Asylum Skateboards skateboarding

Now you may be thinking, “Asylum skateboards? What company is this?” Well, to answer your question, Asylum is a rapidly growing board shop located in Southern California. They’ve been around since 1990, so you know they’re OG’s. With the team of Tom Eukovich, Danny Scher, Anthony Shultz, Michael Prince, John Cleveland, and John Gacuma, Asylum took place in the Battle of the Shops!

www.AsylumBoardShop.com

Look/Style: When first taken out of the box, I was taken aback by the beauty of this deck. It truly is beautiful, in its own medieval-like fashion. The deep red color really pops out at you. This deck is designed like a standard text graphic, but with a little added flare. If you love text graphics (and who doesn’t?), you’ve got to check this out.

Shape/Concave: After, gazing at the graphic for a bit, I immediately looked down at the concave. Possibly the most excited that I’ve been about concave in a while. The concave is not too, too steep, but it’s definitely steeper than medium. No matter what shoe you wear, even the Osiris D3’s, you will be able to feel that stunning concave. The shape of Asylum’s deck is similar to that of a chocolate. When I say that, I mostly mean the tail and the nose are very similar. The nose of this deck is pretty large, making those nollie and switch tricks that much easier. However, the tail is much smaller than the nose, which is probably the only drawback of this deck. At first, when you ride your tail, then do a shove-it or a trick like that, the nose feels awkward under your feet. Nonetheless, you will get used to this in a matter of hours.

Pop: In past experience, I have noticed with shop decks, pop is where they fail. With this deck, I was ready for the worst. But yet again, I was mistaken. With the help of some stiff wood, you’ll be popping your highest tricks. But just because the wood is stiff, doesn’t mean it has bad feel. In fact, you feel very in control of this board. Like all decks, of course, the board will lose its pop. So that mean, get your fill while you can!

Durability: Through big gaps, big sets, and all, this deck prevailed! As I stated earlier, the deck has stiff wood, which obviously played a factor in durability, because the most damage done to this deck were some tiny little pressure cracks. The most surprising thing I noticed is that there were no chips! Thus far, I have chipped about nine out of every 10 decks. So for this deck to go un-chipped is remarkable. Over the years, I have noticed that smiths, feebles, and willys (if you’re into that sort of thing), will sometimes carve into the side of the deck. Well, not here. This is a very subtle notation, but still shows off the deck’s strength.

Overall: Asylum Board Shop has surprised me in many ways. In my mind, it went from a no-name shop that I would never consider buying from, to a shop with a deck I will most likely purchase again and again. With beautiful graphics, strong pop, first-class, and a price of exactly $27.48, you can’t go wrong with Asylum. Support local shops!

Chris Behany

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