My brother found this strange looking board at the Goodwill bins, and I was flabbergasted enough to give him the OK to buy it for me.
The image on the left is the top of the board, where the wood is pinched to be snowboard like, and the hardware holes is strangely to the side. The right image showcases the weirdness in full glory, 14 wheels in rainbow trucks, and the snazziest board deck that I have so far. The length from what I can gather is supposed to be the standard size of 36", and that's me comparing to data full of citations needed on wikipedia. Not to be confused with a different flowboard, which mainly brings the skateboard handling to the waves. It brings the surf/skating experience onto the street, which for me is a definite plus given that snowboarding is way too expensive and heavily weighted with seasonal tourism. Plus, it also gives me similar vibes to SSX3's skateboard deck cosmetic.
The history from what I can gather is a little spotty and kinda biased from what I can tell. Here's a crusty X-Games demo of the flowboard in 2004, and the little activity that I've seen about these things ranges from being an April fools joke to one Reddit thread describing them as gimmicky toys. Seems like it was a 'fad'-ish thing that was copycatting without realizing the reason why skateboarding was popular. The skate crowd as usual points and laughs all the wheels off of this thing and sticks to their tried and true popsicle boards, but I think that was just a sense of bad market specialization. Although this isn't the first time the skateboarding industry booted something out of their turf by labeling it as lame, looking at inline skating history in regards to X-Games and skate mags, they were turning those into punching bags. That's a topic that I could talk later, lets get back to Flowboards.
The main point of the board is that it can carve like a snowboard, up to 45 degrees and you can still roll on it! Compared to the limited carving that you can do on a regular skateboard before you either have to pivot, it gives people like me who try to stay on the board as long as possible some leeway. It also means that sharp turns won't deduct your speed, but that's on me for wearing loose trucks, it's loose enough that the wheels grind with the deck. It also smoothens your turns like a longboard, but with better ease due to 5 other wheels ready to catch you.
The board's fatter than a regular skateboard, being 9" across. Me being the skate weirdo that I am, I tend to ride bigger boards, like up to 10.5" and 9.5" popsicle style, so this just seems nothing out of the ordinary. Handing is a bit shaky the first time I tried to push off, but if you push off with your front foot diagonal to the 'truck', it'll stabilize. If you're a mongo survivor, I can only theorize how this thing would handle. Speaking of pushing off, the wheels are pretty heavy to get going, but that's a given that you may not be spinning the exact wheels that you're standing on. It also may be that the previous owner replaced the wheels with street hockey wheels? Imagine going to the skateshop with this heavy thing, watch your step, Eggzilla.
So far, there's only 3 ways to stop that I found so far, tailslide, foot brake, or wipe out. I tried my best to emulate a powerslide, but I started to go sideways. It's also heavier to kick up the board with the "Deep Carve System" that some boards are labeled with having. I have yet to get to a skatepark to try what few moves I do know how to do, so I'll probably make another entry to explain. Hopefully nobody at the skateshops in the mall ask too many questions, because those are probably the last few interesting stores that I peek every time I do. Getting proper wheel replacements and equipping them is going to be an adventure, my wallet would be SQUEEZED dry for having to buy 2.5 skateboards worth of wheels.
For doing tricks on this, Flips and stalls are probably fair game, though it's the grinds that get tricky. Any truck grind is more likely going to end in a Tightrope slide, since you have to wedge a rail in between the multiple wheels, which will roll you anyway. Freestyling on this would be something to see, if only to gawk and laugh at the absurdity of giving an honest effort for it.
If by chance there's anybody who stumbles upon this blog also looking for info on this through searches, good luck. Remember, it's only rare if it's in few quantities and people want it, this flowboard isn't rare because there's scant coverage of the thing in the first place, and it probably was in stores like the other novelty boards like it.
