden that does not spray one bit ? I haven't .
My first session lasted 2 full hours without knee pain or painful quadriceps muscles ( specially on my back foot side ) it finished cause the wind died otherwise I would kept going on .
So … what is the secret ? at this point I must confess , I have no idea since this board just wiped off all the logic regarding board shapes I thought I knew about ,but the "package " works extremely well , with any standard TT you go upwind using the rails right ? well , with this board you don´t , you ride most of the time like on top of a surfboard so your body position is totally different , more relaxed , you need much less pressure on your back foot to tack upwind , it outperforms both my TT and my Mutant together in anyway you can imagine. It is a hole new experience and I am convinced , once you try one out , you'll probably won't want to ride your TT again .
Ok , Ok … on flat water a " regular " TT will perform better and as supposed , you need a kicker to be able to jump since a square tip " cuts " better compared a rounded one but on open water I have never experienced such an effortless and sweet ride in my entire life .
By the way , you can´t try them out and like me , you have to order them " blind " ( unless you live at the George and / or run across someone with a Bellacera on the beach but I´ll guess the Makos are more sprayed around and if you have any chance you should try them out before you make your next board purchase decision . It´s worth the try , believe me .
I will post a more detailed review about the woody at the review section the next few days , check it out .
Regards and have fun
Franz
PS. English is not my mother language so …..