Carveboard is also the brand name of the board which popularized the practice of this sport.
The board was invented by Californian snowboarder & surfers to practice their moves during flat sea days and summer. The result is a board that shares with the surfing, snowboarding, skateboard ride experience. And although by its anatomy the carveboard looks somewhat like its cousins skateboards, the handling and feel are ultimately much closer to those of surfing and snowboarding. Joe Gerlach, Brad's father, started Carve Board Sports based on the design. The practice reminds of, better known, longboarding. However, it emphasizes the work of the turn for which it provides all the variations of the carve. Some models are equipped with pneumatic tires, so use on rougher surfaces is also possible.
Anatomy
The board itself has the distinction of being connected to the trucks by small hinges that allow to tilt the board relative to the horizontal. Thus, the board can tilt up to about 45 °; much more than conventional skateboard trucks. This allows a much more aggressive turn attack, limiting the speed loss in each curve. The possibility of instantaneous change of edge, allows to gain speed by flexion-extension as found in "shortboard" surfing and snowboarding. This is the "carving" effect that allows the development of necessary skills to advance one's surfing and snowboarding.
Emulation of other boardsports
Like skateboarding in its infancy, carveboarding seeks to give some specific sensations from surfing. These are also found in some practices of snowboarding. That is why today carveboards are sold on the quality of their emulation of surfing and snowboarding. But let there be no mistake, they are not necessarily noticeable to all, because they only relate to the carving practices of alpine and freeride snowboarding. Moreover, unlike the freebord and T-board, which have been specifically developed to emulate skateboard type of snowboarding, the carveboard was developed by a surfer/snowboarder for surfers/snowboarders. To put an end to sterile debates that inevitably arise around these competitive new boardsports offers, let's just remember that in essence emulating surfing or snowboarding on hard surface will always be imperfect. Top surfers and snowboarders use the carve boardunique characteristics as a training tool when there are no waves or snow. We can thus assume that over time, like skateboarding, these sports will transcend their origins and establish themselves as separate sports and not more or less successful emulations.
Popularity
Although this relatively innovative idea is fairly new, the popularity and practice of carveboarding remains limited compared to longboarding. This can be explained by the fact that the latter was created in conjunction with skateboarding, and has had time to develop. Like so many of the similar boardsports, the experience of riding the board is the key selling point. As mentioned, it is used frequently as a training tool. Also, the price of innovative board designs such as the carveboard remains high due to lack of competition in particular, limiting its adoption by the masses.
