TD3 Skwal Reveiw

[monodude]

Once I got the hang of it, it was an absolute BLAST!

I thought you might like it, and, as I cautioned you, watch your speed !!

At 8M SCR it has a speed limit. I'm ridin' a Volkl Monocarver with a 14.5M SCR.

It's a metal board circa 2001 that I found new this year. I mounted Catec OS 2's on it and It will ride @ "Alpine" speeds. I love it !!! So if you really like the Skwall thing find one of those. I think it was the only "Metal" Skwall ever made. Just like todays metal alpine boards it's damp, tenacious and has the ability to scare you BAD.

Don

Feed the addiction...

[NateW]

The stance in that video looks really short... do they work OK with wider (or should I say longer?) stances? That guy's knees were touching, I'd think that would feel weird and wobbly.

Don't get me wrong, I still want to try one. :)

[*Ace*]

There are 3 stance locations on my Skwal.

I started the night off at #2, that is the 2nd widest.

It was VERY weird and difficult for me.

After 2 runs I went to #3, the widest stance on the board.

THAT is where I found the sweet spot.

Was still harder on my knees and quads that alpine riding.

I was running my 3* can't plates too, maybe that had something to with it. Might be different if I was running 0* plates.

Wider is better as far as I am concerned.

[monodude]

I'm running around 3* toe lift on the front, no cant, and around 8* heel lift on the rear foot, no cant. Also 90*/90* angles. I'm in ski boots which don't have the forward lean that an alpine boot does.

Don

Feed the addiction...

[zarkod]

Well the test ride of the Thias Skwal Easy Jungle 165, 8m sidecut was last night.

This board DEMANDS you attention at all times. You have to be aware of your speed at all times. Once you start picking up speed you run the risk of being ejected over the edge, which happened more than once to me. I had my bindings setup as wide as they would go.

Riding a Skwal seems to put a lot more of the pressure on your knees and quads. Definetely felt like the bastard child of alpine and ski carving for the frist few runs. Once I got the hang of it, it was an absolute BLAST! I was being launched in the air in between my tiny little arcs in the snow. I am pretty sure I was leaving trenches that were deeper than this board is wide. The snow looked like it had some crazy DNA structures running all the way down the hill. More than once I saw someone track into one of my death trenches and bite the bullet.

Do yourselves a favor and get on one of these things if you can.

Hi Ace,

I have a question with your TD3 skwal, it seems very wide to me since it goes off the board itself, isn'it a problem when you carve since it probably touches the snow?

I would suggest that you put a angle of 0 on the front foot, your easy jungle will be a lot more easier to ride.

I own an easy jungle too but it's an old an rather limitated board (very short 8M SCR which is the smaller SCR you can find on a skwal). I do not use it any more since I tried the new Mpride, Oxess and Lagriffe boards. You should try one of these, they are just amazing. Sure the guy on the video from japan uses one of these boards.

If you are interested in more information about skwal you can find it at www.skwalzone.org especially in the forums. unfortunately the web site is only in french but with google translator you can grab some info.

The new boards can be found here :

http://www.skwalzone.org/boards.php#nouveautes2008