Rain Skates – Hybrid Deck and Tsunami Wheels

Rain Skates
Hybrid Deck and Tsunami Wheels

It appears that there may be more to Alaska than just polar bears and oil pipelines. There’s also a small company that’s hand shaping some awesome boards. Rain Skates, which is located in Ketchikan, Alaska (say that three times fast) makes custom boards with awesome concaves and shape straight out of an 80’s skate video. When the box from Rain was thrown (yes thrown) onto my porch courtesy of a very lazy mailman, I was eager to see was inside. Once out of the box was a deck that almost transported me back to Jr. High when all the cool skater kids rocked the squeeb hair style and all the clothes were ripped in the right places. I couldn’t wait to set it up. I ripped the box open to reveal the Hybrid deck which features a steep concave and measures in at 30.5″ by 9.5″ with a 15.25′ wheelbase, a 4-3/8″ nose, and a 6-1/8″ tail has really cool side cuts at the lower half of the board, and is drilled for both new and old truck patterns.

Each deck is pressed in a late 80’s Uncle Wiggley/H-Street “Hell Concave” mold and hand numbered and initialed by Pete the owner. This gives the board an honest, hand crafted feel, so you know it’s not some assembly line clone. I haven’t ridden such a steep board in years and was super stoked at the prospect of hitting some ditches and bombing a couple hills. And to help me gain the speed I’d need for my ultimate meeting of face and blacktop Pete sent me a set of Tsunami wheels. A hefty 65mm x 42mm wheel with a durometer of 95A. I imagined the wheels to be slightly hard and not as grippy, but they rode smooth and gripped the tranny really good as well as being great for long power slides down the hills around my house. A great board for riding bowls and tranny or for just cruising around. Check out www.rainskates.com for their full line of classic shapes as well as the newest shapes they’re putting together.