FOUR DIMENSIONAL LAVA | THE NEW BASALT TESSERACT

AVAILABLE MAY 16TH 2018

We’ve been been exploring basalt as a replacement for glass fibers for almost 10 years. With the launch of the Tarab last year we were finally able to secure a reliable production source and have accumulated a lot of experience with numerous types of basalt fibers. We’ve found it to have great strength to weight and a much more “damp” feel than fiberglass (due to its high elastic modulus). It also has significantly better wear characteristics which help reduce razor-tail. It’s also a beautiful material (especially in its raw state, unfortunately) and in general has a lower environmental impact than glass (more info here). We’ve found that it works well as a replacement for fiberglass in freestyle, freeride, and dance boards where the priorities are dampness, stiffness, and light weight.

For the new Basalt Tesseract we decided to use a light basalt weave to sandwich the dual bamboo cores and have maintained the bottom cork for additional damping. Over the past year we’ve been testing the Basalt Tesseract amongst our freeride and freestyle ambassadors. The consensus has been that the basalt update enhances the freestyle aspect of the board while still allowing it to perform well for freeride.

Ethan Cochard has been heavily involved in the development of this board and in coordinating ambassador feedback.

His personal setup is more oriented toward freeride. He generally rides 180mm, 43° Paris trucks (he prefers Savants when focusing on sliding) and yellow Stimulus (86a) or orange Fat Frees (80a), depending on the steepness of the road. For steeper roads he prefers the yellow Stimulus for their durability and ability to break free. For mellower roads he prefers the orange Fat Frees because of their effortless slide initiation.

But then again, Ethan also digs the 62mm Skiffs (our “Tech Freestyle setup”) for technical freeriding: quick slide shuvits, blunt slides, and the occasional ollie. This is the same basic setup that Mexican ambassadors Marco Sandoval and Yazper Maldonado ride when out crushing the freestyle spots of Guadalajara.

Back home in Venice, Loaded ambassador Brian Adler will showcase his fancy footwork on his “stupid loose” setup: quicker-turning Paris 180mm, 50° trucks and orange Fat Frees (80a) are set up on the outer wheelbase for quick, damp, and dirty dancing.

On the graphic side, we wanted to maintain the conceptual direction of the Tesseract: the exploration of four dimensions from the perspective of three dimensions.

The graphic was designed by our own in-house Danny Carper. In his words:

Designed to solicit an uncanny, illusive and contemplative reaction from the viewer, the graphic is intended to challenge the notion of geometric correctness. This technique pulls from the principles of mathematical tessellated patterns to present a seemingly impossible orthographic surrealism. "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein

When developing the graphic we couldn’t decide which of the four color schemes we preferred, so we decided to launch the board in all four colors. We each have our own preferences, and we're excited to see what you prefer.