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The Naish Traverse is a ‘new school’ all-rounder; crossing disciplines was the primary goal as Naish set out to design the Traverse with the help of Ewan Jaspan. It is designed to be a fun and playful ride that will allow you to mix up your riding style depending on the conditions and your preferred connection to the board. Swapping between boots and straps is a game changer for the ride.
Taking its influence from freeride, freestyle and park riding, the Traverse holds its own unique style within the Naish twintip lineup. The board’s outline is long, yet relatively narrow. While this can often make a board feel quite cumbersome, Naish have applied a mid-high continuous rocker to the Traverse that makes its footprint feel significantly smaller than it really is. This lends itself wonderfully to being thrown around. It is remarkably easy loading and rewards you with an impressive pop. However, between tricks it is a little power demanding and requires you to be suitably powered with an efficient riding technique to return upwind to your starting point.
Locking and unlocking the edge comes easy thanks to a simple and shallow rail channel that runs the length of the toe and heel side edge. To describe the Traverse in one word, we would opt for ‘playful’. It is insanely smooth to slide around; tail presses have never been easier and throughout the motion it feels very controlled. For a board that can do a bit of everything, it certainly pleases. For riders looking towards a more specific style of riding or more grip the Traverse isn’t for them and they will likely still prefer the more heavily contoured bases of the Monarch for Big Air and freestyle, but for riders looking for accessible fun and the chance to really shred around, the Traverse is the future…
