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WATERSKI Magazine
Maybe you'll never ride like Scott Byerly. Maybe you don't even know who Scott Byerly is. Whoever you are, you still want to ride and you still want the board that's best for you.
Almost every board we evaluated for 1998 was good for someone, and most of them were good for almost everyone. If you had to, you could make any of the boards in this test work. But since you want to ride your best, what you really need to do is find the board that's best for your type of riding. The hard part is deciding which type of rider you are or want to be. Once you know, choosing a board is easy.
Big Guy
We know you. You look at Wake Boarding magazine, or even the riders on your lake, and you think, “These punks only weigh 150 pounds at most. How could a board for them possibly work for me?” Well, rest assured there are boards for you. You are typically an aggressive rider – you cut hard, you hold on, you surf the wake, and you want to try for big air. Basically you need a board that has enough surface area to pop you out of the water and keep you “afloat” without having to ride at slalom speeds. While length is probably most important for a big rider's confidence, width is more important for actual performance. You need a board wide enough that your toes don't drag on front-side cuts.
Top Big-Guy Boards:
Blindside Charley 142
Full Tilt Thomas Horrell
Hyperlite 142 Lavelle
Honeycomb
Iconn Launch 2000 142
Liquid Force Superfly 44
Neptune GTO
O'Brien Crow 57
Wake Tech Byerly
Surf Style
Yeah, yeah, yeah – wakeboarding is about big air. But sometimes you just like to smack the lip, pull hard carves, butter slide and S-turn across the lake. You probably surf, or maybe you just like the surfing sensation. Depending on your surf style – either gentle turning or powerful carves and slashing cuts, the board you need will have specific design characteristics.
The narrower the tip and tail widths, the better the board will surf. Wide tips and tails are great for launching off the wake, but on surfing the wake, wide tips get caught. What you want is maneuverability on the surface of the water, not in the air, and a pulled-in tip gives that. Also, look for edges that are thicker (less apt to catch) and possibly less sharp. The goal of a surf-style rider should be to get a board that won't catch a rail while maneuvering.
Top Surf-Style Boards:
Blindside Five-0
CWB Twist 142
FM Orbital
Full Tilt Mike Weddington
Mega Man 140
Hyperlite 141 Shapiro
Liquid Force Shane Bonifay
Mini Squirt
NBN Josh Smith
Neptune Luxury
O'Brien Phatty
Rusty Hustler 55
Rusty Swinger 54
Wake Tech Byerly Blunt
Inverts
Basically, you rip. Roll to revert – no problem. Scarecrow – easy. Raleys – overrated. You are probably one of the best if not the best guy on the lake. A board good for inverts generally has three defining characteristics: good speed into the wake, good pop off the wake and a light feel in the air. Obviously, you need speed and pop to get the distance and height for your moves and a light swing weight in the tip and tail to make the board easy to “throw around” in the air.
Top Invert Boards:
Blindside Charley 142
CWB Twist 142
Hyperlite 137 Murray
Honeycomb
Hyperlite 141 Shapiro
Iconn Launch 2000 142
Liquid Force Shane Bonifay
Mini Squirt
NBN Josh Smith
O'Brien Crow 57
O'Brien Phatty
Rusty Hustler 55
Rusty Swinger 54
Wake Tech Byerly
Spinner
If you are a “spinner,” you know how different your style is from that of most wakeboarders. You are sticking 360s frontside and backside. You look at the occasional 540, and you are just as comfortable riding switch-stance as regular. The boards that work best for your style of riding are short and wide. They launch you up more than out, giving you the time and control to throw a spin. Also, we've noticed boards with slightly more forgiving edges (less razor-sharp) are easier to land on spin moves.
Top Spinner Boards:
Blindside Five-0
CWB Twist 142
FM Orbital
Full Tilt Cobe Mikacich
Ocean 144
Full Tilt Mike Weddington
Mega Man 140
Hyperlite 137 Murray
Honeycomb
Hyperlite 142 Lavelle
Honeycomb
Liquid Force Shane Bonifay
Mini Squirt
O'Brien Phatty
Rusty Swinger 54
Wake Tech Byerly Blunt
Recreational
You wakeboard, but it's not your life's ambition to land a back roll or even a wake-to-wake 180 – you do it for fun and like to play around on the things. You need an all-around board – one that is easy to learn and progress on, one that surfs well, jumps easy and spins. It also needs to be durable and, since more than one rider is likely to use it, versatile. Of course, there are many other recreational boards available – especially considering the boards we tested here were the newest, hottest high-end models. But you might as well start at
the top.
Top Recreational Boards:
CWB Twist 142
Iconn Scarecrow 142
Liquid Force Superfly 44
O'Brien Crow 57
O'Brien Phatty
Rusty Hustler
Big-Air Rider
You may not be pulling the big-name moves but on a straight jump or a stylish grab, no one goes bigger. You crank on the line and end up way in the flats. You need a board with supreme edging and major lift. While most boards say they have this, very few boards actually deliver. Look for a combination of long rail line (to give you good edge control into the wake) as well as good width in the center and tail for pop. Go for the crispest, sharpest rails you can find because they will help you generate speed into the wake.
Top Big-Air Boards:
Blindside Charley 142
Blindside Five-0
CWB Twist 142
FM Orbital
Full Tilt Cobe Mikacich
Ocean 144
Hyperlite 142 Lavelle
Honeycomb
Iconn Launch 2000 142
Liquid Force Superfly 44
NBN Josh Smith
Neptune GTO
Neptune Luxury
Neptune Rally
O'Brien Crow 57
O'Brien Heretic
Rusty Hustler 55
Wake Tech Byerly
Women and Small Riders
The good news is almost any board can work for small riders. Little Shane Bonifay and Froggy Soven have proven that in the competitive arena by using full-size boards (before high-performance smaller boards were being made). Lightweight riders now have a variety of choices. And the board doesn't just have to be smaller. It should be lighter, softer and have inserts to accommodate a narrower stance.
Top Lightweight Riders' Boards:
Blindside Five-0
CWB T2 142
CWB Twist 142
FM Orbital
Hyperlite 137 Murray
Honeycomb
Hyperlite 141 Shapiro
Iconn Scarecrow 142
Liquid Force Shane Bonifay
Mini Squirt
NBN Josh Smith
Neptune Luxury
O'Brien Heretic
Wake Tech Byerly Blunt
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