YOW has established itself in a few years as one of the biggest brands of surfboards.
Alongside CARVER, the brand offers a wide range of boards equipped with an articulated truck for pumping: the YOW Meraki.
Presentation of this Spanish brand to understand who these boards are dedicated to.
YOW : Your Own Wave
For those who are interested in surfing, YOW is an unmissable brand, if only because of the depth of its board range.
Strongly inspired by the world of surfing, its spots, and its pros riders, the boards of surfskate YOW have for vocation to recreate the sensations of surfing on the asphalt.
In 7 years, YOW has become one of the leading brands, as well as CARVER, thanks to its truck articulated, the YOW Meraki. Over the years, the system of truck has been refined, lightened and it has gained in robustness.
Today, YOW offers one of the widest and most diverse ranges of surfskate.
For the record, YOW is not a brand that came from nowhere since it is the same company behind the skateboard brands JART, FLIP or PLAN B or the longboard brand LONG ISLAND. In short, we are not dealing with beginners and it is felt in the quality of the material.
A YOW Surfskate : what for ?
YOW offers a very wide range of boards equipped with its truck articulated YOW Meraki. The specificity of the trucks articulated surfboards is that they offer an extremely small turning radius and a return of force that generates speed when carving.
These boards are dedicated to a practice of surf-style and pumping above all. This means that they are suitable for those who are looking for the feeling of surf on the asphalt and for skaters who want to move while pumping, without pushing with the foot.
These modes of practice can be extended since YOW boards are really perfect for pumptrack sessions and also for aggressive moves in curves at skatepark.
For pumptrack in particular, the surf skates with truck articulated allow to catch a bad curve in the raised turns and to pump without pushing between the turns. For everyday travel, YOW Surfskates allow you to move forward by doing only the coolest thing: carver.
Truck YOW Meraki : particularities
The truck YOW Meraki differs from its competitors by several aspects.
Meraki S4 or S5. First of all, it should be noted that the truck YOW Meraki is available in 2 versions: S4 and S5. The number corresponds here to the diameter in millimeters of the spring which ensures the pivot inside the truck. The thicker spring (S5) offers more rigidity and is more adapted to heavy sizes. If the YOW range includes about twenty Surfskates, only a handful of them are equipped with the truck S4. The latter are technically more suitable for light weights.
In any case, the truck YOW Meraki is very flexible. Even the S5 version is more flexible than the models of other brands, and in particular the truck CARVER C7. It offers more fluidity in the pumping movement but also less stability.
This does not mean that it is more adapted to a particular practice. The choice of truck is above all a matter of taste, and opinions between brands are generally very divided.
Anyway, the truck YOW Meraki is not adjustable, so you should choose the size of the spring (4 or 5mm) when you buy it, a size that you will not be able to change afterwards. Indeed, the spring being locked in a cage inside the system, each truck is forged according to the diameter of the spring it will receive and is therefore not modifiable.
Assembly. Whatever the version of the front truck you choose, all surfskate YOW boards are equipped with the same trucks rear, mounted on the same pads risers.
Surfskate YOW : URA wheels
All the boards of surfskate YOW are equipped with URA wheels manufactured especially for this mode of practice. The URA Wheels 66mm of YOW are developed to offer a good compromise in order to adapt to the various disciplines that a surfskate allows to approach.
Of medium size, they accelerate enough to be efficient in carving and pumptrack. They are still big enough to move around on a daily basis with minimal effort to maintain speed.
With their 80a hardness, they offer enough bounce for pumping while being comfortable for cruising on all types of asphalt.
Finally, the combination of the surface in contact with the ground and the rubber used makes it possible to obtain a good compromise to adhere in carving, while sliding well during the moves of surf.
If you like skatepark and slides, you can opt for a set of wheels from slide, but the URAs will do a great job for all programs.