It looks like a normal skateboard but it feels like surfing on land |
Bottom Turn + Top Turn Simulation
Bottom Turn
As you turn into a bottom turn, the front truck turns and dips allowing the rider to “drive” through the bottom turn with most of the weight on the riders back foot and leg. A compression and extension of the body occurs, creating speed and change of direction. The result is one smooth surfing bottom turn.
Top Turn
As the rider comes out of the bottom turn, they will shift their weight to engage the opposite rail. The weight is then transferred into the opposite direction from the bottom turn, allowing the rider to perform a smooth surfing top turn.
How SmoothStar is different from other Skateboards
For a long time SmoothStar has been known to Australian Surfers as the best surf training product outside the water. However, unless you have tried a SmoothStar, it is hard to understand why it feels so much like surfing.
The SmoothStar product replicates the surf feel because the front truck has a special turning device called the SmoothStar Thruster. The Thruster makes the front of the board loose so the board can turn and drive off the back trucks – the same as you would with surfboard rails and fins… the feel is “rail-to-rail” surfing on land.
The Thruster is so unique and so realistic like surfing that we have had to spend a lot of money to protect our innovation with patents. The turns are not sharp, floppy or stiff – they are “Smooth” but as radical as you want them to be and that is why we call it “SmoothStar”.
What is in the SmoothStar Thruster?
The Thruster is positioned between the front trucks and the deck of the skateboard. The Thruster has a spring within the aluminium casing that provides resistance and reaction to the riders turning movement and wave. This spring enables the board to turn way beyond the ability of a normal skateboard.
The combination of the springs tension and inside steel bearings enable for smooth transitions from rail to rail. This enables the rider to compress and push off each turn to generate speed and surf flow.
Once the rider is pushing off from rail-to-rail, this creates a “self-propelling” motion, removing the need to push off the ground with the foot.
Rail to Rail surfing on land using the riders weight.
How can SmoothStar Thruster Improve my surfing level?
A combination of easy turning and self propelling allows you to practise over and over all those vital surf maneuvers such as :
Beginner: first timer, 6 months experience
- Balance Stance
- weight and leg positioning
- Stability at speed
- Posture position
- Head and shoulder direction
Intermediate: Surfing 6 months – 4 years
- Bottom turns
- Cutbacks
- Carving
- Weight distribution at faster speeds and leg strengthening
- Correct use of arms
Advanced: Regularly surfing 4 years – infinity
- Drawn out bottom turns to top powerful snaps
- Tail slides
- Connecting turns in one fluid motion, round house
- Range of aerials especially grab rail.
- Strength and conditioning of core surfing muscles.
Important Tip: SmoothStar Thruster & SmoothStar Decks
Although the SmoothStar Thruster can be put on almost any skateboard to get the “surf feel, we recommend getting the complete SmoothStar setup. The SmoothStar range have been designed, engineered and tested for every surfer’s: ability level, age, size and weight. The key factors for the best Thruster setup are:
- Wheel base
- Deck kicker
- Height of the front wheels and back wheels off the ground.
- Shape of the deck
