14-wheel skateboard lets you carve the pavement

27 Jul 2010

A pair of designers named Mike Simonian and Pieter Schouten have created a skateboard with 14 wheels. Not just for fun, you understand, but to try and offer more of a snowboarding or surfing experience on tarmac. It's called the Flowboard.

Conventional skateboards can only lean about 25 degrees before the wheels hit the bottom of the board. The Flowboard, on the other hand, has two sets of seven wheels arranged next to each other along a curved axle, which allows for turns at a 45-degree angle, carving up asphalt as if it were snow.

Unfortunately, all these wheels add considerable weight to the board, and the fact that it's usually resting on two wheels (rather than four) increases friction, meaning that ollies aren't trivial and you can't just kick off on the ground -- you'll need a downhill slope before you're able to start going at anywhere near a reasonable speed.

Flowboards have been around for some time, shipping originally in 2000 with significant improvements having been made since. Flowboarder competitions have been held, there's a world league, and there's a magazine that covers the sport, which can be found at Flowboardermag.com.

Other alternatives for getting the feel of a snowboard on pavement include the extra-wide Freebord, which packs six wheels -- with two positioned centrally. Those central wheels can rotate in any direction, allowing the rider to entirely rotate the board as it's going along the road.

If you'd like to see more of the Flowboard's capabilities hit play on the video below. If you've used one yourself, how does it compare to a regular skateboard? Tell us in the comments.

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