Message from the Land Surfer® Inventor, Raymond Flynn

I had a dream when I was about ten, about floating over the land on a magic board. That’s the truth! Well, that was 30 years ago, and I remember that dream as vividly as if I had it last night. Of course I skateboarded like everybody else did when we were growing up, and that was cool, but my old dream came back to me when I was skiing (snow). See, I did a lot of skiing, & I got pretty good at it, & what I liked to do most was get on some real long G S boards, and just point them down the hill, and rip big sweeping high-speed turns, and that's what made me remember my old dream. To just plain CRUISE over the land in the summer, like you can on the snow in the winter. Well, it's been tried before - many times - and nobody has done it yet. Yeah, I know, I tried the other overgrown skateboards. 

Of course now, looking back, I can see why they don't work very well. All they did was take the original skateboard design and just make it bigger. Skateboards were designed for the street. The street is smooth. I didn't want to ride the street - I wanted to ride my dream! I wanted to ride in the dirt. 

• And you can CALL them any fancy NAMES you want - giant skateboards don't get it - I don't care how big you mak'em. Long as they got springs or trucks in rubber, they aint gonna happen in the dirt.

I thought man, if I was going to build something that even got CLOSE to my dream, I had to start with a clean piece of paper. That was over 8 years ago. What I finally came up with, sure doesn't have much in common with skateboards, (except I kept the 4 wheels and a board to stand on). And it sure doesn't ride like those other giant skateboards. It doesn't wobble and get all weird on you as soon as you get going over 5 miles an hour, like ALL the others do. ANY body who has spent ANY time on a skateboard or snowboard will take TWO turns to be comfortable on a Land Surfer®, but be careful, cause you'll be completely comfortable, which means you'll be going a lot faster than you are used to, before you realize it, so if you finally do decide to bail, it could be a lot more exciting than usual.

BY the WAY – (I shouldn't tell you this - I should make it sound like I'm a genius, but the truth is, it was a happy accident) - because there's no springs means that when you DO bail - you don't lose your faithful Land Surfer®. It just circles around you, cause it doesn't have springs to make it always head strait down to the very bottom of the hill - so far away that you can't even see where 

it went. (I like the part where the skateboarder maker guys tell you to tie the board to some part of your body that you can do without, so when you bail, (which you surely will do with ALARMING regularity), you won't have to spend most of your day walking DOWN the hill to get your board, then walk back UP the hill to fall off again, then walk DOWN the hill to get the 

- - - hey, -it's good exercise, but it's not what you went for. Or, wear a leash - then, in case you don't have enough to keep you busy while you are bailing, when that 20-pound springboard gets to the end of it's leash, - well, look: just don't tie it to anything real important, ok?

Bottom line - no leash with Land Surfer® - don't need it - you go off - you ALWAYS go off in a turn – no springs – Land Surfer® STAYS in the turn & stops right below you, and patiently awaits your next screwup.

"You don't NEED no stinking leeesh".

Well, anyhow, (I'm sorry, I do tend to get carried away sometimes) what I came up with, is EXACTLY what I wanted. Land Surfer® is like my dream - It's so much smoother. It's predictable. It doesn't get knocked off it's line. If you have a long traverse on a steep hill, 

(rolling ACROSS the hill instead of making turns strait down the hill) try setting the back axle in a slightly reversed angle. Set the back axle to turn a little in the SAME direction as the front to get a nice balance of like a crab-crawl. It keeps Land Surfer® from turning into the hill too much. See, when you are rolling ACROSS the hill, as far as Land Surfer® is concerned, you are in a turn, so it wants to KEEP turning - INTO the hill (up the hill) - so by making the back axle turn just a LITTLE up the hill, it helps cancel out too much turn up front. The other magic that happens in a slight crab-crawl is the back doesn't slide out as easy. You know how all boards have a tendency to always slide out in back way before the front? Well, with Land Surfer® you can fix that real easy. Get off, turn the back axle perpendicular to the board, and PULL. That's it! (Watch me do it in the video.) Land Surfer® feels like it FLOATS over the land. You're doin it in the dirt! If you have had the disappointment of trying the others, I DARE you to leave conventional skateboard thinking behind – THAT’S WHAT I HAD TO DO WHEN I DESIGNED LAND SURFER® !

You know, when I was going thru my eight years of R & D trial & error, I really stopped trying to get help from others, cause they didn't have the dream I had, so they just couldn't know the feeling the dream gave me, and it was the FEELING that I was chasing. 

Well, anyway, when I finally got to the point when I thought I had something, I took the final prototype to my patent attorney to see what he thought - he did the research and applications, and I wound up with a whole BUNCH of patents. So apparently it ain't your daddy's skateboard I wound up with.

Patented:

Adjustable steering. You can PRESET the amount of turn you want, in BOTH axles: 

If you are doing a steep bumpy hill, it takes about 15 seconds to change Land Surfer® to a real tight turn, so you can control your speed and maneuver around bad stuff like trees, rocks, holes and other dead things. If you got smooth goin in a pretty easy slope, then you straighten out the axles & point the thing DOWN the hill.

Patented:

Land Surfer® is NOT spring-loaded like skateboards. You just lean on the board to tilt it, like a skateboard, (or snowboard, or surfboard), and the axles turn. But you're not pushing against skateboard springs, all you're pushing against is the centrifugal force created by the turn. (What can I tell you, it just feels natural.) Then, when the wheels hit a stone or a lump or hole, they are FREE to move up and down without pushing back against springs, which then push back against you, and wind up pushing you off YOUR line (at best) or giving you the wobbles so bad, you're spending all your time picking a soft place to bail out, instead of enjoying the ride.

Patented:

Instantly changeable wheels mounted in rubber. Knobby tires to get a better grip. And smooth-tread tires if you like to slide.

A note about big wheels: You know why the other big boards don't use great big ol' fat wheels? Cause if they did, all that would happen is that bigger wheels would just amplify ground irregularities that, when you roll over them, tend to make your ride unstable by changing your line. See, when even those big wheels roll over a stone, or bump, they push up against those skateboard-type springs, or trucks held in rubber, (which act the same as springs,) and then the springs push up against you. How you supposed to be having a nice ride when the ground keeps pushing you all over the place? Ain't gonna happen. The wheels gotta FLOAT! Look at the picture I took of my bad boy with one wheel sitting in a hole! Aint skateboard gonna do that! 

Well, that's all I can think of now, but I'll come up with more - keep checking.

Greg.