Why We Stopped Selling Surfskates at Carving Social Club

For many years, if you knew Carving Social Club, it was probably because of surfskates.

We sold boards, tested systems, published tutorials, organized classes, and dedicated a huge part of our project to understanding how surfskating could be used as a tool related to surfing.

Then we stopped selling them.

What seemed at the time to be primarily a commercial decision also ended up being a sign of where Carving was evolving.

Surfskating was at the origin of Carving

When we started in Madrid in 2011, the sea was hundreds of kilometers away and we were looking for ways to continue working on surf-related movements out of the water.

Surfskating quickly became one of our main tools.

During those years, we worked with some of the most important brands in the sector, tested different systems and setups, and even became the number one in sales for some of the main surfskate brands we worked with.

But selling boards ended up being only a part of what was happening.

We wanted to understand what was behind each board

Having access to many models allowed us to compare sensations, wheelbases, systems, duro, and setups.

This also fueled our classes and the tutorials we published on our channel.

The goal was no longer simply to know which surfskate to sell, but to understand what each tool could be used for and what its actual relationship with surfing was.

Then El Palmar started to take up more and more space

As we developed our activity in El Palmar, an increasing part of our resources, time, and energy began to concentrate around surfing.

The Surfhouse, classes, Surfcamps, and work in the water gained prominence.

During this transition, we made the decision to stop maintaining a broad catalog of surfskates in our online store.

At the time, we thought it might be temporary. Over the years, we understood that it was part of a deeper change.

We stopped selling surfskates, not using them

This is probably the most important thing.

Surfskating never disappeared from our way of working.

It simply stopped being a product around which the company revolved and returned to the place that made the most sense to us: a tool that can help understand and repeat certain movements out of the water.

Today, we continue to use it in Surfskate classes, Surfcamps, and Surf Coaching programs when we believe it can contribute to a person's progress.

The next step was to connect land and water

In Madrid, we could practice a movement on a surfskate and wait for the next trip to the coast to try to take it to a wave.

In El Palmar, we can use it differently.

We can surf, detect something in the water or in a video, repeat a pattern on land, and go back into the sea with that sensation still fresh.

This immediate connection between an out-of-water tool and what happens afterward on a wave is much more interesting for us than selling a board alone.

Still looking for information to choose a Surfskate?

Although we no longer have that specialized store, we retain some of the knowledge generated during those years.

You can consult our Guide to choosing your Surfskate and our Surfskate Tutorials.

You can also explore other projects and content from that period in our Carving Social Club Archive.

It wasn't abandoning a stage, but using what we learned in a different way

Surfskating helped build Carving and continues to be part of our history.

What changed was the focus of the project.

We went from trying to bring surfing closer to Madrid to being able to develop all that work by the sea in El Palmar.

If you want to know how that transition happened, you can read why Carving changed Madrid for El Palmar.

Today we continue to do many of the things we learned then. Only the goal is no longer to sell surfskates: it is to use the right tool when it can help you better understand your surfing.