surfari inline board

[sk8norcal]

Inline Boarding

from his blog...
http://www.windscooting.com/doc/landsurfing-physics.pdf

Here's an interesting link which gives a comparison between inline and 4 wheeled boards. Each have different strengths.
If he missed anything, it would be the relationship between deck tilt, lean and speed in a 4 wheeler -
Slow speeds = strong deck tilt but very little lean.
Fast speed = little deck tilt but lots of leaning into the corner.
There's a speed range in the middle where everything aligns and the ride is really cool. But outside those speeds it's very non intuitive.
Credits to Mad Marc.

Inline Boarding

We're up and running again. As you can see we're going to have several new ranges of boards come online soon, with freaky performance capabilities.
The Surfari you'll be familiar with. It's design is based on ride quality, and gives the most incredible downhill experience with a surf feel.
The DirtSurfboard is a more versatile offering, and a better all round performer. It's a better choice for freestyle and rougher terrain.
Well here's something that's been kept tightly under wraps - the DirtSnowboard and the Alpine Inline Board have rear steering. Intrigued?
And the last is the IBoard. Well... I think that's still under wraps for now

6. How do they compare to a mountainboard / dirtsurfer? Mountainboards have a comparable turning radius but are much slower, prone to speed wobbles, traverse really badly, and have a most nonintuitive ride (except maybe to skaters). They are good for freestyle and for rougher crappy terrain, but are really wasted for perfection rides. Dirtsurfers are faster than a mountainboard but have a seriously suck turning radius and hence severely limit the freedom of expression in the ride. If you have to ride in a certain way to combat speed wobbles (read - random painful collisions with the ground for no reason) then you do not have freedom of expression. If you have to ride within the boards turn limitations and neglect what you can see as possible in your mind, you do not have true freedom of expression. To contrast, the Surfari inline boards has no issues with speed, stability, control or maneuverability.

any more info on this Surfari ?

Surfari Promo 1 on Vimeo

[BluegrassSurfer]

I disagree with the comment about turning radius. The surfari front castor steering allows more turn range. The problem is that front pivot, castor steering with a bike wheel can not hold a hard, acute angle lean for a tight 180 cutback -- not like a street mountainboard or carveboard.

At speed, in-line bike wheel setups give a fluid surf-like feel. The one true surf emulation ... no. As with any land board, each sacrifices a little something in surf emulation. However, surfers have quivers for a reason, each board performs best for certain rides/conditions.

[ATG-ATB]

It looks like the bastard child of a dirtsurfer and a grassboard. Does anyone know what is patented?

[Gomer]

The problem is that front pivot, castor steering with a bike wheel can not hold a hard, acute angle lean for a tight 180 cutback -- not like a street mountainboard or carveboard.

I don't know. It looks like he is carving pretty sharp in this video.

YouTube - Awesome Road Carving - Surfari Board

[BluegrassSurfer]

Not trying to mock this product. But those are very gentle arcs. The quotes above imply that turning radius/carve is as good as a carveboard/MB streetcarver -- imo no.

When I say carve, I mean complete 180 turns curb-to-curb with a tight turning diameter around 12' +, depending on board and grade.

The front swing arm of a dirtsurfer or surfari follows the line of the turn but doesn't really aid in turning. It would be like trying to make tight turns on a bicycle without using the handlebars.

[BluegrassSurfer]

What these guys do in the driveways -- especially driveways with one car parked in them already -- is what I call tight carve. I like shoulder to shoulder 180 cutbacks (curb to curb) down a short 17% grade, my idea of carving.

YouTube - Carveboard . when the surf sucks

This kind of performance is not in a surfari's or dirtsurfer's repertoire.

YouTube - Awesome Road Carving - Surfari Board

[Gomer]

This kind of performance is not in a surfari's or dirtsurfer's repertoire.

No, but then the Safari is not really intented to be a carver. It bills itself as a better carver than the Dirtsurfer. It is.

[oldnbroken]

I've looked at a whole lot of footage of the Dirtsurfer and as much as there is of the Surfari.
The Dirtsurfer riders make what the Surfari guy does look pretty tame.
Seen some pretty good bits of carving with the Dirtsurfer but still very open in comparison to anything that carves well.
The kid dressed in white in the Carveboard vid looks like he is surfing, I never see that on any other boards.

[Gomer]

I wonder if the Dirtsurfer and the Safari could be made to carve better without sacrificing their excellent stability by making both the front and the back wheels turn tp a limited point.

It looks like the Safari has a shorter wheel base and the front wheels turn more. That would allow it to carve better than the Dirtsurfer. Of course a Dirtsurfer style caliper brake would have to be used.

You would probably have less ability to balance at slow speeds but the turning radius would be shorter. There was one patent application I posted that showed inline wheels and an articulated deck sort of like the Streetboards.

At speed, the wheels would track straight just like any inline wheel arrangement.

[BluegrassSurfer]

The kid dressed in white in the Carveboard vid looks like he is surfing

Exactly ... the reason my main rides are MB street carvers -- because the feel of tight cutback/carve is almost identical to surfing. 8)

The dirtsurfer is more like running the line (charging a fast breaking wave) on a 6-8' face or larger ... that is, finding your line and holding it with a little roller-coaster mixed in. For tighter carve, the wheels can't freely pivot as with the caster.

[ATG-ATB]

The Dirtsurfer riders make what the Surfari guy does look pretty tame.

Just the rider methinks, noone on those vids are pushing it really

I wonder if the Dirtsurfer and the Safari could be made to carve better without sacrificing their excellent stability

I think this would be easy, there is no turn resistance as in a 4 wheels MB or skateboard. They ust flop about when not being ridden. on a dirtsurfer this would mean a wider frame at the front. Not sure about the Safari but it would just be a matter of changing whatever stops it turning 180 (but I doubt there's anyhthing that does that so this is probably where it out turns the dirtsurfer; nothing limiting how far the wheel can rotate)

[oldnbroken]

I own three Dirtsurfers. The front wheel turns almost as far as you could want without it going too far, there might be a little room to go a bit further/wider with the front flop limit. If you want it to turn quicker you have to shorten the wheelbase for sure. Just adding more wheel clearance is not the thing in this case. Wheelbase and how far you lean and how fast to are traveling all play a part. The faster you go, the less you push that wheel all the way to the limit, it is designed pretty well to do what works given the wheelbase length and inline configuration. I like the over the top front steering arrangement that Surfari has adopted.

If you want to surf or snowboard carve deep, the four wheeled channel truck arrangement seems to be best.

[sk8norcal]

same principle, just a lot smaller
'roadsurf'

[Gomer]

I don't think any wheeled board covers all the similarities of surfing.

If you want the feel of setting a rail and riding the face then an inline wheeled board is the way to go. The single wheel line allowing the deck-to-surface angle to feel similar. But, you can't unweight the back tire and push out to cut back as you would unweight the back rail of a surfboard to cut back.

A four wheeled board doesn't feel the same on a transition face because the deck is mostly parallel to the riding surface once you are on the transition. But, the ability to cut the board back on itself does feel similar.

Anyone can make any board riding "look like surfing". The Carveboard riders are surfers so they are just mimicking their in-water moves on the Carveboard. It's not the board making the rider look like a surfer. It is the rider making the riding look like surfing.

Surf board riding requires a bias to the back foot. If you rode with the equal footing stance of a Carveboard on a surfboard you'd pearl real quick. Actualy, a regular skateboard is the closest approximation of a surf board. Take a look at a surfer doing a lip smak and it is the same move as a skateboarder top turning in skatepark.

I'm sure a snowboard rider could make a Carveboard look like snowboard carving.

[BluegrassSurfer]

I don't think any wheeled board covers all the similarities of surfing.

If you want the feel of setting a rail and riding the face then an inline wheeled board is the way to go. The single wheel line allowing the deck-to-surface angle to feel similar. But, you can't unweight the back tire and push out to cut back as you would unweight the back rail of a surfboard to cut back.

A four wheeled board doesn't feel the same on a transition face because the deck is mostly parallel to the riding surface once you are on the transition. But, the ability to cut the board back on itself does feel similar.

Anyone can make any board riding "look like surfing". The Carveboard riders are surfers so they are just mimicking their in-water moves on the Carveboard. It's not the board making the rider look like a surfer. It is the rider making the riding look like surfing.

Surf board riding requires a bias to the back foot. If you rode with the equal footing stance of a Carveboard on a surfboard you'd pearl real quick. Actualy, a regular skateboard is the closest approximation of a surf board. Take a look at a surfer doing a lip smak and it is the same move as a skateboarder top turning in skatepark.

I'm sure a snowboard rider could make a Carveboard look like snowboard carving.

I won't get into a huge argument here. I surfed the TX Gulf Coast for 20 years -- plenty of waves if you know when and where to paddle out.

Cutbacks on a surfboard don't unweight the back foot/rear rail -- exact opposite. Only short-coming driving off of the tail of a street carver is that wheels can't provide enough traction/tracking (8-3.00-4s provide the best traction I have found). The fin of a surfboard in a fluid medium provides tight tracking. The surfboard rail -- about 40%-60% back from the nose tip down to the tail -- contributes to the carve, the rail is a foil.

No landboard has all of the similarities of a surfboard. Not all surfboards are good for cutbacks/carving: the fish vs. the gun, the shortboard vs. the longboard.

A traditional skateboard never felt like surfing to me. The pneumatic tire, channel-truck streetcarver emulates what I enjoyed most. My dirtsurfer gives a nice fluid surf-speed feel but slides out on hard-leans, made worse by rail grab with more acute angles.

[oldnbroken]

Yup, yup, yes, I agree completely.

[Gomer]

Cutbacks on a surfboard don't unweight the back foot/rear rail -- exact opposite.

Surfboard cutbacks require all kinds of weight shifts. At the apex of the turn the weight is toward the front of the board and the weight is off of the tail (because it is shifted to the front).

This guy shows what I am talking about around mark :51.

YouTube - Surfline TV: Trick Tips - Cutbacks

Watch the back foot of the master.

YouTube - Quiksilver Kelly Slater Extreme Surfing...

[BluegrassSurfer]

Surfboard cutbacks require all kinds of weight shifts. At the apex of the turn the weight is toward the front of the board and the weight is off of the tail (because it is shifted to the front).

This guy shows what I am talking about around mark :51.

As I said Gomer, I won't get into a long argument with you.

I have made many cutbacks on surfboards. I've ridden 5'6" twin-fins to 9'8" noseriders.

It is very obvious to me, that the surfers in the videos are driving hard into the tail, off-the-lip at the point of re-entry . This places weight into/over the fin for pivoting and tracking -- control. The weight over the tail also stalls the board for the re-entry off the crest. The rail foil assists in bringing them back around. As the they drop back down the face, they shift/lean forward for acceleration. Leveling out the board brings it into max velocity, "trim."

Have you ever surfed? Watching and riding are very different.

Save your arguments for somebody else.

[ATG-ATB]

Looks very much like the weight is on the back at 0:51, it's hard to see with all that white. However the turn just before (I don't know surf terminology!) you can quite clearly see his front leg straightening out meaning his weight is on the back leg.

[Gomer]

As I said Gomer, I won't get into a long argument with you. Save your arguments for somebody else.

Seems like you can't have discussions - only arguments - so I won't bother with you.

I'd like to see you do any sort of surf move where you keep your weight equally distributed over the board at all times. I'm sure you don't. You just can't admit you are wrong. Must be a self esteem thing.

The video I posted show the guy cutting back with a graphic indicating his weight is on his front foot. I guess you know better than him.

As the they drop back down the face, they shift/lean forward for acceleration.

Oh wait, you did agree with me after all. Unless you mean that somehow to "lean forward for acceleration" means that they somehow lean forward but keep their weight equally distributed. I really don't see how that is possible when standing sideways but then I'm not you.