05.13.07
Posted in Blogroll at 7:06 pm by kevincw01
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I heard about this thing called the “Rip Stick” from a B-1 pilot and thought it sounded fun. It turns out that there’s 2 companies (at least) that make them and the other company calls it “The Wave”. They were both on sale for $89 at Sports Authority and they look almost identical. The Wave, only comes in silver and looks a bit bigger and possibly more sturdy, so I got that one since it seemed like the manly thing to do.
Before I bought it, I had read some online reviews and they all came to the same conclusion: Hard to learn, but once you get it, it’s really fun and similar to surfing and snowboarding. I ripped the thing out of the box as fast as possible (passing up the instructional dvd) and set it down on my sidewalk to get going.
The reviews were right, getting the thing going seems completely impossible at first. It basically a slim skate board with 2 wheels that pivot like office chair wheels(360 degrees). The catch is that the center of the board has a spring loaded pipe that can twist 45 degrees in each direction. Picture yourself standing with your right foot heal up and your left foot toes up and that’s how this twistable pipe works on the board. By rotating the pipe using your ankles and at the same time cutting the tail in front and in back of you, the board starts going. It suffers from a similar problem that snowboarding and surfing does in that if you don’t go fast enough, you can’t balance and fall over. Starting is the hardest since you need to balance with you right foot while you place your left foot. And there’s no changing of your stance once you’re on because the board will move with your foot if you try and move it.
Anyways, 5 minutes into the learning process and I hand the basics down and it was really fun. Only thing I noticed was that after about 30 minutes of use the back wheel was pretty beat up from the asphalt street in front of my house. I’m guessing I’ll have to replace the wheels with a harder set in a couple weeks.
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Mark said,
August 15, 2007 at 10:13 am
The back wheel gets beat up the fastest but to make the wheels last longer you should take the back wheel and put it in the front and take the front wheel and put it in the back. So basically switch them every once in a while. Don’t wait till the back wheel is totally beat, by then it’ll be too late and you’ll need new wheels.
ananyomous said,
October 11, 2007 at 6:18 pm
what will happen if i ride my wave board with worn out wheels?
lp said,
December 10, 2007 at 3:18 pm
the wheels will get all bumpy and it will catch you off balance and u wil stop. but not fall unless u have really bad balance!
sh said,
February 2, 2008 at 9:28 pm
my back wheel is like flat and my front wheel hasnt changed much since i bought it but i dont know if i should buy some now just in case or whait till they both look the same after i switch them. any sugestions????
kevincw01 said,
February 3, 2008 at 8:03 am
i’d replace the back one and then rotate them from front to back every once in a while so they stay the same size. Then you can replace both when they get small.