Don’t try to tell us that after watching Dane Reynolds thrash it in Electric Acid and Eithan Osborne launch it in Stab High, that you’re not the slightest bit curious about Channel Islands’ new Neck Beard 2.

Over the past month, the Stab team can’t shut up about this step-down, chop-tail, choose-your-construction craft. What we saw from Dane in his Acid Test and Eithan in the pool made us wonder what, exactly, had changed since the original Neck Beard released nearly 10 years ago.

Naturally we hit up Britt Merrick – infamously bearded son of Al and a revered shaper in his own right – who alongside Dane, helped design this revamped slider. He told us all we wanted and more about the NB2. – STABMAG

Stab: Where did the original Neck Beard come from?
Britt Merrick: Well this was back in 2009, and Dane was in a place where he wanted to feel something different – something that had a little more flow. He’d always been so focused on riding the most cutting edge and high performance equipment, I think Dane just wanted a board that facilitated fun. The Neck Beard was one of his first real “step-down” boards, which are extremely common now but weren’t back then. It happened around the same time as the Dumpster Diver.

We heard a rumor that the Neck Beard’s chop-tail came from Dane walking into a shaping bay and either saying, “Just lop that thing off!” or perhaps even doing it himself. Is there any truth to that?
Well that’s what’s rad about the Neck Beard – it’s maybe true depending who you ask. There’s so many stories about how the Neck Beard got started, probably because there were so many different versions of the thing. But I believe there was a version of the board where Dane, who was getting frustrated with some of the boards he was trying, just told the shaper to chop a foot off the tail and he’d ride it like that. Though I don’t believe that’s the model we went to market with.

READ MORE HERE: https://stabmag.com/hardware/neck-beard-2-dane-reynolds-eithan-osborne-channel-islands/