Our friends at SkateAmerica.com have been kind enough to send us over a P2 deck from Creature Skateboards so that we can tell you guys all about P2 so you can work out if it’s the sort of thing you might want to buy.
“Spring Loaded Pop” is the term shouted from the rooftops by the promotions team at NHS Fun Factory when talking about the P2 (Pro-2) technology… Much to the excitement of kids everywhere who think buying a new deck will make them the next Danny Wainwright – look him up kids, UK skateboarding at its best and a piece of history that all skateboarders should be aware of (or alternatively just click here).
But what is P2 all about? The name certainly doesn’t give much away! Essentially, P2 decks are designed to be lighter, stronger, and poppier (is that a word?!) than a conventional 7 ply board, they do this by replacing a large section of the top ply with a Kevlar veneer, surrounded by a protective wooden buffer. Kevlar offers a number of advantages over even the best woods used in the production of skateboard decks. It’s worth mentioning that NHS don’t own the P2 tech and aren’t the only distribution company using P2, so if you have a favourite company it’s worth checking if they do any P2 decks.
So does it work, or is it just another gimmick? Kevlar is used in the manufacturing of everything from sailing ropes to motorbike helmets, canoes to bullet proof vests, and is massively more expensive to produce than a normal plywood veneer would be. One would assume therefore that the performance benefits are worth the cost of including the Kevlar in the construction. The Creature Fiends are famously no non-sense with their boards, if it doesn’t work it’s not worth doing.
The P2 website is packed full of testimonials from well respected professional skateboarders, most notably in my mind Bob Burnquist, who has been riding P2 boards by FLIP for years. As well as being the first person to land a fakie 900, i’m pretty sure he has won more big air competitions than any other skater in history – so it’s fair to say he knows a thing or 2 about pop. Other riders and fans of P2 decks include Geoff Rowley and Tom Penny for FLIP, and both Gravette and Naverrette for Creature.
The deck we’re looking at here is an old pro-model for Creature Pro Al Partanen, and while he doesn’t have the competition history of some other P2 riders he is still ripping for Creature at 42, which is getting on a bit in terms of the professional skater circuit, and arguable has one of the best front blunts in the industry.
The deck is from the Spirit Animal Series, and comes in at a width of 8.125 inches, and a length of 31.9 inches. If you’re a small or young skater you may find this deck a little on the large side, both in terms of width and length, the extra 0.1 – 0.5 inches length really can make a big difference if you’re stepping up from a smaller board, so make sure to check what you’re riding at the moment first.
As with all Creature boards the concave is fairly medium, certainly not as steep as some other boards i’ve ridden recently. Nose and tail are fairly even, both being fairly large and rounded which i like – they’re far less pointy than you would get from a deck from Real for example.
The boards size makes it great for carving around bowls, and the large nose/tail make slides on mini-ramp a walk in the park, however if you’re looking for a street/tech board you may want to look elsewhere, it just feels too long to me. It certainly has more than enough pop to be used for street skating, but for me personally the dimensions just don’t work out… But that’s just 1 man’s opinion, it could work for you, you don’t know until you try it!
It’s hard to work out exactly where the wood for the 7 veneers (including the 1 buffer larger on the top sheet) of the plywood deck come from, as it’s not mentioned on the board anywhere, nor on the small leaflet that comes with the deck. My understanding is that a majority of NHS wood is made in China using either North American or Canadian maple. This may no longer be the case (if anybody knows please fill us in!), but i certainly haven’t found anything to suggest this deck is made from cheap wood – it has been serving me well for several months now and has retained almost all of its stiffness.
The top veneer of plywood is extra thin so it can accommodate the Kevlar insert, this results in a slightly thinner and lighter than average deck, but there honestly isn’t any noticeable difference while riding it, so please don’t buy into the technology for the weight saving aspect alone.
One of the concerns some people have with technologies such as P2, is that the insert could come loose or leave an indent visible beneath the griptape – please let me assure this this will never happen! As soon as i applied the grip tape to this board i immediately forgot the Kevlar was even there, it feels like any other board. It really does feel like any other deck, in every single way. It’s not lighter than any other deck, it doesn’t feel massively snappier than any other deck, you do literally forget it’s not a normal deck.
With this said, you would probably wonder why you would bother investing in a P2 deck when there are cheaper alternative out there? The answer to that is in my opinion the added strength and resilience of the deck, having been ridden for around 2 months this deck still feels almost exactly like it did when i first set it up, no soggy pop, no chipping, and no razor tailing. So if you’re short on money and are looking for a strong deck that will last you a long time this is a really good way to go as the P2 gives you extra strength without adding any extra weight, in the long run it might just be worth the extra money for you. I’m happy with it, and would certainly buy a P2 construction deck again.
P2 decks are available from a number of different companies, Creature, Santa Cruz, Flip, Mystery, Habitat, Toy Machine, and Zero, and as always our friends over at SkateAmerica.com have a good selection, including some older models at knock down prices (Flip Dave Gonzalez P2 deck for just $37 at time of writing, which is a steal!!).
As i’ve not really touched on the actual graphic, here’s a few pictures for you to drool over…
