For those of you who've surfed on both brands, I'd like to know the performance difference between equaled sized Wave Bandit and Odysea softboards. The Odysea has supposedly stiffer fins, but are they that much higher performance to warrant double the price of the wave bandit? Does the Odysea have more foiled rails (for turning) than a wave bandit...or are the rails on both boards exactly the same? Do you recommend any other brand softboard? (6' -7' range)
Got a 7’ bandit for my girlfriend. Never ridden an odysea, but I can tell you that they do feel more refined than the bandit. Bandit is still fun though. Don’t forget that you’re talking about soft tops, you really aren’t getting much performance. Save a couple bucks and find a hardly used one.
Discussion on performance of soft tops? Next we discuss which is the better surf mat- the Hawaiian punchy model or the blue one with yellow edges?
Ron Jon has a decent foamie for less than most other soft top boarts. Also lots of folks ride those Wavestorms. I don’t know anything about the two brands you mention. Never got into soft tops but I did get my wife one of those 7’ foamies from Ron Jon, which worked great till I snapped it duck diving a chest high wave lol
I was just copying what they said (i should've put "high performance" in quotes). Just would like to know if the odysea boards turn any better than wave bandit? (btw, i have a quiver of poly boards, but a knee injury a couple years ago makes riding them too painful and sketchy. Hope i can get back on them some day.)
I was surfing waist to belly high weak choppe Saturday, and some kid had a little beater boart, it was the size of a boogie and had twin fins, and he only weighed 120 lbs, so he could surf it and catch more waves than the rest of us, and do some nifty turns in the shore break. But if you are average size or bigger, that would be hard not to sink.
Got a guy over here that surfs a 5'8" or 5'10" Odysea in small to moderate conditions and he says it's a blast, though he concedes that he's giving up some performance. FWIW, Kalani Robb and his crew are doing some amazing surfing on those odysea boards. It looks dumb until you see them doing everything that plus more than conventional boards are doing. Look on YouTube and see what I mean. I see more guys using the Odysea. Maybe that's a clue. I still wanna try one of those Sushi boards, they look more refined than any other foamie. Good luck with the knees dude
