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Board Review: Slyde Handboards

There are so many ways to ride waves these days! Our entire niche industry is obsessed with the perfect ride–we spend hours, days, months, years crafting the perfect tool to score the best wave. In the past, 18 foot wave sliders designed for Hawaiian kings have since evolved to logs with D fins or Stand Up Paddleboards to cruise point breaks. Maybe you were a connoisseur of lunch trays–Del Taco was your favorite–it had just the right type of slick bottom to glide along the face of the wave. What was once a tray evolved to a plane and now a proper board…swallow tail, carbon fiber with plenty of room for your specifics.

Enter Slyde Handboards.

Innovation and style meets a handboard perfectly crafted for riding all types of waves with minimal spray.

Let’s get one thing straight: these are actually boards…not trays, nor hand planes–BOARDS…for your hand.

I met with Slyde Handboard Owners, Steve and Angela Watts at Salt Creek and the waves were anything but playful for my board demo–full swell, overhead with a dropping tide.

“After a whole year of  R&R, we are just now releasing every shape and are excited,” said Angela. “These wedge shape boards are great for  the every day person because they can use it in big or small waves.”

Waves poured in from all angles at Creek and it seemed The Point or Gravels were the places to be.

Let the body-slamming begin!

After easing into a few insiders, I was hooked. It’s compacted fun, I thought, as one sandy wedge dredged through the inside–ones I conveniently avoided and Steve wholeheartedly plunged into.

“The Wedge boards are designed specifically to ride a wave as far as you can,” said Steve. “I’ve ridden waves all the way from out the back to the inside…you can do cutbacks with this and it sticks you to the face of the wave really well.”

My favorite thing? I can take this anywhere! Airport excess baggage fee instantly gone.

So–does it torture you to watch that perfectly peeling hollow shore break go un-ridden? Try out The Bula. Want a good starter board for all wave types? Check out The Wedge. Customize at will!

One thing I can’t promise–the places the seaweed and sand sneak into.

Pictured are The Wedge, The Wedge featuring a carbon fiber deck and The Bula