Grip 2 Traction Pad With 50mm Integrated Kick Tail

Description

This is the traction pad Chris Ward was riding when he nailed that big air at Lower Trestles on January 20th, 2025. Click here to watch the video. It has an integrated 50mm kick tail with arch support on the kick AND on the deck pad. The kick tail is the same height, angle and tread pattern as the Chris Ward Flat top kick tail. The shape of the kick is identical to any of the interchangeable flat top kick tails. Arch support on the kick is a RIKT feature we invented for the times when a flat kick surface won’t keep you glued to your board. With the kick arch, you just cup the arch with the bottom of your foot and immediately feel the extra connection to your board.

Even though all of our kick tails have rounded edges and were designing with safety in mind, some surfers are reluctant to have something hard on the top of their board. So we designed this pad so you can have the high performance of a RIKT with the comfort and safety of foam.

The interchangeable kick tails are like an extension of your surfboard since they are hard and offer a zero latency response time when pressing against the kick with your back foot. Some use wax for grip and the Chris Ward flat top uses EVA foam for grip, and with the vertical rise kick tails, you can have more support for your back foot. So technically the interchangeable kick tails have faster response then this traction pad but this pad is sickly high performance for supporting your back foot when turning or carving – far better than any other traction you’ve ever ridden. A good analogy would be that our interchangeable kicks have 1000 horsepower, the RIKT traction pads have 950 and the traction pads from every other manufacturer have 100.