March 27, 2008 Rotating casterboards like Razor's RipStik and the Essboard are fairly well established as hyper-manoeverable alternatives to the skateboard, letting riders fishtail their way around and even climb hills without putting a foot down. Tierney Rides are now offering a totally flat casterboard with two fully rotating caster wheels - and the company claims its carving T-Board is the closest experience you can get to snowboarding on pavement.
With a single rotating caster under each foot, the T-Board is free to tilt as the rider leans into corners, so the experience of swooping down a long hill feels a lot like carving your way down a ski slope on a snowboard.
There's not a lot more to the T-Board than downhill carving and the odd trick - its lateral instability would mean that taking one foot off the board to kick it along on flat ground could result in a faceplant - and unlike the RipStik and Essboard, it doesn't twist in the middle, so it can't be fishtailed around to generate its own forward propulsion.
But as the company points out, the T-Board is not a skateboard, it's a training tool for snowboard fans designed to provide a good off-season carving fix, as evidenced by US Olympic snowboarder Ryan McDonald, who trains on a T-Board through the summer. Better pad up though, bitumen's a lot harder than powder!