\"God has sent me a gift from Heaven.\" -Steven Puente.

We\'ve had the BMW Streetcarver for about 24 hours now and we\'ve put it through the motions...

The first thing you\'ll notice is that the board has no return to center (RTC). That means you can push a wheel down and take a picture like this:

All your carving comes from pushing with your legs and forcing the board in the direction you want it to go. At first it feels completely unnatural. That took about 5 minutes to get over.

The aluminum trucks are like no other trucks I\'ve seen. The turning radius is excellent, I\'d guess you could turn a complete 180 in under 5 feet. The wheels are great, they are big enough to cut over a patch of grass without even noticing it too much, yet not so big as to make the ride feel excessively high.

Carving is great. The rubber wheels have a different feel and sound to them, they don\'t feel like they are about to slip out from under you, even on fairly tight turns. Downhill at about 15 mph carving is smooth and controlled. Bombing at about 20 mph the board is still extremely stable. Once you reach the end of the run it\'s nice to be able to lose any remaining speed by whipping around in a tight 360.

After carving in the StreetCarver I stepped on a board with Randal II\'s (a truck known for it\'s looseness yet stability) on it. They felt so tight it was obnoxious. I\'m not ragging on Randals, at a very high speed I\'m sure that they are better, but compared to the StreetCarver, they feel VERY tight.

\"I don\'t feel like I want to ride anything else.\" - Steven Puente

There are a lot of parts... just one wheel has 21 separate pieces--that\'s not including the board. The grip tape is an interesting rubber mat that covers the truck bolts completely.

The manual is pretty comprehensive, though for most repairs my \"BMW dealer will be happy to assist me.\" They say that a recommended method of stopping is the Coleman Slide... Personally I don\'t see that happening on this board, if nothing else because the wheels would be shredded to pieces. Maybe someone will prove me wrong.

Downsides? Well, the wood and fiber glass board with larger than average trucks (if that\'s what they are) is heavier than a regular longboard. It probably weighs twice as much as a regular board. Pushing on flat ground isn\'t too bad, in fact after awhile you don\'t really even notice the weight.

Defects? When I first got mine it had a strange rattling noise from one of the wheels, it sounded like a spacer or washer was loose. I\'m not sure what it was because it went away. There is a bubble in the griptape which has so far been unnoticeable in the, and there is a strange space here:

Which isn\'t present on any of the other four wheels. Aside from that, it\'s great.

So is it worth the $495 it costs at bmwonline.com? Well, that all depends on how much cash you have floating around. It\'s a great board.

ADDITIONS:
Rene, at Longskate.com said: We were the first to sell that on longskate.com until we noticed that if you carve hard the board will throw you right off, as it actually turns too sharp, all we need is some kid bombing a hill to try a coleman slide and throw himself off a cliff or into on coming traffic, that thing is dangerous....