Newest Wacky board

There’s a new wackyboard in town, and it’s called the Soul Arc board. I’m not sure why everyone keeps feeling the need to further refine the basic skateboard in hopes of more accurately mimicking the surf or snow covered slopes. I think the skateboard does a fine job as is, but then again the world would be a dull place if we never tried anything new. These guys may have loused up a perfectly good skateboard, but they might be actually onto something as far as getting closer to the feel of steering like forefather and son of skateboarding, surfing and snowboarding respectively.

[Source: The Skateboarders Journal]

What we have here are two truck setups mounted on flexible leaf spring spring, with a more traditional hard board attached on top. It’s almost as if they attached an oversized 80’s style fish board on top of a 70’s style slalom board that has a super exaggerated camber.

What cracks me up is that these ventures inevitably invoke the word “soul” in the promo copy or product name to associate it with surfing and carving, and then end up with a picture of the invention in a bowl somewhere, as if to say “please take me seriously!” to the vast majority of the skateboarding population that has absolutely no interest in boards like these. It looks fun though. I’d like to give one a try just to see how it feels.

Here’s a video report from the Grand Rapids Press in Michigan, that also has a short article online.

There’s a design site called Core77 that has more pictures that don’t seem to be on the offcial Soul Arc site right now. Looks like you can actually ollie that thing! (– Thanks to Tracy Sigler for the tip.)

Soul Arc is supposed to be open for business at the end of this month. No word on pricing, but it’s got to be steep.