Hi just wondering peoples thoughts on boards that have decent pop for getting into jumps. I have an xride 135 at the moment and a naish motion I seem to be favouring the xride.But wondering if better boards out there cheers to quicken the learning experience.

Just send it mate, Seen plenty of guys riding pos boards that jump huge.

Anything carbon fiber and nice and stiff also tona pops.

Tona gives a nice pop. But my mates Excaliba is quite explosive

Reminds me of when I used to play tennis
a new racquet doesn't give you a better backhand
just hours and hours of practice

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lucy5 said..
Hi just wondering peoples thoughts on boards that have decent pop for getting into jumps. I have an xride 135 at the moment and a naish motion I seem to be favouring the xride.But wondering if better boards out there cheers to quicken the learning experience.

I believe it's purely based on your technique. Nothing to do with the board shape or style. It's not like water is bouncy! LOL

Hey a couple things will really affect pop.

Board shape:

I feel that square tips give you more surface area to load off of, which tends to allow a rider to generate more pop.
Rocker makes that carve motion out to load easier for some riders, but it really comes down to personal preference in terms of which rocker shape will give you more pop.

Stiffness:

That board that's floppy as all heck is going to result in a lot of energy lost when you load up. Instead of that energy getting stored, it gets dissipated as heat basically. For those of you who want to nerd out a bit, you can simplify the system into a spring and apply Hooke's law (F= -xk). A stiff board will have a high spring constant (k). So it'll take more force to bend the board the same amount but the "spring" will also store more energy (E = 1/2kx^2) for the same amount of compression (x) vs. a board with more flex.

Now it's gonna take someone with the technique and strength to bend that stiffer board too. So just getting a stiffer board isn't going to magically give you more pop. The max amount of pop that a stiffer board can generate will be more than the max pop of a flexier board with the same shape. But it will take strength and technique to tap into that upper bound.

Flex Pattern:

Some boards will have flex in the tips but stiffness between the feet, some boards are flexy all the way through. This will affect how the board deforms when you load it, which may affect how pop is generated. This will often affect the timing of the load/pop sequence.

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Loftywinds said..

lucy5 said..
Hi just wondering peoples thoughts on boards that have decent pop for getting into jumps. I have an xride 135 at the moment and a naish motion I seem to be favouring the xride.But wondering if better boards out there cheers to quicken the learning experience.

I believe it's purely based on your technique. Nothing to do with the board shape or style. It's not like water is bouncy! LOL

coming from someone that posted "how to load and pop" a few months ago!


wrong! has lots to do with the board. shape and flex is very important! try getting slack out of a board that has super soft flex! saying you already have good technique, to get to the most pop possible I find having a nice sharp tail so the water can quickly be released, and a nice stiff board that can hold the load. a lot of the freestyle boards don't have a huge amount of rocker, this helps with the pop, but the landings and cutting through chop can be a little harsh!

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kemp90 said..

Loftywinds said..

lucy5 said..
Hi just wondering peoples thoughts on boards that have decent pop for getting into jumps. I have an xride 135 at the moment and a naish motion I seem to be favouring the xride.But wondering if better boards out there cheers to quicken the learning experience.

I believe it's purely based on your technique. Nothing to do with the board shape or style. It's not like water is bouncy! LOL

coming from someone that posted "how to load and pop" a few months ago!


wrong! has lots to do with the board. shape and flex is very important! try getting slack out of a board that has super soft flex! saying you already have good technique, to get to the most pop possible I find having a nice sharp tail so the water can quickly be released, and a nice stiff board that can hold the load. a lot of the freestyle boards don't have a huge amount of rocker, this helps with the pop, but the landings and cutting through chop can be a little harsh!

Hmm good points. I didn't consider the flex side of things. I was referring to the overall shape. I think the more concave, the more pop because less surface "adhesion" to the water?

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Loftywinds said..

kemp90 said..

Loftywinds said..

lucy5 said..
Hi just wondering peoples thoughts on boards that have decent pop for getting into jumps. I have an xride 135 at the moment and a naish motion I seem to be favouring the xride.But wondering if better boards out there cheers to quicken the learning experience.

I believe it's purely based on your technique. Nothing to do with the board shape or style. It's not like water is bouncy! LOL

coming from someone that posted "how to load and pop" a few months ago!


wrong! has lots to do with the board. shape and flex is very important! try getting slack out of a board that has super soft flex! saying you already have good technique, to get to the most pop possible I find having a nice sharp tail so the water can quickly be released, and a nice stiff board that can hold the load. a lot of the freestyle boards don't have a huge amount of rocker, this helps with the pop, but the landings and cutting through chop can be a little harsh!

Hmm good points. I didn't consider the flex side of things. I was referring to the overall shape. I think the more concave, the more pop because less surface "adhesion" to the water?

Very untrue. Try to do an unhooked load and pop on an Ocean Rodeo Mako (18mm concave). Doesn't work well. Wide tips and stiff with very quick rebound provide the best pop. The rocker also plays in the pop as well. 45-60mm is typically the money range with 45mm being your average freestyle board and 60mm being a "wakestyle" board. You obviously need a bit more kite power on the higher rocker to get the same height.

getting a good pop took me a while untl I studied Aaron. Its old but shows takeoff. at about 1:20 shows the arc as he loads the board and more importantly the kite. The spray he creates with speed and the angle he takes off at,is the key. Dontfeedthenerd and Drury and on the money, but get the right size. Too small and you lose the extra surface area to pop off, too big and youll never hold the edge with speed when loading.

dave... is on the money. Technique plays such a big part in it. So many people send the kite and forgot good board technique leading into the pop. I learnt so much from watching good Cable park riders. Check out Nick Davies at 3:00 into this clip.



By slowing down the footage you can get a feeling of how much speed, edge and tension in his rope/lines he has before cutting back for the pop.

The pop question really depends on where you ride- flat or choppy conditions and what the riders ability is.In choppier conditions its generally easier to pop with a board that has more flex in tips.Boards that are stiffer need more drive and effort from rider to pop. Also your body weight and strength play an important role when popping. The more you can load the board and lines the more pop you get given you got good speed before popping.Here is a video of Andy Yates on a 2014 Xenon Infra 136cm which is an easy board to pop since it has a flexy tips. In Flatwater Andy could get more pop out of a stiffer board but in choppy conditions he reckons it works really good and makes it a lot easier to drive, load and release.

Thanks for all the replys apart from lofty.I seem to be going ok with jumps and bosting in small waves now but bot to good in the flat water is the technique different in the flat thanks

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lucy5 said..
Thanks for all the replys apart from lofty.I seem to be going ok with jumps and bosting in small waves now but bot to good in the flat water is the technique different in the flat thanks

yes.