Skateboard with Many Wheels



Industrial designers Mike Simonian and Pieter Schouten made this skateboard in order to add the flexibility of snowboarding movements to skateboarding:

The Flowlab Skateboard allows you to surf without waves and ride without snow. Years of experimentation resulted in the geometry that allows a device with no moving parts to simulate the fluid motion of snowboarding or surfing on land. The arced axles let you carve to 45 degree angles with no resistance and fluid transitions edge-to-edge.


You can view a technical drawing of the design at the link.

Link via DVICE | Photo: Mike & Maaike

@Serris

Not to mention the 7 ball bearings, crown, and inner and outer races in each bearing, of which each wheel has 2.

so all in all this thing has ~294 moving parts.
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That...looks amazing. =D Strange, but amazing. My one true love is surfing, but alas, I live in a landlocked city so it's sort of a pain to get to the ocean that is 20+ hours away. If this actually worked like a surfboard, I would be in love and would dig into my bank account today to buy one.
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I agree, this must be heavy. Also, obviously not a trick board like a standard skateboard. This thing is definitely a cruiser only. Personally, I've never had any issues sidewalk surfing on my skateboard and I doubt this would improve that.
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Rode one of these years back.

It carves well but other than that it isnt really great for anything. It seemed like it was going for riders that like to longboard but would also like to do a trick every once in a while. As a result it isnt great for either. It can be ollied so you can do some things with it but it's awkward and takes some adjusting to.
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Regular skateboards do practically the same thing. They can still turn the same way. This one looks a little bit smoother in the design, but it seems to be a little bit of a novelty.
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These are not new at all. They are very heavy. They made a different board with the same idea, but it works much better. It has 3 wheels on each side, with the middle wheel a little farther from the board. Called the Freeboard. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFHkA2J-2Tw
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Yeah, I bought one of these back in 2000 when they first came out. The video they had of this guy shredding up and down hills and streets was truly awesome. So awesome, that i bought a board.

It is truly heavier than a normal board because of the added weight of the trucks and extra wheels. I only attempted to ride it once before almost breaking my ankle.

I still have it with the extra wheels if any one wants to grab it??
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yeah, how is this different from soft bushings on normal trucks? on a tight turn, the board would still be tilted way over with the wheels almost touching the wood.
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