Originals new Topmount Downhill/Freeride range is beginning to take form with the first deck released earlier this month.
At $99USD, its a very affordable deck and sturdy as hell compiled of 9 plys of Canadian Maple, as well as concave that will melt any skaters thane covered heart. If you're looking for a deck to bomb down the gnarliest of hills or freeriding down a local hill at any speed, this is a highly recommended board on my part!
The idea behind the deck was to keep it simple, which it appears Original, while still adding their own flair to it which they try to do to all of their Longboards. The tub concave was new to me, I had only ever skated on boards with rocker or W concave, never a tub concave deck and I didn't really know what to expect at all. From the images Original had shown us, the concave didn't look aggressive, and quite frankly extremely mellow which is exactly what I don't want in a deck.
Looks can be deceiving.
That mellow, boring tub concave burst to life once I started freeriding. It locked me in and held me there, even while I started learning toeside checks, the hard rail turned out ideal to stick you foot against and kick it out.Also as I am just learning toeside checks, as the image below shows, I'm using the side of the kick to kick the deck out which has helped me to get a feel for how much weight to apply.
The cereal bowl kick in the above image looks really small, as if you would barely feel it but I found it super useful and like the concave, far bigger than it looks. Keeping to locked in for long stand ups and the option of a shorter wheelbase mean slide shuv' and variations couldn't be easier
In two weeks I have learnt Blunt slides using the Cereal bowl kick with the trucks mounted on the inner mounting brackets. Super stoked on this deck after loving Original work for the past few years and they have now answered my prayers with a topmount direction longboard which I can use for fast freeride and downhill.
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| Toesides on the Atbiter 36 |
The Arbiter like most directional topmounts work well for downhill when that's the style of deck you're more comfortable with using. (Other options being a Drop Down or symmetrical deck)
The concave is super comfortable to keep your feet in place when tucking and the Original Grip tape works a charm too so your back foot does slip back down a run. Its stable at speeds, although I have only taken it to around 75km/h, it held its own at that speed.
Arbiter 36 Raw run with Myself(Blue pred, Blue shorts) and Caleb Bradfield(White Charlie).
The next board to be added to the new lineup will be the Maven, which I have summarised information Original has released right here: Maven 35 Information
-Adam
