Review: Pride’s Lewy Finnigan Guru Single To Double Concave.
By Dan Dobbin.
After the second wave I rode on this board I knew I needed one in my quiver.
You see the good folks at Pride bodyboards in partnership with Inverted Bodyboard shop were good enough to flow us the 43′ Lewy Finnigan Guru Single To Double Concave to test ride and review.
My expectations were already primed as Infoamed poddy co-host Nath had ridden the board the day before at one of the local reefs and rang me raving about the performance:
“The thing is so fucking fast man, like it kinda holds on the face but you just fly! I definitely made pits today I wouldn’t have made on a normal board…..” and on and on….
My virgin slide on the Guru was at a big, open faced beachy. First wave was nondescript, but on that second wave I felt it!
The single to double concave just locked in and let me drive down and around a section and rocket out on to the shoulder.
On this open wave face, I felt like I had the power to just take of deep and come from way back to where I wanted to go with ease, in the way that you see good stand up surfers just zoom around whitewash sections with no loss of speed.
My third wave I scooped straight into a bowled out barrel and the board tracked effortlessly down the face with no loss of rail or traction. Very interesting….
So what’s going on here?
The single to double concave bottom contour is an industry standard on high performance surfboards.
The single concave begins about halfway down the board . This directs water flow underneath the middle of the board providing lift and speed by keeping your board on top of the water and channeling the water through the mid section of your board. Using Newton’s Third law, the harder you push down and drive on that concave, the more it pushes back creating more the lift and speed, which is why I felt I could take off deeper and scoot around sections.
The double concave starts about 2/3 of the way down the board nearer to the outer rails and helps redirect the flow of water under your tail also helps to create lift and control under the back of the board. These aren’t your grandaddy’s old slot channels though but wider, broader vents which allow the rails to really track the wave face and hold on tight on sucky sections.
The Guru also features a small Vee right in the middle of the tail which helps with control and from transitioning from rail to rail in the back third of the board.
Combining these bottom contours with a skinnier, straight templated board and a low wide point meant that the Guru felt very, very fast and very, very drivey.
Much like stand up surfers talk about riders being front footed or back footed surfers, there’s a wisdom that booger are either shoulder driven or hip driven when it comes to how they ride their boards.
A shoulder driven rider, like Guilherme Tamega at the most extreme end, will favour boards with a higher wide point and more rounded template.
Conversely, a hip driven rider like PLC or Joe Clarke generally like a skinnier board with a lower wide point, such as the Pride Guru.
Despite your author tending more towards the shoulder mob in his style, to get the most out off the Guru I found I had to alter my posture and body mechanics when riding to make it work properly. I sat up higher through the chest, dropped my outside rail hand further back and sat further back on the board.
The way the single to double concave on the Guru hooked in and tracked the wave face also forced a reshuffling of the way in which one would approach moves, particularly anything slidey like spinners. Indeed Nathan confessed to having to resort to a little sneaky hand drag assist when whipping a reverse off the top such was the stick-to-it-ivness of the SDC.
The key was to get forward of where the single concave kicks in and the Guru would whip around just fine, while the control offered up in and around the pocket has your author keen to explore the possibilities in bowlier waves.
Before we had even finished test riding the Guru SDC, I’d already coughed up the dough and purchased my own personal Guru that has gone into the kit bag just waiting for the start of the cleaner, more powerful winter swells to start on the East coast of Oz.
With the Pride Guru SDC working best in clean, hollow waves, if I was off to somewhere like Indo or the NSW South Coast, the Guru would be the first board I’d pack. Point it in the direction you want, drive and go fast, whilst have the confidence that it will hold you in tight as you scream through open barrels.
What bodyboarder doesn’t want that in a board?
Skip to 37 mins below to hear the boys discuss their experiences on the Lewy!
