The Surf One Red Stripe complete is a balanced cruiser longboard. It’s long and narrow, complete with Independent trucks, Bones Reds bearings and black Surf One 65 mm wheels. The deck comes covered in black grip with a good size tail, flat nose, light concave and is built with Tough-Ply construction. The Surf One Red Stripe is a good, flexible longboard great for sidewalk surfing.
The Surf One Red Stripe is 43.625" long by 8.625" wide with a 25.625” wheel base. The deck is available separately as well as with the complete. The graphic is especially cool – solid black with a large offset red stripe running the whole length of the board. Two thinner stripes chase next to the thick red stripe, and a white Hawaiian flower explodes a third of the way up the board. The colors are stark and simple, and look both classy and hot.
I had a lot of fun testing out this board. The board has a lot of flex, and with my monstrous 185 pounds abusing it, the board showed no signs of stress. The wheels are slick and soft. One complaint would be the size and width of the wheels – I usually like larger and wider wheels on longboards. These wheels seem oddly small, but they work.
Another complaint would be that the deck isn’t shaped to allow for super loose, super deep turns without the huge risers that come with the Red Stripe complete. This means, if you want larger wheels or to be lower to the ground, you’ll experience wheel bite. That’s where, while turning sharp and deep, the wheels touch the board and stop turning. Not a comfortable way to stop. Many long board companies, such as Sector 9, shape ther decks with special cut away sections above the wheels to prevent this. The Red Strip complete is set up with the huge risers and smaller wheels already, so that won’t be a problem – it’s just something to be aware of if you decide to change things up.
One interesting bonus is the shape of the board. If you are a skater and thinking about trying out longboards, this would be a good choice. The Surf One Red Stripe deck looks and feels like an overgrown skate deck. The response and feel of the trucks and wheels aren’t too far from what you might be used to with your trick deck. What’s more, if you go nuts and want to, you can always trade out other skate parts with the Surf One Red Stripe – all the parts are industry standard, so there’s no problem there.
The Surf One Red Stripe is a quality longboard – I recommend it. Surf One has ten other longboard styles available, from the short little 29.6” Sunset to the sleek Iron Cross carver. Many of the decks have classy looking woodgrain patterns with surf-style graphics. For more on these, take a look at the Surf One website.
