05/06 Signal 163W

This piece of hardware is as good to ride as it is visually ugly. If you look beyond the pretentious artsy-fartsy-ness of the deck graphics (caked on dust with fingered lettering is part of the design), the board feels good and performs like a charm.

Neither light nor too heavy and not spectacular at first glance (no cut away view into the inner layers or authentication holograms that make the board look like it was spun from spaceage fibres in a lab somewhere), the board starts to feel good as soon as you start to skate on it with with your front foot in. It glides without any "noise" underneath (probably due to the sintered base and the great wax job done to the demo board by the TSA people).

Once you are stapped in and on an incline, it wants to go fast, it's up to you to slow down. It is not just fast but quick edge-to-edge and has enough pop for you to make quick decisons like "I've got one second to hit that drop on the right, no instead I'll go back on to my heel edge and throw up an ollie over that mogul to my left". It was so versatile, that I forgot that I was a big, flat-footed and rather un-nimble mid-intermediate rider.

It seems stiff enough to be super responsive in situations like the one above, but easy enough on the flex for you to bust out with the odd trick in the park without you feeling like you're on the wrong board for that type of action.

I had been looking to demo a Yukon '63 when I tried this instead. It felt faster, less taxing and more fun than the Yukon '59 that first got me interested in the wide rider genre. Now the Sig has edged its way up to #1 on my list.

Having ridden it all day last time at MK, the nerdy deck graphics seem welcome now. They have somehow been exonerated by the fact that the men and women of Signal invested their efforts in making aboard with performance that speaks for itself.

This board is good on the good, bad and ugly scale, and I am offering to buy the demo next time I'm in MK.