Railz may look familiar to anyone who remembers Ice Blades from the late 70’s and 80’s. Another company called Zema made a version in the late 80’s and 90’s. This decade has even seen a few replacement trusses with two inline skating wheels instead of the ice skating blade, not to mention a host of other wacky wheel replacements.

Now you can buy Railz as a conversion or a complete board. Basically little snowboards that you attach in place of wheels. There’s an additional suspension kit that does something, I’m sure. Railz look like they’re made for hard pack, and apparently there are a few resorts that allow them. As if snowboarders didn’t have enough of a stigma using chairlifts, Imagine toating your snow-railz-board with a leash. It’s embarassing to find out about these products from the mainstream media. Come people. Step up! Gizmodo doesn’t cover these things nearly as obsessively as skate geeks demand.

Remember Santa Cruz’s ill-fated foam core decks? After they sat on the shelf for months, our local shop basically sold them for the cost of Naked Decks to get rid of them. Let’s go back to the future. Somehow I ended up on the CCS email list. I don’t know how or why. I’ve never bought anything from them. I save all the catalogs becasue I like the pretty pictures of all the skateboard graphics. They even got me on email. The newest email is all about Hi-Tech Decks. Since I’m still waiting for that scan of the Wheelieboard I need to amuse myself with current wacky skateboard technology instead of retro chic. Besides, I’m gunning for a Gizmodo.com comments invite. They have a skateboard category for crying out loud.

I’m still waiting for someone to send in a pic of the Wheelieboard, so I’ll post this for now. Plastic skateboards were a dime a dozen, so you had to do something to distinguish yourself. The longrider comes to you courtesy of an eBay auction a year or so ago. Right now the only place they are showing up is on defunct Australian eBay auctions. The colorized black and white picture comes from a cool Australian skate zine called GaP, which you can download. It’s in issue one, which dates back to 2005. You can see larger pics and the auction description which is packed with a surprising amount of background info on this 1983 vintage board after the jump.

Balance boards? Ok, they can be fun indoors if it’s raining. I suppose they actually do help your balance skills. Enter the iJoy, a motorized balance board. This decade’s mechanical bull or just plain old bull? The illustration of the “bad Idea” is from the product’s owner’s manual. Nice use of lowercase “i” to imply it’s somehow internet/iPod related.

Product Page [copped from ConcreteWaveMagazine.com]

The plot thickens! Digging a little deeper than the not-so-skateboard-obsessed Gizmodo, I came across the UK based parent company for the USurfer. (U Suffer? Har har..) named Urban Mover. Remember the BMW Streetcarver? Well apparently Urban Mover does. They offer not one, but two models based on Streetcarver over-engineering.

No more kicking on that skateboard to get you around! Try the new environmental and pocketbook friendly transportation.

Err.. yeah. Whatever. Yet another electric skateboard enters the market. Taking design cues from it’s gasoline powered brethren, the Urban Surfer has an ugly wad stuck on the tail of an otherwise stock looking mountain board. $1200 Australina or about $700 USD. If you are going to go electric you stand less of a chance looking like a dork on one of these. USurfer might have better endurance though. Someone over at Gizmodo.com used to skate. They like to cover this stuff now and then with the familiar air of “I used to skateboard as a teenager until I fell off and broke my arm.”

Video – Product Page [Extreme(!) Toys for Boys, via Gizmodo]