Free Surf 11

There truly is something to be said for doing your homework. If you were going to buy a new car, you’d test drive it first. If you were gonna drive to Town, you’d check the surf report and cams before heading out. But for far too long, we’ve all been dropping the ball and our hard-earned cash by purchasing five, six, and seven-hundred-dollar boards that flat out don’t work for us. Well, the days of selling your dining room furniture for that new Firewire only to have it end up on Craigslist or collecting dust in the garage are over, as 33-year-old Cariel Cohen of LA County may have the solution to the problem: Ride the board first.
The idea that your average run-of-the-mill surfer should be able test out a board before laying down some serious cash at the register is the cornerstone for Cohen and his crew at Sportsknack.com and they think that they’re on to something big. “We like to think of ourselves as the Netflix of surfboards,” says Craig Gibbel, who acts as the warehouse manager at Sportsknack’s Santa Monica location. “It’s a great concept. Let’s say that you want to buy a new Firewire, but you’re not sure exactly how they would ride. You can set up an account with us online, check out our entire quiver through our website, find the board you want to try, pick it up at one of our locations, and you’re off. Just return it when you’re done. If you think the board works good, we’ll hook you up with the dealer and you can buy that model from them. This way, you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into before you by the board.”
With four locations housing hundreds of shapes ranging from massive stand-ups to high-performance thrusters coming from a number of different labels, there’s never a shortage of boards to test out. According to Gibbel, all of Sportsknack’s boards are in top shape and guaranteed to be beater-free. “We keep all of our boards in ‘new’ or ‘like new’ condition. Once a board comes in, we take a good look at it and make sure there aren’t any dings or anything like that before it goes back out. Every now and then it happens and a board gets dinged, no big deal, we have them professionally repaired at no cost to the surfer. We put a lot of effort to make sure that the boards remain in top shape for the customer. If a board is starting to look anything less than stellar, we’ll retire it.”
So what does it cost to have a hundred-plus-board quiver in your pocket and at your disposal? Less than you’d think. “For one, we’re not a demo place or anything,” says Sportsknack’s founder Cariel Cohen. “The way it works is that you pay $9 per month and a day rate ranging from $12 to $20 to try the board out. That way, you can take the board home, ride it at a few different spots, and get a really good feel for the shape before you commit to buying it from the manufacturer or shaper. It’s a really good way for surfers to test out all of the equipment that’s out there.”
Although Sportsknack made its online debut less than a year ago, they’ve gained a steady clientele with positive feedback and already have plans in the works to expand their warehouse locations to Australia and here in Hawaii. “We’ve had such a good response that we’re definitely looking to expand. It makes a lot of sense, especially if you’re on a trip and you don’t want to pay a few hundred dollars in travel fees to bring your board with you. You can just go down to one of our warehouses, pick out a board, and ride it for a fraction of the price