lib tech dont build carving boards tho. so it would seem are more consumer driven. carving and boardercross imo are asthetic and relevant tecniques. flip tricks and big air are a current trend but no more relevent or difficult to master then other styles of boarding
“The biggest and most important extreme sport event, the X Games, were held for the 16th time in Aspen from 26th to 29th January, 2012, and Kessler boarders were once again extremely successful. Nate Holland (USA) followed on from his win at the last SBX World Cup and secured 1st place in the competition in Aspen. After Norway’s Stian Sivertzen tumbled, Holland took the lead and confidently won the gold medal. Sivertzen’s compatriot, Jayson Hale (USA) was able to make his way through the chaos and won the bronze medal for Kessler. Unfortunately, Lindsey Jacobellis was sidelined for the women’s SBX contest due to an injury. However, Alexandra Jekova (BUL) delivered another medal winning performance, as per her previous World Cups, and made her way to the victory podium for Kessler winning the silver medal. The result: Kessler cleans up the medals at the Winter X Games in Aspen winning more than 50% of the awarded medals.”
The important thing here is the tech. And I have to hope / wonder if LIB will pimp their tech like other companies, offering other shapers designs built in the LIB tech process?
Their snowboards are INCREDIBLE - most innovative brand on the hill, so I’m very excited to see these surfboards in action! Sounds a lot like the same kind of construction they use for snowboards (ie: heat/pressure mold or some method fusing all components together in a press
Certainly takes the “shaping” aspect out of it, but man I’m excited about this. If their surfboards are anything like their snowboards, these things will become the wave of the future (libtech is the company that gave snowboarding reverse camber, reverse sidecut and magnetraction: all of which are being copied by other companies as a standard now).
and I’ll bet the concave deck is interesting too - wonder if thats aimed at paddling control or if they’re taking a page out of skateboard tech and hoping it will allow for easier kickflips on surfboards
Weather we like it or not I have a feeling surfboard materials and tech are about to blow up. I worked in the snowboard industry for a while and they practically have NASA levels of engineering and tech going into there boards. Who know’s 20 yrs from now the snowboard industry could be feeding off surfboard tech. Its a constant evolution of learning from are past materials and shape and progessing that to the future.
I’m really surprised no mag that I know of has done a hands on review of the boards yet.
I do think they’re taking a step in the right direction, but to really progress the sport and the materials we use someone needs to take a scientific approach and test each individual material to see what its merits and downfalls are. Kind of like what some people on sways do.
That being said, I’d love to get my hands on one and try it out. I’d also love to see them take other shaper’s shapes and produce them with the same technology, just to see if all these fancy new materials actually make a difference.
It is nice to see someone use technology from another industry in mass produced surfboards. It’s been too many years of foam and fiberglass. (Although so far that’s worked pretty well…)
thanks for the vid. Any new tech is going to have some kinks to iron out but knowing its the Lib guys I’m sure they will be on top of that. I would love to see them do some collabs with other shapers down the road as well. Still hoping for a valid trustworthy review. Lib Tech has built a snowboarding empire and has done it the right way, not out sourcing and hand bulding there products here in the US. They could easilly afford to sponsor any big name pro but from what I’ve read they don’t want to do that, they want to start with a whole new younger gen of rippers and bring them up.