Longboard-Life: Making My Heart Go Boom -- Bustin Boombox Review

Hello Friends,

I dropped a little sneak peak of the Bustin Boombox on the blog a little while back and I am officially ready to give you my thoughts on this board. The Boombox is a symmetrical topmount freeride and freestyle board meant to dope in every situation. It is the second longest board in the Bustin line-up but remains super nimble and incredible agile. Let me get into the nitty gritty details of Bustin Boombox real quick.

Specs:	Bustin Boombox
Length	42.5 in
Wheelbase	29.5 in
Width	10 in
Concave	9/16 in
Drop	1/2 in Radial
Special Features	Double Kicks, Radial Drop, Wheel Wells

The construction on the Boombox is something else. This board was built to be an all-around thrasher that can handle any situation you can throw at it. The concave on the board locks your feet in enough to hold out long slides without being so extreme that doing freestyle tricks get awkward. The radial drop on the board gives your feet a nice little bubble to rest and hit slides with. This bubble results in a more fluid transition between heel and toeside slides because you don’t have to rearrange your feet for every slide or do crazy monkey toe things.

This board is very similar to the Bustin EQ and I have mentioned in a previous product review that I LOVE the EQ. One of the main differences between this board and the EQ are the giant kicktails on either side. A more subtle difference between the two is that the Boombox has one less ply of maple in it than the EQ. This gives the board a tiny amount of flex and makes it nice and light which is great for freestyling.

Enough about the construction, let us talk about how the Boombox handles in the concrete jungle.

Commute

If you already know that you need to skate to work or to class every day and want to look steezy doing it, then grab yourself a Boombox. It has everything and anything you could possible need to take your commute from painful to pleasurable. I ride this bad boy to work (it’s about a 2 mile trek from my house) and enjoy every second of it. The radial drop makes the board a tad lower which is great for pushing and the flex give you just a tiny bit more rebound out your carves, making the Boombox nice and pumpable. The addition of kicks means hoping off curbs is a piece of cake, and hey if you’re good enough you can even pop up the curbs too.

Downhill

While the Boombox is certainly not best board for a strictly downhill rider it certainly isn’t terrible at it! I mentioned the little bit of flex on the board and it I wouldn’t call it speed stiff by any means, but I have taken it pretty fast on some of the bigger hills around here with no problem. The concave is enough to keep my feet locked in place when they need to be and the radial drop feels really, really nice when haulin down a hill. My only problem when I start going really fast on this board is that I am always so tempted to take it sideways instead. If you’re looking for a Bustin that you can tear down a hill on check out the Ratmobile, their new directional topmount speed board.

Freeride

Which brings us to how rad this board is for some serious freeride action. The Boombox is currently my favorite freeride deck because it has everything I could possible need. The concave doesn’t just keep my feet in place when going down a hill but keeps them nice comfy when throwing out slides. The bubble created by the radial drop on this board is great because, although I definitely do it out of habit anyways, you don’t have monkey-foot like a madman when kicking out a slide on this deck. You can sit your foot on that bubble and have enough leverage on the board to hit your heel and toeside slides without a problem. In addition the nose and tail kicks make it awesome for hitting blunt slides, which really just max out your cool points.

Freestyle

The last style of riding I wanted to talk about with the Boombox may be where the board excels the most and that is in freestyle. The kicks on this board are everything I could have hoped for and then some. They make manuals, no complys, shoves, and tigerclaws easy as pie. The effective platform is long enough while the rocker and concave are mild enough to hit some nice cross-step-y board dancing action. Which basically means you can link trick into trick into trick like it is your job. Having 8 plies of wood has made this board very light without sacrificing strength. I flip trick this board hard and have taken off some serious height without so much as even a sign of cracking.

Bottom Line, would I recommend this board to a friend?
I would actually recommend this board to a wide variety of skaters. It is a great board for learning on and then progressing your skills on to a very high level. There really isn’t much you cannot do on a Boombox. The concave locks you in for slides and going fast the kicktails make the board versatile as hell. The only person I would reconsider recommending this board to would be a downhill racer, but for anyone and everyone else this is a great board.

I happen to have a whole bunch of boards in my quiver and I find myself consistently reaching for my Boombox. On days I don’t know where I will end up I know that my Boombox will more than capable of handling anything I can throw at it. If you want a board that can do it all, and make you look steezey as hell while doing it, then grab yourself a Boombox, it is literally impossible that you would regret it.