After riding surf boards pretty much exclusively with only the odd flat water freestyle day, for the last 3 years, I have been trying to find a board that feels like my good surfboards but doesn’t break within a week.
Production kite surf boards are stronger but being a surfer, they just feel heavy, stiff and lack the response and feel I want whilst on a wave, so I have pretty much stuck with standard surfboards meaning that if I went on a trip I would have to take at least 2 spares plus all my other boards and sizes to surf with, which meant loads of excess baggage.
After trying the new Resin8 Tokoro 6ft squash, I was just blown away by the response and feedback it gave me on the wave and it felt like I was riding one of my 4oz glass job surfboards! Feeling the lightness of it I thought, to get that sort of feel it wouldn’t last that long (even though they ride over one with a Humvee on the website!) and would soon have pressure dents and heel marks from constantly riding and jumping strapless with the kite.
I have now used it for around 70 hours over the last 21/2 months in everything from 2ft cross on 12m weather right up to triple overhead cross off on the 6 and can happily say, there isn’t a mark on it (apart from a small chip in the gellcoat from tapping my harness walking up the beach last week in 50knt gusts!), no heel dents or pressure dings! The way these new boards flex mean they are super responsive and the 6’0 Tokoro could possibly be the best performance strapless board out there for waves up to double overhead. I’m waiting for the 6’3 Tokoro semi gun to turn up which I think will be absolutely magic when it gets bigger as I am 6’2 - 87kg or if your smaller the Tokoro 61/2 pin will be the one for bigger stuff.
You can check out all the boards on www.resin8usa.com or buy through www.magicseaweed.com and for sure you won’t be disappointed.
You can now ride and travel safely knowing your board won’t give up on you the first time you do an air or get nailed by the barrel!
Resin8 are also working on bringing out a couple of boards with inserts, if you are interested or have any questions, just drop me a message through my website.
For pics of me riding the boards check out my website www.leepasty.co.uk
cheers
lee