The Joyride Board Test: Slater Designs Cymatic

In this Joyride episode, we examine the merits of Slater's snub-nosed, bat-tailed bullet of a surfboard - the Cymatic. Watch above, then click below to read our full review: stabmag.com/hardware/an-hones...
Film: Ben Judkins
Art: Pentagram Pizza
Music: People Under The Stairs

[@Apeunion]

Try it as a quad, it’s a whole new world!

[@kevinm5564]

I mean good surfing in good waves. But for an HONEST review, i want to see an average surfer with a 40+ hour a week job surfing waist high florida waves, then hear how this thing compares to his standard short board. Easier to paddle, does it slide out, hold in, do you have to pump to get it going, does it knife into turns or does it flow. Sick of watching pros, who could ride my front door and make it work, in good waves, giving me an "honest" review

[@Andre2000thekowalsk]

Kevin, I have had three Tomo firewires and all of them rocked, but someone needs to be honest with you, this is NOT a good board for Florida's weak waves. It has too much rocker for weak gutless slop. The EVO is the best Tomo groveller, or try the Baked Potato. Volume and flat rockers are your friends in gutless waves. I think even the video on the FW site Slater is riding the Cymatic at 6-8ft Haleiwa. That pretty much shows the kind of waves in goes best in.

[@wesleyturner1979]

My front door might paddle better than all my short boards. A bit hard to turn though. (I laughed out lout pretty hard at that one! Thanks for making my morning awesome with your comment!)

[@DeforestLCooper]

Kevin. I work a 40+ hour work week and surf Oceanside California a few days a week and it’s usually not very good waves. The Cymatic is one of the best boards I’ve ever ridden for everyday conditions. It grovels well and does well in HH+ waves! It’s pretty much the best daily driver that I’ve ever ridden and has a huge range... and I’m an average surfer. Hope the helps.

[@kevinm5564]

@@DeforestLCooper STAB should pay you for the reviews, but i have been to LA and San Diego and there were days where i was the only guy out because i thought the waves were fun (compared to Florida) and the guys at the surf shops were saying it was flat

[@DeforestLCooper]

Kevin M wow! Florida must be rough or those guys have high standards. Cymatic is a great board for down here! 👍

[@charlievollprecht2974]

I love this series

[@MrAllstar]

Nice video, some super stylish surfing, board looks soooo rippable!! 😆😆

[@paulaa1175]

Great Clip ... all comes together - cool music, damn fine surfing across a day, and we can see what the board can do under skilled legs. I can see it can work for Joe Average too.

[@doug5372]

What’s HB and HI in preferred size mean ?

[@colemilligan4086]

Yall deserve more subscribers

[@freemasontakeacid]

This board is insane!

[@dkilla01]

One of my favorites to this day

[@ninjaman4119]

Stink bug wide stance. Nice choice on the music

[@alicichlid6805]

Looked an inch too big? Stance looked too wide, hard to tell in slopey waves tho

[@BangTaoBeach]

The featured surfer has a horrible surfing style. His arms were all over the place.

[@Nofishnoclue]

The modern planing hull boards require a wider stance than normal plus the boards are so small that it makes the stance look even wider than it is

[@foxgd9117]

@@BangTaoBeach and somehow he surfs better than you

[@elielsonfnsc]

Sensacional !

[@bodhitree33]

Do JS Air 17x next :))))))))

[@OceansideCreations]

Love the music, reviews need more dialogue and interpretation of your scale.

[@CharlesTooley]

DGK What is it

[@PDKpoopnugget]

One of my favorite songs! San Francisco Knights by PUTS is a classic

[@julianlee7313]

Do a GARY MCNEILL BOARD!!!

[@actafewl]

More hip hop in surfing 🤙🏻

[@taradead]

Hell no...I hate that shit.

[@chrismak4859]

Mayhem Short Round is God!!!

[@avsavs7660]

Another grom board review

[@deluxairhead]

Looks more like a Quad stick to me.......

[@ronbelanger8936]

Where’s the average joe review ?

[@averagejoegrows]

ive ridden the sci fi i believe. its just too lose, only good thing about them is they wont snap on a air tbh

[@martinwajda]

Have you tried it with large size fins?

[@averagejoegrows]

martinwajda yeah, it was someone else’s board, just swapled in the water, he asked if i wanted to try it. The only thing i truly liked is the speed and how easy it was to boost a air on a shoulder with the board.

[@martinwajda]

@@averagejoegrows I had the same problem initially so I put in a larger set of fins with more rake, now I get more drive and hold with the same speed, problem solved!

[@averagejoegrows]

martinwajda whats height and weight range are you at? i ride the summer teeth dane fin and its a medium. I fell in love with it but im looking for a fin to get a little looser on.

[@martinwajda]

@@averagejoegrows 173cm and 72kg

[@juancandelariaclaborne6790]

Gotta joy ride a round nose fish in lib tech

[@100percentsurf]

Pros don't surf epoxy and there is a reason. Fat nosed boards look ugly.Joe average, which this board is aimed at now surf worse than ever usually cant get past 1 turn. Is epoxy and polystyrene a more sustainable material setup than polyurethane and polyester.? Have surfing magazines sold their soul to big name advertisers.These style of shapes just do not cut it if the surf is mushy. Is this a paid ad for Firewire.

[@Indonesiansurftravel]

Epoxy/EPS combos are generally about providing added durability while keeping boards light especially when vacuum bagged composite construction, everyday surfers benefit from durability because we don't have endless $$$ to spend on boards. Almost all pros ride PU/PE because its a safe bet and its what most board levels that sponsor guys shape, it's what we all know and pros get given huge quivers of boards, durability is not a factor, boards are even glassed much lighter than what everyday surfers ride. That said Taj, Michel & Sally have all won a few WSL comps on EPS/Epoxy combos Not sure why you don't think this shape cant cut it in mushy surf, the board has a moderate rocker with a lot of foam in the front half of the board it would glide over flat sections a lot better than most HP boards.

[@100percentsurf]

@@Indonesiansurftravel Epoxy boards done with vacuum bag construction? This board is not one of those for a start. Carbon stringer in the middle.will make an already rigid construction more rigid. Epoxy resin is way more rigid than polyester. Rigid boards tend to be affected by chop in the water, so hey lets put carbon on it to make it more rigid. Carbon is a selling point only. Sorta makes your surfboard sound hi tech in the surfboard industry. Real carbon costs serious money. Firewire advertise that they use fused polystyrene foam. Well that is just normal polystyrene foam. Polystyrene is fused by steam. The bond is not great and can be destroyed over time by water and heat, which means you must fix every ding.Epoxy board made using vacuum bagging and sandwitch construction a generally more durable than polyester boards.but these boards are definitely the most rigid of all so performance is effected but they are ok as beginner boards.

[@Indonesiansurftravel]

@@100percentsurf Okay firstly LFT tech doesn't have carbon stringer, no FW boards use carbon and FW doesn't market anywhere they use carbon, they are very clear about what they use, you can see breakdowns of tech on their website. The centre stringer is called "Aerospace Composite Springer" which is more like a very dense type of foam or something, and i think you will find even LFT tech is vacuum bagged, which reduces amount of resin used keeping weight to strength ration higher (most of the strength is in the cloth not the resin)..that said I'm not a huge fan of LFT it doesn't have anywhere near the durability of FST, Hellium, Timber tek, but it does have a feel very close to a traditional PU/PE board. The black carbon look stripes are purely a painted design feature, purely cosmetic, yeah sure fair call to say they are cashing in on the trend with this look, but there is only so much you can do design wise cosmetically without getting into more expensive sprays that are not something all people want, the black centre stripes also cover up the shadow line of the Aerospace Composite Springer (that actually sits a few mils under the glass) if it was an only white board with no centre line, you would mostly likely see a fuzzy shadow of the stringer in some lights. As for Epoxy being more rigid, not true at all Epoxy resin is actually less ridged than polyester resin, epoxy resin is more rubber like less brittle and once cured doesn't change much while polyester resin continues to cure all of its life and becomes more brittle over its life cycle. If you have an decent impact/hit on a PU/PE board it will either shatter (because resin is brittle) or leave a compression, because the foam doesn't bounce back to shape. EPS is favoured with Epoxy because EPS has very good memory after an impact it generally bounces back to its original shape, the epoxy resin being more rubber like, less brittle often bounces back with the EPS without shattering.(obviously not always there is limits) Yes Epoxy/EPS combo boards can be more stiff but that happens because or when use of composite construction, LFT is in no way rigid and even FST, or Hellium compared to other composite builds is not stiff or rigid (the old Surf tech boards, yes they were very stiff and most likely were most of these wife tales off EPS/epoxy chatter effect comes from) Guys don't do composite PU/PE boards because if you did, one they would be very heavy and two they would become extremely stiff. I should add PU/PE boards over there life lose the lively feeling because of two things, the resin continuing to cure, and lack of memory in the foam, with every flex, cells gets crushed. EPS/Epoxy combos never lose that lively feeling because one the resin doesn't continue to cure and two the EPS has memory and returns to shape.

[@100percentsurf]

@@Indonesiansurftravel Epoxy offers 3.5% to 4.5% tensile elongation at failure compared to 1% to 2% for typical polyester resins, typical epoxy will have higher properties than a typical polyester and vinylester for both strength and stiffness. Hence epoxy IS more rigid. Harder to bend. That is a plus for epoxy strength wise and also necessary for EPS foam as eps can't compete with polyurethane foam in the bending or compression aspect. Polystyrene does have some springback denting wise but long term delamination is inevitable. I wonder how many epoxy boards are in peoples surfboard collections you dont see many boards from days past in vintage collections. So the aerospace stinger is there for what? to help stop the board from snapping i would say.

[@Indonesiansurftravel]

@@100percentsurf I guess it's to control flex and give extra strength, imagine the R & D firewire have done, what we see would be just a small selection of the tech and different combos they have messed with, if the stringer saved mo purpose, it wouldn't be there ad would be much cheaper to produce without it, lets remember we have guys like NEV working with others developing these ideas and now have some of the best surfers ever to live like Kelly and Rob working with them, to write the tech off as gimmicks or just beginner boards is crazy. It's really no surprise you don't see vintage epoxy boards in many collections as up until the last 10 to 15years they would have made up less than 0.5% of the surfboard market and even then, much of those boards were true epoxy pop outs like the old Pro Circuit boards (that are now becoming collectable) even now on a world scale the EPS/Epoxy board market must be under 10%??? of the overall market. Personally as a consumer I'm a big fan of the development FW is doing with epoxy/EPS boards, i still ride PU/PE boards sometimes but I've also been along for the ride with FW for over 10 years now, and IMHO the tech is getting better. Early days you had FST with plugs and Rapid fire with bamboo decks etc, with looked real ugly, they then got rid of plugs and bamboo decks. Next phase was FST without venting plugs and a further development of rapid fire to white rapid-fire. Now it looks like FST is being phased out and replaced by helium that IMHO is their best tech yet that takes the best aspects of FST and LFT, softer deck too LFT hat feels more like a PU/PE board but still has the FST type composite bottom skin and rails that are extremely durable. That said I'm also a fan of others working with EPS/Epoxy like Bert and Dave from Diverse surfboards, plenty of others. And for those that just want to still ride PU/PE or don't value durability so much, there is and will always be countless board makers to choose from.