As most of you know part of my hobby is gear development. I gladly help out people I like and admire for their drive to make the sport more accessible and as I grow older more and more of my personal fun comses from testing.

Shapers like Aurelio Verdi/AV or Finian Maynard/FMX offer very interesting products and I love to try and understand where they are coming from, seen from a design perspective so when Marco van der Leer (S2 importer) asked me to test the FMX 74 and 94 obviously I couldn't say no. Yesterday I tried the 74 in way too light conditions but in one run I felt the potential, albeit the very low potential. Today was even more marginal but I rigged the 6.9 S2 Veno and  put the Powermax 32 underneath the FMX 94. What a GREAT combo. It reminds me of old school Tabou Fabian Vollenweider shape feel with a kick. I can also clearly feel the Richard Greene influence of a very smooth and foregiving ride.

If not mistaken there will be some very interesting sessions coming up with these boards as for the first time I really liked a large board (for my standards) like this. The extreme cut-outs provide a very loose feel while the shape in the front feels almost like a freerace board.

The Tribal Powermax posotitively surprised me as I could really push the fin. The whole set made me realise just how much people focus on what-according to the top riders- is the fastest set. In the end what feels good for you is fast. More to follow soon.