| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
spennie
Joined: 13 Oct 1995
Posts: 975
Location: Thousand Oaks, CA
|
 Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2017 3:24 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
Exocet has already been suggested here, but wanted to reinforce that. I've owned about 6 so far, every one worked great, easy to jibe, comfortable to ride, and very well built. The "Cross" series is a great combo board, just pick the size you want & enjoy!
_________________
Spennie the Wind Junkie
www.WindJunkie.net |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
isobars
Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2017 4:02 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| shmish wrote: | | It's very difficult for me to go somewhere to demo a board. |
I live on the Columbia just two hours east of Hood River, yet fully agree because so many factors have to come together to provide a good test. My HIGHLY successful solution was/is to go to swap meets and buy carefully researched and selected boards. Swaps usually beat the logistics and costs of demoing, give us days to years of testing in our home venues, are more fun than jumping through the hoops of demoing on a schedule, provide a great opportunity to cull the herd when necessary, lighten the load on landfills, give dealers another market for closeout boards in the Fall, familiarizes buyers with brands of gear they may not have tried before, offer choices from classic to modern, and allow buying inexpensive backups of favorite boards. That's win/win/win/win/win/win/win/win/win.
What's to lose? Where else can you buy some of the current year's biggest sellers for as low as 30 cents on the dollar in mint condition? Where else can you buy some of the best boards ever minted for a hunnerd bucks in excellent condition or much less if dirty or cosmetically blemished? Where/how else can you demo a great two-year-old board free* (i.e., buy it, test it, and resell it if it isn't what you want?)
* i.e., give or take. I've lost a much as 50% due to impulse buying without close examination, made as much as 400% due to smart buying of a board I bought to test, not to resell.
Sometimes demos work great. You actually get the board and the wind you want on the date and within a time frame that works for you. The Hood River dealers do a great job of accommodating demo customers, but they can't guarantee the right timing, availability, or conditions. Similarly, if your short list of gear you wanna try is TOO short, you may strike out at swap meets. Demoing also presumes your ideal board is a current model ... a ridiculous assumption. Everything's a tradeoff.
In particular, don't get too hung up on two or three brands or models others suggest. For any given performance criterion, there may be 5 or 20 boards that exceed the challenge. For every board the lists of pros and cons are pretty long, and one man's goose is another's sow's purse. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You can attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
|
|
|
Search
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Register
