Desktop Computers: Carver Trucks

Saturday, 17 November 2012

Carver Trucks

It all started one quiet summer in Venice, California. Greg Falk and Neil Carver had been surfing all winter, and were pumped to surf the warm waters of the Breakwater in the long days of summertime, but it was flat as a puddle. Not even a longboard ripple to justify getting wet. So, like many generations before them, they took to the streets with skateboards in search of hills to surf. The historic neighborhoods of Venice and Santa Monica are a veritable skate park of steep alleys and banks, and as they dropped in on these asphalt waves they were struck with how unlike surfing it was. Sure, they sort of got a surf-like experience, as much as standing on a board and banking turns can provide, but they really missed the snap that a surfboard has, that crisp pivot you get at the tail that lets you really pump a wave for speed. Their skateboards felt stiff by comparison. But as they loosened the trucks, all they got was speed wobble, and the steepest hills became virtually un-skateable. Even with loose trucks, the dynamic of the turn was still all rail-to-rail, and picking up the nose in a tic-tac at high speed down a steep incline wasn't ideal.