Congratualtions with the best freestyletest I have ever seen. Just by testing the boards with propper fins for the different jobs you outclass everyone. But this is just the start. Your grouping and focus is so right.

I have just one question:
Where do you put the straps in the boards and how do you descide where to put them?
I have the 09 RRD and my straps are all to the front. I would be interrested to know where you put the straps in that particular board.

Kind regards
Asle

Yeah you guys really did do a more detailed test on a board category that never seams to get the same amount of attention that wave or freeride boards get. If I had to pick a board to get from this years line up just by your guys's reports then I'd go with the Skate, Joker RD, Flare, RRD, JP, and Goya in that order. I've got a '08 Skate 97 standard edition at the moment. I'm curious to see how the 2010 skate will turn out with Brawzinho on Fanatic and all. Mistrals website claims that the Joker was designed by him. I'm thinking a Skate on crack. sounds like way too much fun.

Asle did bring up a good question about detailed test setups though. Seeing as you guys are posting all of this stuff up online it seams like you guys could put up a lot more stuff in the wright ups. You guys touch on it but left out footstrap positioning. Maybe adding in some more stuff on personal preferences in the wright ups like rider weights/water conditions just to try and rub out the gray areas for everybody.

Question, will you guys be doing fin tests next year? I figured that after the clones are done testing out the boards you could have a clone take out the board he/she likes best and then start a fin review. I'd love to know the differences between all of the 20cm freestyle fins out there.

Hi Guys, thanks for the comments on the test - glad you found it useful.

With regard to foot strap positions, we usually set the straps up around second from the front for the front strap and second from the back for the back strap as most of us clones prefer a wider stance.

However, we measure all the strap positions of the boards before we use them, so if a board for instance has a wider/narrower spread, we may compensate for this by choosing different strap positions.

We then try the board out and go from there. Mostly we dont re-adjust the strap positions unless there is a specific need eg the board feels like it needs to engage more rail in a bottom turn, or needs weight further back for blasting etc.

On most boards, whilst the strap positioning makes a bit of difference, we believe that as long as we dont go to extremes (all at the front or all at the back), changing the straps a cm or so is unlikely to change the test results massively.

A good recommendation would be to set your back strap up in a position that works well (in relation to fin etc) - usually this is between middle and back position and then set the front strap based upon what spread you like (how long your legs are).

With regard to the RRD specifically, I have to admit that I cant remember the exact holes we used! I remember setting it up as described above - and then we tried bringing the straps back to see if it livened it up in a straight line. Personally, I would be a bit wary of using the front strap positions as you describe, particularly on the RRD - do you not feel the board feels quite dead and stuck to the water with this set-up?

Jon, with regard to writing more info on set-ups etc, its a question of time. It takes Adrian about 4 hours per board to collate the data and write the report. Plus there is the time it takes to sort the pictures, and do the graphic design of the page - when you multiply this across 6-10 boards, its a heck of a lot of time! Probably why most other mags only write a paragraph or two!

A lot of board set-up is down to personal preference and whilst we try to mention any significant factors, at this stage it would be too big a job for us to mention the personal prefernce of each clone and every set of conditions we tried the boards in.

However we are willing to answer any specific questions on this forum, so if you have any grey areas, just ask here!

Thanks for the reply, makes sense now considering there's only one guy writing up the reports online. for one guy doing all thats alot. you guys still end up with one of the best reviews out there regardless.

Thanks for your answer!
The reason for putting the straps to the front is on mister Jem Halls recomondation on the earlier Twintips I had and this has worked fine. I will try them one or two holes back just to see what happends to the new board. Mister John Skye mentioned in an other forum that he likes his stance narrow for freestyle and wide for waves.

I think your write up in the tests are detailed enugh. As you say, you follow up questions in this forum. This makes you package even better!

Thanks again!

Kind regards
Asle

Yes, nice test.

But I would like to know how the boards do early planing wise, i.e. for me personally I would like to know especially how the Twintip does at that.

Thanks,

Greetings from Holland

bump

Sorry, it seems I overlooked this previously.

Early planing was not officially tested and reported in the freestyle test. This is because having finished everything else in the test, we needed one more light wind day (with enough wind to get planing). We waited nearly 3 weeks with no luck and then test editor Adrian managed to break his ankle whilst doing photographs for the 4.7 sail test that we have coming up.

Adrian likes to be involved in all the testing that is done (as it is him who has to write it up) and having waited so long already for a suitable day to test early planing, we decided to release the test without specifically scoring this catagory.

In reality, we spent a lot of time on the water on all the boards in a good range of conditions and could have a fair estimate at which order they would rank, but we do not wish to score them unless we do a specific early planing test to be sure.

Its fair to say that there is not a huge difference between them. A good sailor will compensate for the small difference with good technique and a less skilled sailor could compensate by using a bigger fin. The best early planing boards in the test, re likely to be the JP, Fanatic and Goya. The Mistral and Starboard are a bit smaller and the RRD is slightly more planted as described in the test.

Ok, thanks for clearing that up!

Hey guys,

First of all, congratutions on some great tests, I really like your style. Secondly, I have a rather specific question to a clone concerning your freestyle test.

In my home spot, flatwater conditions are the rule, so up until now I was a pure freerider, however as I'm mastering jibes I'm looking into more maneuvering and especially I'm looking into a budget sail that is easy to do some very basic freestyle with whilst maintaining a fairly good top speed. Enter gun sails nexus 2008. On the web I read various things about this sail. Some say it is good/some say it is bad for basic freestyle maneuvres. Since you've used this sail in your test, what are your experiences using the nexus (especially size 6.1) for tricks.

thanks a lot!

Hi Sunchyme

If you are after a combination of Freeride/Freestyle with the bias more towards freeride, the Nexus will be fine. As you can see from the test pictures, we were able to pull off freestyle moves with the sail no problem. However if you really want to move into freestyle, you are probably better looking at the Torro, which has one less batten and more of a leaning towards freestyle.

The Nexus is a little stiff (partly due to the number of battens) for full freestyle performance.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the reply, that's all I really needed to know. I will never be a real freestyler as that takes too much time probably, I'll just look into things like duck gybe, slam gybe, carve 360's things like that. The nexus is thus the way to go for me. You need to keep on doing these tests, they are the best I've read especially the way you take away as many variables as possible and preventing actually picking a real winner. You present the truth. And you are clones, how cool is that xD