pavedwave longboarding

Firedawg · Joined: 28 Oct 2008 Posts: 10 Location: North Carolina

Okay, okay. I've been lurking long enough and really wanted to know which board the masses prefer for LDP? I've been going back and forth trying to decide which to buy. Subsonic Pulse V2 or a Galac GTCPLDP.

Need a little guidance folks.

Thx

Gecko · Joined: 09 Sep 2009 Posts: 16 Location: Illinois

A lot depends on your personal preference.
The Pulse V2 has a good amount of concave an camber where the Galac is flat. What else have you been riding?

BTW, those ar two of the nicest finished decks I've seen.

stridey · Joined: 11 Mar 2009 Posts: 48

I think the V2s have been superceded by the V3. And having ridden my V3 I love the flex pattern, Snappy, and responsive to where you put you weight. Ie if you move your rear foot forward to the centre the deck became boucier, but as your feet get closer to the trucks less so. Now, I know thats normal and logical, but I found that at no point was the flex sloppy.

The concave is what Id call shallow, and the camber is minimal. In fact it looks flat to the untrained eye. The clever thing is they dont sag.

I have not had the pleasure of riding a Galac, but I have ridden a Roe. I like to run low, so the wheel wells on the nose were what swung it for me to set one up. Oh, and it was Orange...my fave colour.

pavedwave · Joined: 22 Oct 2007 Posts: 1120 Location: seattle wa usa

A little story about the steps that led up to the Pulse V3 mold...

At one point some guy on silverfish mentioned that each time I designed or co-designed a new LDP deck (from earliest to most recent, Mermaid-->Pulse-->Walkabout-->Galac), it must have been an "evolution" from the one before. Ironically that's not the case. Technologically one might even call it de-volution. It was more about providing options for a variety of skaters, and sometimes aesthetics were also weighed in over performance.

Right after releasing the Roe Mermaid with Gareth (2006), he was having problems with production and getting his CNC up to speed, which left a lot of demand and little supply. Subsonic Scott was one other Northwest custom builder I knew that skated and raced and built his boards, all with the same passion. He and Gareth exchanged a lot of information, always in an open, collaborative way - not one guy copping the other guy's ideas and taking credit, nothing weird like that. We all race and ride and design together to this day (...at least when Scott isn't having ACL surgery done!!)

At that time I specced the Pulse v1 and asked Scott for flex that would be close to the Mermaid in snap and feel, but with the shape of the "hips" just a little further back. Our first Pulse had nearly the same concave as the Mermaid, but with a flat deck. The decision was based mostly on what Scott could build without incurring a ton of cost. It's expensive and not at all trivial for a small private builder to crack out new molds. And since years prior I was into flat decks, the flat+concave "worked," though I still considered it a bit of tradeoff in performance.

The v2 came a little later, based on other skaters requesting more concave, so again it was skater preference, something the best builders pay close attention to.

Well Scott got enough requests that were screaming what I'd wanted...and he finally built the v3 mold. This is really the closest thing to the Mermaid in mellow concave + mellow camber, and no surprise that it's also the choice of mold for the G-bomb decks! Since I've given away my previous protos of the Pulses -- I will be hanging onto this board!!

Firedawg · Joined: 28 Oct 2008 Posts: 10 Location: North Carolina

My longboard arsenal isn't that extensive. Dregs 48" pintail, Original Terrapin, Bustin Stike, and a S9 Cosmic Weave. The Terrapin and Cosmic Weave have a ton of flex for my 200 lbs. The Dregs pintail is a plank, and well the Strike is a low riding commuter.

The camber of the Cosmic Weave, I'm still getting use to. I've only had it for about a couple of months. With the flex of the board and running original S8's on it, it can pump with some effort and carve like mad ... I'm still getting a feel for foot placement and how that effects the feel of the board. Sometimes it feels like the board will bend all the way down to the pavement.

peppermint rhino · Joined: 02 Feb 2009 Posts: 57

I haven't ridden a Galgac but I have ridden a Roe Mermaid, a Bently LDP, and a subsonic pulse. Out of the three, I'd have to say I love the Pulse V2.0 the best. It's just such a nice feeling deck, and it pumps so remarkably well that it's not even funny. To be honest, I can't even imagine riding a deck without concave so to me, a choice between a Galgac and a Pulse is a no brainer. That's obviouslly not to say that I wouldn't be happy to try out a galgac, but I just don't have the fiscal means to set myself up with one.

Firedawg · Joined: 28 Oct 2008 Posts: 10 Location: North Carolina

stocago · Joined: 14 Apr 2008 Posts: 227

You've probably already seen this. The Pulse is the first version, but some good comparisons.
http://pavedwave.myfastforum.org/about510.html