Surf Expo 2009: Bylery, Obscura and CWB
Day one is almost over, and here are the brands I’ve gotten to check out so far.
Byerly Skates
The big news from the Byerly Camp is WOOD BOARDS! At long last the line includes the all-wood Heritage, which comes in both 42” and 40”. George and Ross were milling about booth and excited to spread the news. Byerly himself was busy sell-sell-selling and there was a literal line to talk to him, but we can assume he’s excited too. Another change in the line up is the lack of the classic Legacy, but it’s back in the form of the “Revival,” which Ross described as a “mellowed-out version of the Legacy.”As always, the Byerly graphics are awesome, but you can check the pictures and see for yourself!
Obscura
Obscura’s concaves have been completely redone for 2010. The nose and tails have been squared off and the flat section enlarged, which according to Aaron Reed is much nicer on the feet. They’ve also brought back the SST but with a new bottom deck and super uber reinforcement to avoid some of the breakage issues they’ve had in the past. But possibly the most exciting thing on the forefront for Obscura is a collaborative effort with DVS. The shoe is a light-weight mesh model with Danny and Aaron’s pro model graphics on the insoles. For this year all the Obscura graphics are all done in wood block with pastel details.
CWB
Matt Manzari was kind enough to show me the CWB line. This year it includes two wakeskates, the Onset (with a better graphic and fiber glass reinforcement to prevent delamination) and Stu Shinn’s new pro model concave. Stu was MIA, so Matt did his best to give me all the details by reading the graphic off the board. Pretty much all the info available was it is called the True Mesh and looks like a pretty solid and fun concave.
Check out more images in the gallery
