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Skateboarding Product Reviews

Almost – Greg Lutzka (new Resin board test)

Rodders and Co. are always pushing for the progression of skateboarding and it’s material, so here are the brand new (and nowhere else for that matter!) Epoxy Resin decks. Basically The lab technicians at Almost have understood that skateboards are starting to take a serious battering nowadays, so the goods need to be tough, but not bulky. By replacing regular resins with this new Epoxy coating, the boards are stronger and lighter. Plus, you get the new 8 and 9 ply construction to boot for that little bit extra whilst still maintaining enough flex to forgive your sloppy skating!

When Crossfire received the Dukes of Hazard Greg Lutzka model, I set it up straight away and went for a fun push around. At a first glance the board is obviously lighter, and it took a couple of goes to get used to the extra pop. Once that was under control, the next thing I noticed was the concave. Having tried other boards from the Dwindle camp, I sort of knew that these planks weren’t going to have loads of concave. This new board has just enough (with straight rails and a slight dip behind the back bolts and above the front bolts for a “bolts” landing), but still feels pretty flat under your foot, so some people might find it less responsive than say an Alien Workshop deck.

Anyway, much like the weight, you get used to it, plus it works to a slight advantage in my case because a 7.75 board with size 10.5 feet requires a bit more space to move around upon. There’s nothing worse for a Bigfoot like me to feel like his feet are stuck in a bowl! A couple of extra specifics I noted was the paint job that slides pretty much straight away- no flakey ripple crap here, and the board took a couple of direct hits to the nose without indenting or chipping away.

I might have to get my gnarly boots back and attempt some lemming-esque stunts to really test the strength of this Epoxy stuff, but so far the board hasn’t flexed or twisted unnaturally. Don’t forget that Rodney usually pioneers and directs where skateboarding is heading, so get you hands on one of these and feel the future…

For more info on the Almost Team, get yourself over to www.almostawebsite.com

Click the names to view Crossfire’s Rodney Mullen and Greg Lutzka interviews.

Ralph Lloyd-Davis
25/01/2006