Fliteboard 101 What to know before you ride

• Posted on 1 October 2022
• By Julia Peet
• Posted in Fliteboard
• 0

Flite leads the industry in eFoils. With the longest lasting battery life, you’ll cruise longer and further than your muscles can handle. So, let’s get going. Here's Fliteboard 101: a miniseries. Everything you need to know before you Flite.

Flite leads the industry in eFoils. With the longest lasting battery life, you’ll cruise longer and further than your muscles can handle. So, let’s get going. Here's Fliteboard 101: a miniseries. Everything you need to know before you Flite.

The 100L Foil Board:

This is the best option for riders > 200lbs or a very conscious beginner. With huge buoyancy and stability, you can balance and correct yourself without much retaliation from the foil itself.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="495"] The 100L Board in Ash[/caption]

The Pro Board:

Think of it as a smaller, more compact version of the 100L. This board suites riders < 200lbs. Even if you have little to no foil experience, or even wake surf experience, you can learn to ride on this board. What will make a huge difference is if you have water sports experience. Being comfortable in the water is extremely important. So is being mindful of what’s going on around you.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="282"] The Fliteboard Pro Board in Black[/caption]

When starting out

When you’re learning to ride, you’ll start out on your belly. It will feel much like getting up on a kneeboard. You have the controller in your hand, and you engage the speed with your pointer finger, much like a video game consul controller. As you pull back on the trigger, the motor will engage and you'll shoot forward. We recommend that everyone stay far forward, over the nose of the board. As you work up to your knees, keep your hand gripping the nose of the board. This will help you keep the board stable and low against the water.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="266"] Flite Controller[/caption]

When the board gets up on plane, you can scoot onto your knees. It should feel surprisingly stable. If it doesn’t then you don’t have enough weight on the front of the board. You want to keep the nose down while you get a feel for the board and your balance point. Once you’re comfortable, you can speed up, or rise up out of the water. If you start to panic, like most first time riders, think about putting a lot of weight on your front foot. The board will dip towards the lake. Even if it hits the lake, all that happens is you bounce. But if you can remain calm, you’ll save yourself from falling.

Foil wings

For the most part, the wings that we sell at Sun Sports are the flyer 800. Think of it as an all purpose wing, easy and stable enough for anyone to use. Medium cruising speeds. Carving and riding swell. Also built for cruising and stability. The wing attaches to a long mast. The longer mast length allows smooth riding high above the chop and allows for an extreme turning angle without the board touching the water.

Batteries:

We sell two different kind of Fliteboard batteries that you can customize with your efoil package. The first is our personal preference: the Explorer. With 30 more minutes of battery life, the distance you can travel is nearly endless. At least on a lake. The trade off is the extra weight. You’ll notice this difference when carrying your foil on shore. The second battery is the sport battery. Truly a performance upgrade, in the sense that you’re more maneuverable. The lighter weight nature of the battery allows you to be quicker in and out of turns and more agile on the water.

The Fliteboard motor emits a quiet hum, much like a Tesla motor. It’s slightly freaky when you first get on it, because you’d expect it to be much louder.  It's actually rather relaxing to listen to. It's just enough noise to remind you that there's a board beneath your feet.

No feeling quite like it.

There’s no feeling quite like it. It’s totally and completely freeing. It has obvious elements of wake surfing attached to it but it also has the solitary therapy of snow skiing. Much like snow skiing, you see and hear others around you, but you’re not riding with them. You’re just riding among them.

Want to learn more?

Call us at 207-693-3867. Or email us at [email protected]. We are here to answer any and all questions that you have about foiling. Shop online or in store! Check out our website for more.