The other Asian Invasion: Bamboo Skateboards
February 5th, 2007 by Kilwag
Bamboo is an amazing plant. You can use it to feed pandas, make flooring, furniture, and even bicycles and saxophones. And yes, skateboards too. The crazy thing about bamboo is that it has a stronger strength to weight ratio than maple, but has been know to grow 4 feet in a week’s time! Think about how many boards in a year that a typical street skater goes through. What if you could make a bamboo board that performs as well and lasts as long as a hard maple deck? There already are companies making decks in part of or 100% out of Bamboo, but they are mostly carving or downhill setups not meant to take the torture of street or bowl riding. Today I received an email and pictures from a Slovakian company with a Chinese manufacturer of 100% bamboo skateboards shaped like a typical popsicle stick. Even that’s nothing new. Check out some bamboo Skateboarding action after the jump
A couple of years ago I contacted an Australian company called Bamboo Skateboards (duh!) who appeared to be first to market with a 100% bamboo traditional popsicle stick board. I can’t believe I just used “traditional” in conjunction with “popsicle stick.” Ugggh! I say “appear” because I recall they were very short on actual pictures and specs, and they never returned my emails. Now it appears they have gone out of business or forgotten to pay their web hosting bills.
The Slovakian/Chinese connection
Today I received an unsolicited email trying to get me to buy bamboo skateboards in bulk. The main thrust of the argument was market analysis about sustainable materials and a “better attitude” towards the environement. The prices were cheap, starting at $11.15 for 1000 boards, with screen printing included. Now, I haven’t priced thousand blank decks in a while, Chinese or otherwise, but it sounds cheap. Strangest of all, the email was from a Slovakian company, and actually contained pictures of the finished product. You can skip to the end to read the email in it’s entirety and see another picture. Click the pics to see them enlarged.
So are these things any good? All Chinese manufacturing issues aside, there remains the most important question of weather or not a bamboo skateboard can perform as well as a hard maple skateboard. It’s possible, you never know. And if it is, then that’s not necessarily bad news for American manufacturers. I hear bamboo grows like weeds, literally. If you plant some in your yard you have to take special precautions to contain it or else it will spread uncontrollably. Maybe they could stop subsidizing corn somewhere in Iowa and plant Bamboo instead. Can you make Bamboo paper? Then we could have mile after mile of homogenized bamboo instead of pine trees planted in pretty rows.
Seriously though, it remains to be seen if these boards can take the place of 8 plys of maple. The quickest way to get these guys to stop sending you emails soliciting your business is to ask them to send you a bunch of free samples on their shipping and import tariff dime, which is exactly what I did. If they come through with the goods, look for me at your local skate park. I’ll be the guy giving away bamboo skateboards if you promise to tell me how they stack up. In the mean time, let’s look at some good old North American manufactured Bamboo skateboards.
ALL Bamboo boards Boards that are 100% constructed from bamboo.
Longboards by Fatboy
Longboards by Fatboy may not have been the first, but they were the first boards I ever saw made out of bamboo. These are total custom jobs that aren’t mass produced. A 100% bamboo slalom deck will run you $80, and bamboo with hardwood stringers start at $100. I thought he used to offer a bamboo longboard, but I don’t see it mentioned on the web site.
 Sector 9 Skateboards
Sector 9 has a line of 100% bamboo skateboards called the, wait for it… Bamboo Series. The Bamboo Series are either long or short, and none of them are available in a traditional bowl or street shape. These are carving boards or downhill bombers, and one is a “mini-cruiser” so it’s safe to say that you wouldn’t have to worry about wear and tear issues related to street and park skating. They don’t appear to be any cheaper than their other boards so the main appeal is aesthetic and environmental. They have a good catch phrase: “Save a tree. Ride a weed.” You can ride a weed for $60 - $70, deck only. Â Arbor Sports
On the surface, Arbor Sports does not have much differentiation from the Sector 9 offerings. Price remains unaffected, and their models to not appear to be made for high-stress riding. Straight from their web site; “Bamboo is an amazingly renewable, environmentally friendly material. It’s incredibly strong; yet light, flexible, and resistant to compression. The natural bamboo deck-ply improved return and resilience, while adding a clean, Zen flavor.” These decks appear to cost about $80 online. In an unrelated note, I’d have a hard time buying a skateboard from a company whose name contained the word “Sports.”
 Bamboo Composite boards Boards with a bamboo component.
 Loaded Carving Systems
Loaded Carving Systems has a line of bamboo composite boards. In fact their whole line up appears to have vertically laminated Bamboo core, surrounded by epoxy and fiberglass. These decks have the distinction (?) of being nearly twice as expensive as the competing brands coming in at $151-$160. Part of that may be due to the fact that each can be ordered in varying levels of flex. They also appear to be a lot stronger than the others, which I’m sure is due to the fiberglass elements. In the technology section they even show a car wheel bending a fully set up deck to the ground. Impressive? Yes, but not unusual. I’ve seen the same thing happen in uncontrolled circumstances with a regular sized board. I had a friend who had an Uncle Wiggley (Argyle fiberglass epoxy model) that shot out into traffic, got run over by a car and came back completely in shape. It’s much more impressive for a short board than a long board, and this was 20 years ago. Loaded makes a strange fish shaped deck with wheel cutouts that is targeted for bowl riding. Not a traditional shape for that usage by any means. I’ve actually seen one of these (Loaded) in person, and I was a bit disappointed as it didn’t look like it was finished well. The edges appeared to be damaged or coming apart. This may have been due to being knocked around while on display in the shop, but it was concerning nonetheless.
 Comet Skateboards
Comet Skateboards has some boards which feature bamboo (vertical laminate) in some of the layers, but near as I can tell they don’t have an all bamboo board in the lineup. They do have several links in the sustainability section of their web site. Comet’s bamboo boards all have fiberglass and some carbon fiber element in them and cost from $85 to $100 for the deck alone.
Cheap asian bamboo skateboards, Direct from the former Czeckoslovakia!
A search on the web turned up this fuzzy picture with some sideways contact information. That’s why I was surprised to get a direct mail from a Slovakian company and a couple decent medium resolution images. Here’s what they had to say.
Hello, I am writing to you because we would like to offer you our OEM services concerning bamboo skateboards. We are a European based company and we have developed with our chinese partner a unique, extremly durable, tree saving skateboard. This alternative to maply ply skateboards is made out of bamboo fiber which is fast growing and easily renewable.According to our market analysis, popularity of bamboo products, skateboards included, are rising and are expected to continue for at least several next years. Therefore a bamboo skateboard is likely to appeal to many customers as it combines the qualities of classical maply ply skateboards but has a diferent look and a “better attitude” towards the environement. Currently we can produce 30 000 bamboo skateboards per month and we are capable of supplying you with different styles and sizes of skateboards according to your needs, all under strict QC. The prices for our bamboo skateboards are: 1000 pcs -> 11.15 USD 2000 - 5000 pcs -> 10.45 USD 5000 - more pcs -> 10.00 USD or lower depending on quantity ordered and mutual contract. These prices include bamboo skateboard and screen printing. All prices are FOB China. MOQ is 1000 bamboo skateboards. We really hope that you will like our offer and we are looking forward to hearing from you soon Best regards Adam Minarovic Rovniankova 20 85102 Bratislava Slovakia
And finally, I leave you with one last picture of a bamboo skateboard from a Slovakian company with a Chinese manufacturing partner.
February 5th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Will they also sell me viagra and cialis and ringtones? How about Mitsubishi airbags?
February 16th, 2007 at 3:46 am
Bush is forever saying that democracies do not invade other countries and start wars. Well, he did just that. He invaded Iraq, started a war, and killed people. What do you think? How does that work in a democracy again? How does being more threatening make us more likeable?Isn’t the country with the most weapons the biggest threat to the rest of the world? When one country is the biggest threat to the rest of the world, isn’t that likely to be the most hated country? If ever there was ever a time in our nation’s history that called for a change, this is it! The more people that the government puts in jails, the safer we are told to think we are. The real terrorists are wherever they are, but they aren’t living in a country with bars on the windows. We are.
February 16th, 2007 at 8:17 am
That’s fine and all. But what does that have to do with the use of bamboo in skateboard decks again?
February 16th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Nothing in fact. that was comment spam. The URl was for an airfare web site, the associated email was in Russia. A bot must have picked up on the word “invasion” and spewed out some hand picked text. Kind of amusing, actually.
February 17th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Nice article. I’ve noticed when manufactures try to sell you on the eco-friendly alternatives the consumer usually pays a premium for these niche products. ie. bamboo flooring, smartcars, solar panels. (all great ideas) also I might worry about vertical delam problems in the slovak board examples. Someone let me know how these hold up if you actually have one.
March 12th, 2007 at 11:40 am
i would love to have a baboo bord that just sweet. any ways you should e mail me so i can find out more on how to get a bamboo bord from this company.
matt
March 15th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
im also interested in buying these boards if they are any good. if they are good enough, they will or should be a good seller. at that price, you could also sell it a bit cheaper then a regular maple board and people might just get into it. Bamboo is an amazing grass. they make cloth out of it now. even paper.
March 21st, 2007 at 2:06 am
there are also bamboo baords by habitat: http://www.loadedboards.com/newsite_v1/vanguard.html
i don´t know if they are ALL or just Bamboo Composite boards. you don´t get them in europe (i am from gemany) yet but maybe somebody of you can try and give a review here.
maybe interesting for the blogger of skate and annoy: there is also a german skateboarders who is annoyed of the mainstream skateboard industry: http://www.sub-stance.com/
November 4th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
hey im thinking bout buyin one of three long boards… the Sector Nine Maccas Longboard, Arbor Bamboo Bug, or the Gravity Larry Bertleman 33″ longboard… ive never skated before and i cannot decided which to choose… what do u think is the best one to start off with…
and in regards to the bamboo boards… im 155lbs and im scared that i would break the bamboo boards… lol… what are their limits?
November 5th, 2007 at 5:53 am
33″ is not a longboard. Most shortboards are close to that these days.
November 5th, 2007 at 6:34 am
I am not a longboarder by any stretch of the imagination… but I have ridden the Loadedboard board seen above on three occasions (that exact set up in fact). And it was a BLAST, and that was just on flat around the skatepark. That flex made it so easy and fun to bounce and pump around. Very cool. (I’m 150lbs and wasn’t skeered about breaking the board at all… the board owner is right at 200 lbs, and he liked it just fine.)
Can’t give any report on the other brands, but I’d feel comfy saying Loaded is a fine choice.
November 5th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
The bamboo decks are good and their actually cheaper than 12 dollars for a thousand piece its china man and I been in the trading business and I know the production cost of it and even in Taiwan they have that.
December 4th, 2007 at 9:37 am
I have been riding a bamboo board (8″ x 31(?) I think) for the past month. I have beaten the dog sh*t out of this board.
There are no delamination issues. I will warn you the deck is notably heavier than the typical 7 ply maple. This could be a mental thing but I think my ollie got another 4″ higher due to the excess weight of the board; physics say it’s possible.
Another thing you will notice is that the board has less than half the typical flex of a maple deck (I am 165lbs). This becomes quite apparent during board slides on rails. I adapted to the additional stiffness within two sessions out on the board.
Another point of interest is the impact resistance of this board. The A-frame at my home park is directly next to metal railing, which separates the bowl area from the street course. Any slight miscalculation that leads to a bail results in the nose (or tail) of the board slamming directly into this metal railing; instantaneous splintering. Recently working on my grabs, I have launched the nose of my board into the railing at least 500 times this month. A typical maple would have been destroyed (I know from experience). The bamboo does NOT flake apart like maple. A few taps on the nose to realign the fibers and the board is like new. The fibers of bamboo will not break off because of their individual flexibility as compared to maple which is brittle and weak without girth, for lack of a better word.
I also love doing manuals which means my nose & tail scrape the ground a lot. Amazingly, the bamboo seems to hold up twice as well as the maple decks.
Now, why did I get a bamboo board? No I’m not some environmentalist tree-hugging hippie that smokes a lot of dope because it’s natural. No, I’m not out to save the world. I do recycle occasionally but it’s because the recycling bin is right next to the garbage cans at my apartment. I broke another maple (deck number 217 in my lifetime?) and the shop on site didn’t have any 8″ boards in stock except that one bamboo.
How much could it hurt you to try one…?
December 4th, 2007 at 10:08 am
I’m confused about how you think a heavier board will help you ollie higher? A heavier board would be harder to ollie.
December 4th, 2007 at 11:22 am
I have to agree with bradley, I can ollie larger, 8.5″+, boards with big trucks and larger wheels way better that i can ollie the narrow little street/freestyle boards with smaller wheels and trucks..
December 4th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Professor Schmitt points out that larger wheels and riser pads raise your board higher off the ground, so when your tail hits, your board angle is steeper making you ollie more vertically and get higher. Conversely a flatter take-off with smaller wheels will give you more distance.
I wonder what the weight difference would be. I was comparing some bigger boards and found an eight ounce weight difference. I once compared some cored wheels with regular wheels and found the difference in weight very slight.
Anybody in a skate shop want to compare some deck and wheel weights for us?
December 4th, 2007 at 11:51 am
I agree with Conahan. I think you’re getting increased ollie height from geometry not increased board weight. I’d bet if you had two boards of the same size and different weights, the lighter one would yield higher ollies every time, unless it was Conahan’s board, in which case it would not ollie at all.
Bradley, your comment almost reads like comment spam. What shop did you get yours at, and what was the brand name? I’ve never seen an actual bamboo popsicle stick in a shop, just longboards.
December 4th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
jesus f’n christ people go out and try to ollie. if you can’t ollie up a ledge jump your fat asses higher.
December 4th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
It’s the hardware in my misshapen knee joint and not my fat ass that keeps me from ollieing up a ledge. I don’t know what Conahan’s aversion is.
December 4th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Common sense, lighter will get your higher. I bought a 7 3/4 a year(for a street complete) ago and rode it for 2 weeks, and havent since. It floats ridiculously high without very precise control depending on foot size, just too ackward for indy’s, airs, ollies. Too skinny, too light. For me 8.5 OR 8.00 is perfect for street, comfortable solid ollies. Just perfect for the small roster of flip tricks I can do. Risers, Indys(trucks), bearings & wheel size of course play a factor in wheight. Just depends on what is comfortable to the individual. But more wheight? I could only imagine that theory works on tranny as you have something that will launch your ollies. If you just get enough speed you can just fly DOWN any set of stairs without olling. Though do the same off a hip or corner and you actually get air(as in propel upwards). Gravity results clearly depend on individual circumstance & trick. Wheight should be differenciated from board shape, from what I read above.
December 4th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
I had this conversation before so many times with Schroeder, so Iv’e already beat the hell out of it. If you stay exlcusive to street, a side affect is tranny concepts become very confusing and intimidating. If you stay exclusive to tranny, ollieing without tranny is like trying to jump on flatground right after you get off a trampoline. Hence the slappy grind prefence over just ollieing onto grinds/slides. Remember when we all were kids and had the peak of our skills on shitty, 2nd hand or chipped, banged? Yeah..me neither…
December 4th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
concrete disciples thread?
where’s the rockin rons bearings with the 7.5325′ shim regulating the speed/turn axle velocity combined with a custom 95a bushing boiled with old kook speed lube at 425 degrees for 13.3 minutes??
December 4th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
434 gigawatts per second.
December 4th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Seems we have gotten a little off topic for this post so lets get back to the subject at hand, make sure you smoke your banana peels with non-bamboo pipes and give the finger to those panda bears trying to ram their heathen harvest into our sport…is it a sport:)
April 14th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Bought 2 of these guys from some company on ebay. Both are holding up really well. They are a little bit stiffer. I didn’t notice a weight difference. Maybe I got different ones or something. Mine is 1 ply bamboo - 5 plys maple - 1 ply bamboo. That’s 20% renewable. Multiply that by the amount of boards are sold per year. I don’t know how many decks you get out of a maple tree, but slowing down the rate of those guys coming down is all good with me. Maybe it’ll make guitars cheaper or something. Anyway, I’d like to find more of these boards and am having a hard time doing so. If anybody knows where I can get my hands on some, let me know. Thanks. justinjameyson@yahoo.com
May 1st, 2008 at 8:28 pm
When purchasing GripTape from China…importing from China to the US, what other costs would I incur besides the cost of the GripTape? %?
Is the cost already included in the price that the manufacture quotes me. If not, when/how do I pay it?
August 26th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Anyone try one of the Moose ones? Looks like it’s bamboo top and bamboo bottom. I’ve seen them on ebay through the seller tgm_skateboards
September 14th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
WHERE DO I BUY A 100% BAMBOO SKATEBOARD???????
September 28th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
We have a new brand of skateboards called BACKYARD BOARDZ. All of our decks are made of 100% bamboo and are made for street/bowl/vert!! The boards have been “real world” tested in it’s newest form for several months and have withstood the torture we give our boards better than Maple. Check us out on facebook for more information.
We are a very young business so please be patient with us. The response has been a bit overwhelming but we will be sure to respond to you as soon as we can. Pricing is still TBD however, it looks like our decks with graphics will be around the $50-$65 price range and our completes around $137 (that’s with the best designer trucks in the business)!
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Save the Earth…Ride Some Grass!
September 28th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
You can find more information about BACKYARD BOARDZ by going to http://www.facebook.com and searching - backyard boardz.
Or you can email us at; info@backyardboardz.com.
Thanks~
Save the Earth…Ride Some Grass!
October 19th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I am the owner of Board Luv, a artistic company that does custom art work on boards. I’m definitely looking to make my company very enviro-friendly with organic apparel, using non toxic water based paints, and switching to bamboo or other sustainable materials for longboards.Does anyone have any links or info on companies who do wholesale for cheaper than $80/deck or even sells the materials to press your own decks? Also a company on the east coast so we don’t contribute to more transport emissions shipping them. Thanks! Peep my site if you wana check out Board Luv work… http://boardluv.synthasite.com
October 20th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
I am so stoked bamboo is beginning to take off in the skate world. At ASR this year I ran into a company called BambooSk8 and they gave me one of their decks. Honestly, it better than just about every other deck on the market. It’s super light and strong. I usually break decks in about a month but I’ve had my bamboo sk8 deck for about two months now and it is still intact and as poppy as day one.
October 21st, 2008 at 6:08 pm
You’re a little too enthusiastic, almost as if you work for a company that sells bamboo skateboards…
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:09 am
Eko-boards now manufactures “green” bamboo skateboards made in the USA…for more information about the boards…write lwcummings@hotmail.com The boards are amazing!!