It’s been a while since we’ve had a new wackyboard™, but don’t worry. There’s no end in site. You can blame CAD and rapid prototyping for the products from Aris Sport. The ARIS stands for “Advanced Research in Sport,” so that would make their whole name Advanced Research in Sport Sport. It’s a surprisingly sophisticated variation of the paint roller-type truck configuration. The conical wheels aren’t a new development. I can’t find the picture right now (actually, here’s one) but there are already a few paint-roller type truck assemblies with a similar wheel profile. The way they managed to work the truck design in there looks nice. Not nice for skateboarding, mind you, but nice from an industrial design standpoint! They are heavy on the futuristic renderings where the boards look like plexiglass, but the actual prototypes look conventional. The Bladerunner series promisee to be “street carving redesigned.” Redesigned for what? From the looks of the renders, they are redesigned for the Bonneville salt flats. What’s with all the renders anyway? Well they aren’t being mass produced yet. If you feel like making it happen, you can check out their kickstarter page. I’m surprised that their prototypes are so polished. The marketing however, is cliche 101. Brace yourself for “We’ve reinvented the wheel,” “This changes everything,” “Join the revolution,” and (stifling gag reflex…) the phonetic spelling of carving complete with a dictionary definition.
– Thanks to Boy Ipoh for the tip.
13 comments
B. Yucc Petsch
I am an avid downhill longboarder. I’ve ridden many concept board prototypes and I happen to ride this one yesterday. I loved it!! I’d explain why, but nobody’s going to read this anyways.
Andrew
Project canceled yesterday, haha
skaterdave
I would try to buy one if I could remember my Personal Identification Number number and use it to get cash from an Automatic Teller Machine machine.
who cares anyway
why dont u just compromise someone else’s pin number and steal the money to buy that space aged polimer piece of shit
who cares anyway
G&S rollerballs couldnt scale a half pipe wall back in the 70’s…so why waste your minutes in this lifetime on that thing?
talentlessquitter
Looks slippery. How soft are those wheels, like 55A?
MC
By the way, is that pronounced arse?
MC
And there’s the Hobie Sundancer
Scotty
Damn, that’s a pretty crazy Solidworks 3D file they have going there in that photo you linked to.
Micah Breshears
It’s shit like this that makes skaters resent snowboarders. I’m so ashamed.
Flatlander
Do skaters really resent snowboarders? Isn’t there too much crossover? I mean, other than their dumbing down of skating and surfing (or, on the bright side, giving us a dude culture to feel superior to), what’s to resent?? And, even though many male snowboarders seem to be doooooooods, the greatest line I’ve heard at a skate park actually came from a cute young woman who later claimed to be quite the snowboarder. Who – when me and an older friend or relative of hers were discussing the “part stainless”? pipe for coping that he could get from his well-installing job, ’bout which he said “but it’s super slippery” – sidled over to us, and blurted out “You know what ELSE is slippery?” (Whereupon he said “…damn, now I can’t even remember what I was talking about…”, and she boasted “Yeapppp, that’s What I Do.”) And hell, who could resent such a creature? (Okay, other than some younger, social-retard skaters.) But, more to the point… snowboarding can hardly take the blame for this shameful device, cuz it so obviously fails the surfability/snowboardability test. The guy in the video can only carve with his feet, and doesn’t dare lean his body as much as his feet, because those trucks give it no-where near the “energy return” of a well-pressured edge. They need very progressive springs, or something.
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In fact, if, amongst the thumbnails displayed after that video finishes playing, you click on the snowboarding one titled “extreme carving”, it really points out how much more laid out snowboarding can be. Even looks damn fun. However, if they could put powder in the flat of a snowboard halfpipe, and have a huge extension to drop down to it from, such that you’d get enough speed out of a bottom turn to rocket back up the same side to the lip, then they’d REALLY have something. And, in skating, if they could make a short/tight enough transition on one curve of a snake run that you could finger-fuck a turn at high speed and rocket up to a copinged lip on the other bank… WE’d really have something. In other words, there’s something to be said for surfing. (Though not on thrusters, since they don’t carve for shit, or spin on the lip well.)
who cares anyway
thrusters carve…what the fuck are you on???