consumer wrote:I think Dre would agree that we admire Dereck (DC)'s approach - he's listening to and watching the new school/ wake style riders . They want a "simple", bomber board. It should be able to handle the abuse of riding on features/rocks/beach with a booted and lit 185lber, and have controllable, smooth pop. It gets frustrating when you spend 700$ and break a board every 3 months riding it in a way that is exciting (features).
DC is paying attention and he's delivering. The board even looks pretty killer. You get excited to ride it just by looking at it. - Of course this is my opinion.
No gimmicks. No !new and updated for 2013! BS. Just simplicity and reliability.
Not to say no one else is doing this, but it never hurts to compliment someone and Dereck kicks ass. Super happy to hear that my favorite kiteboarder of all time is showing his support. If there were sports cards for Kiteboarding I would definitely hoarde Andre Phillip ones.
Consumer, you are almost spot on here. Dereck is watching and listening but he's not just watching wakestyle, he is looking and listening to people who kiteboard. We at Tona are focused on building boards that feel good whether you do carves or going through chop, the boards are also designed to have great POP and soften up those hard landings but at the same time they are built to be extra durable in case you want to hit ramps and rails or just like to ride up the beach.
They feel great no matter how you are attached to them (boots or straps).
At Tona we have a real shaper who has been hand shaping boards for 20+ years and we spend lots of time prototyping and testing shapes. We don't have corporate deadlines so we can take our time and R&D a product until it's ready.
Want to look under the hood of Tona?
http://www.adrenalinehottub.com/tona-bo ... -by-storm/
Tona isn't your conventional kiteboarding brand who has been birthed from a windsurf brand (not saying that that is a bad thing) but we have different ideas and different visions. We have roots in all of the board sports like surfing, skating, wakeboarding, snowboarding and windsurfing so we draw much inspiration from all but our main focus is to create products that feel and work well but are durable.... cutting out all the bullshit gimics and tassels.
I'd like to thank everyone again for all of the support! We love to ride and create here at Tona so expect to see some good things come from our camp.
www.tonalife.com
www.facebook.com/tonaboards