Review: Hyperlite Forefront Wakeboard

Greg Nelson here with Hyperlite. I’ve got our new Hyperlite Forefront wakeboard here. It comes in as small a size as a 129 and all the way up to a 144 for the big guys. It’s a really cool design this year. We’ve got a lot of features in this wakeboard that are going to help any rider of any ability level get over that awkwardness of toe-side cutting and toe-side landing. And we’ve also, on the top deck, here, you notice these little notch-outs in the tip, we’ve tried to keep this wakeboard as thin as possible in the tip and the tail, reducing the swing weight. I always like to look at swing weight as how the wakeboard spins. Whether it’s a flip, or a spin, like a 360, this wakeboard is really light. It makes all those tricks a little bit easier for all riders.
As you guys look at the bottom of this wakeboard, notice that it comes equipped with four fins. The way it’s going to come standard is you’re going to have toe-side fins a little bit longer than your heel-side fins. This, again, is going to help that toe-side performance of the wakeboard, making your learning and your progression a lot easier. Not only did we add longer toe-side fins, if you desire, but we’ve also got these anti-slip fins on the toe-side, as well. You can see that when you compare each side of this wakeboard, this is definitely the toe-side with these features and benefits, and this is the heel-side, still nice and clean. If you look at the extension, here, on this rail, it’s about four inches longer than this rail, allowing that toe-side edge to hold water a little bit longer and make your riding a little bit easier. If you can see, right here, in the light, we’ve got a little bit of a bump, right here. What that does is, that softens the water on impact. When you land on top of the water, it spreads the water out to the sides, lets the wakeboard sink in nice and deep and allows for a nice cushy landing, when you’re going out into the flats or when you’re just landing on the other side of the wake.
As you guys progress your riding on the Hyperlite Forefront wakeboard, you can take off the toe-side fins and add the other set of fins that are equal length, to the heel-side fins. And this will give you the ability and the freedom to let your wakeboard progress with your riding. No other wakeboard on the market does that. You can also take the longer fins and put them up on the nose of the wakeboard if you want to focus on your switch stance riding. If you’ve got longer fins up on the nose, when you’re riding switch stance, which is mostly uncomfortable for people, it’s going to make the wakeboard a little bit more solid, and it’s going to allow you to learn switch stance riding a little bit quicker.
And, like I said, as you get comfortable with all those aspects of riding, you can switch out to the four shorter fins, or you can come back to the shop, get a set of Hyperlite P-Wings, the .8’s, and this wakeboard’s still going to ride really, really good. The nice part about it is, the Hyperlite Forefront wakeboard offers you all that flexibility, so as you progress your riding, the wakeboard can progress with you.