Board Review Carver Carson Proteus
The Carver Carson Proteus was my second surf skate. I wanted to get something more skateboard-a-like than the Yow I bought as my first board. Carver is pretty popular among the audience in most online communities like reddit, or in dedicated surfskate facebook groups. Especially old skaters (like me) seem to be very attracted by them.
The Carver Carson Proteus is essentially a “Proteus” line surf skate from Carver with a graphic design by David Carson. Other Proteus boards exist but the Carson is my personal favourite, the design is pretty nice. The board is 33″, the perfect size for a 182cm male like me. My board originally came with Carver CX trucks and their stock wheels.
A Rough Start
The Carson came in just two days after I placed my order with a large german online shop. Blazing fast shipping. I quickly checked it and took it for a ride at the afternoon. The board had a annoying squeaking sound and after 10 minutes the king pin nut came off. I replaced the nut and just 10 minutes later the nut was loose again.
I contacted the dealer, the self unscrewing nut seems a common problem of the CX. reddit is full of complains. The dealer was aware of the issue and replaced me the entire truck. Sadly the replacement truck’s hanger was asymmetrical. The left side of the hanger was longer than the right one.
Carver should really step up their QA game. So I contacted the dealer yet again and got another replacement, this time just the hanger. The second replacement finally worked. I still use it until today without any further issues.
Cruising
After this poor start I really started to love the board. It’s just 33″ long, so a bit smaller than my YOW, but it’s an amazing ride. I tuned it a bit by removing one of the rise pads on each side, as the board comes with two pads for each truck pre-installed. It’s still high enough to not have any wheel bites.
The board is still my absolute favorite for daily cruising. The 70mm round house wheels are good for that, but after they were worn a bit I replaced them with 65mm Orangatang Love Handles in 77a blue. They fit perfectly for this ride and allowed me to replace the remaining riser with just a 1/16 shock pad.
The stock bushings are ok. I think they work for most riders, especially at the beginning. But if you get into surf skating more and more you might want to fine tune these. Orangatang Knuckled work very well for the board. I selected orange 87a in the front and purple 90a in the back. Riptide bushings work fine as well. Depending if you want barrel or cones board side.
Fine Tuning
One of the most interesting observations I made is that pre-build boards come with 2 layer of 1/4 shock pads on each side. I am not sure why this is done as the stock wheels work fine with a single pad too. There is no risk of a wheel bite here. The first thing I did was removing one of them on each side.
I am not much of a fan of super high setups. So I decided to replace the wheels with 65mm 77a blue Orangatang Love Handles. These are pretty good wheels and they fit very good for this board. This change also allowed me to remove the last Carver riser pad and replace it with a very thing laoded rubber shock pad. This is as low as it can get. The board still rides nicely.
The annoying squeaking of the trucks is a persistent problem, every CX owner I know complained about it. There are plenty of tips on the internet how to get rid of it. But most of them just work temporarily. Adding (too much) paraffin into the pivot cup might even cause asymmetry if it’s done wrongly. I solved it once for all by replacing the pivot cup with a riptide one later one. This replacement is a solid move and silences the board once for all.
Takeaway
I have to say I love the Carver CX, even if the quality control seems to be a bit weird in the recent days. But hey, maybe I just had bad luck. If your trucks work, they will work. And they are a lot of fun. The system is super easy to assemble and take a part, no surprises or springs. People coming from traditional longboarding will instantly fall in love with this system.
The Carver Carson Proteus is currently my daily runner, it just works and I am more than happy with it.
Alex is a passionated engineer and skater who discovered surf skating as a hobby to fill the days between his windsurf sessions. Skating now takes so much time that it became his primary hobby. Alex runs this website as a platform for his hobby and discoveries.