Review: Gravity 42″ Bamboo Spoon Nose
Gravity 42" Bamboo Spoon. Radicalness and flow incarnate.
After seeing the rad video that Gravity recently posted of Robbie Lyons riding the 42″ Spoon Nose, I decided I had to try this board out. I’ve been riding my no-kicktail downhill boards almost exclusively for many months now, and had just felt the need to use a kicktail again.
After a conversation with Gravitiy, and a little PayPal action, I had the board. I had them send me the same setup that Robbie used in the video – Tracker 149s, wedge risers, and white Gravity Burners.
I’ve been riding this board in a number of locations over the last 3 weeks. A gnarly ditch with only about 3 feet of flatbottom, some buttery smooth mellow downhill streets, and the usual hill here I skate a lot. First, I was impressed with the way this setup performed in that ditch. 42″ is short enough (at least for me) to sling it around pretty easily in a ditch. The board has just enough flex to feel really nice, but it isn’t bouncy at all. It is plenty stiff for ditch riding. I weigh (today) a little over 210 pounds, and it is pretty stiff. If you weigh less, it will absorb some shock but that’s about all.
Just to give you a little more idea of the board’s ditch/transition functionality: Like I said, this ditch had only about 3 feel of flatbottom. Walls about 6″ high, and actually pretty steep. Transitions were good, but not curved. The whole ditch is about 100 yard long, and slightly downhill. A really good surf-style ditch. Oh — good roll-out/Drop-in lips on either side, the lenght of the ditch. Sweet. Even with only 3 feet of flat, by hitting the transitions at an angle this 42″ board went up and down the walls very smoothly. I can say without a doubt it handled this ditch better than any other board in my quiver would have, including my Libtech longboard. By stalling at the top of one wall and going fakie at an angle, going up the next wall backwards and into a fakie 360 was also quite easy. So this board and setup passed the ditch test with flying colors. Wish I’d gotten some video footage, but it was well over 100 degrees F that day, and we were just trying to skate and survive.
Stalefish grabbing carve, on the 42" Spoon. Click for full-size. This board is good for everything.
Riding down a hill, this board is also pretty nice. I’ve been riding a my Comet drop-through boards a lot for the past year, so it took a little while to get used to the higher-riding board, but not too long.
The board has very functional wheel wells. You can ride your trucks pretty lose and not get significant wheel bite. They might rub a little bit, but not enough to be a problem. Keep in mind I’m using Trackers, wedge risers, and 66mm wheels. With this truck and riser combination I wouldn’t go over 66mm. You could run 70mm wheels on it, but I think you’d need to tighten up the trucks quite a bit, and that wouldn’t be as fun.
This board has a very simple shape, but it is functional. The nose is slightly upturned, and the board has a very mild concave. Enough concave to help out, but not enough to really make your feet feel too locked in. In other words, it’s very easy to move your feet around for board-walking tricks. The nose is long enough to be functional. I like to do pivots off the nose to fakie a lot, and the nose is long enough and wide enough that you don’t feel like you’re going to slip off (that’s what she said), when doing a pivot. The tail has a good angle, and is long enough to provide really good leverage for kickturns, etc.
Carving it up with a spoon. Fun.
The 42″ Spoon comes with a clear grip surface. If you are familiar with the clear grip surface on Loaded boards, this is nothing like it. The clear grip surface on the Gravity 42″ Spoon is much rougher and grippier. It does the job. I don’t say that to slag Loaded. I love Loaded. Great guys and true innovators. I’ve just never liked their clear grip. To the touch, the Gravity board’s clear grip actually feels rougher than normal grip tape, with larger grains in the grip. Weirdly though, it isn’t hard to move your feet around on it, so it is easy to do board walking, or simply to reposition your feet. I wouldn’t say it is superior to normal grip tape, but it isn’t any worse either. It works. I like it. I was skeptical from the get-go, but I was quickly won over.
Set-ups: As I said, I ordered a standard “build” of this board. I liked what I saw in their video. However, I can envision some other setups being pretty good with this board. I think that if you were running some narrow wheels, you could run R-II 180s and it would be pretty nice. In particular, some of the new 66mm ABEC-11 Freerides, with Randal 180s and maybe 2 thin risers under each truck, would be pretty nice.
If you can only afford one longboard, and you want to do a little of everything, I can’t think of a better board than this. If you are travelling and only want to take one board but are going to skate hills, parks, ditches, etc., this is the board for you. The price is good too. $177 for a complete from Gravity. This board is going into my regular quiver, and will be sharing riding time with my Gravity Mini-Carve.
December 5th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
[...] on both left and right. In other words, on each level you can turn either frontside or backside. The Gravity Bamboo Spoon was my weapon of choice. Hoodie tied around the waist, Hosoi style. [...]
December 8th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
How would you say this board is as an allrounder with focus on distance pumping combined with pushing and carving?
December 9th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
If you are going to be pushing long distances, I would go with some kind of drop through truck mounting, or dropped riding surface, rather than this board. They will require less knee strain.