Review: Glide Sesh
Short Review:
A super durable river surfing specific hardboard. Unfortunately the shape and fin options leave much to be desired.
Long Review:
The Sesh is a unique board. The bright green (and now yellow) shell with the cool looking deck pad grabs the eye. Taking a closer look, the shape is unique too. Egg shaped, with a thick rounded tail and a turned up nose.
The “GSS”
The most unique and best feature of the board is its outer shell. The Glide Surface Shield (GSS) creates a super durable shell that can handle the rough and tumble of river surfing. It can handle running into rocks, getting pinned to the river bottom after pearling and getting dropped when carrying the board. If you want durability AND a hardboard for river surfing, this board is far better than anything else out there.
I bought my Sesh near the end of last season, as a used demo board with zero dings. After a full season of hard use, the board has only gotten two dings. Luckily, repairs are easy. Using a two part special epoxy provided by Glide, repairs are as easy as regular epoxy or fiberglass repairs. Both of my ding repairs have turned out great and have lasted the rest of the season without issue.
The GSS is not without its drawbacks however. The texture is rough, almost like a sandpaper. I don’t have any evidence to support this, but I feel like a rough outer shell makes the board slower. The added weight due to the GSS could also contribute to the board feeling slow. At 25 pounds (much heavier than a comparable epoxy board), the weight is definitely noticeable.
The application of the GSS isn’t perfect either. I found a pin hole that was a result of a manufacturing defect; the hole was tiny but big enough to absorb and leach water. I’ve also noticed a couple places where the GSS is delaminating from the board and creating soft spots (I haven’t attempted to fix these yet).
Shape
The shape of the Sesh is interesting. At 32″ wide, 5 1/2″ thick, and 160 liters of volume the Sesh is a fairly stable board that’s easy to stand on in the eddy. Once on a river wave, the wider tail with extra thickness allows the board to be ridden further back, making small holes surfable. Unfortunately the benefits of it’s unique shape end there.
The board doesn’t plane very well. As I mentioned before, it feels slow. The nose of the board feels like it sicks to the wave, rather than planing on it. The nose is turned up aggressively like a lot of other river boards, but it’s so narrow that it doesn’t feel like it helps keep the board from pearling.
Fins
The fin options for the Sesh holds the board back too. It has just a single center longboard fin box. The fact that it’s a longboard fin box instead of FCS fin plugs is great; (like the rest of the board) it’s super durable and won’t break. The fins will break before the board gets damaged. I’ve lost/destroyed several fins on this board.
A center fin is great for learning on or just surfing straight up river, but once you want to start doing grinds, 180s or 360s you’ll really wish you had side bite fin options. In my opinion, this limits this board to the intermediate skill level of surfers. The Sesh is a little too unstable to be a great beginner board, and the lack of side bite fins keep it from being a good advanced board.
Deck Pad
The last aspect of the board I’d like to mention is the deck pad. Glide choose to use a completely custom deck pad is that absolutely gorgeous. The deck pad is the best looking one you’ll see on the river. Unfortunately it doesn’t have as much traction as I’d like. It works okay, but when I get the board really far onto one rail or onto the tail sometimes I’ll unexpectedly slip off. It’s definitely a problem that occurs more often in cold weather/water.
Overall the Sesh is a good board with great construction. The durability alone makes this board worth having in your quiver. However if you consider yourself an advanced river surfer, you will most likely get bored of this board quickly.
Great review! And I just wanted to add in my opinion of the Sesh. I currently own a Sesh, and a Surftech B1.
I bought the sesh after using a Badfish River surfer. I thought for me the board outperformed the Badfish in everyway. I am 5’9 and 130lbs and I think the Sesh is a perfect play park board.
I felt the River Surfer was much slower than the sesh, and the nose on the river surfer was always in the air no matter where I stood on the board. It felt very sluggish.
On the Sesh I feel I can get forward and really engage the board and it feels like I gain speed in the carves. I also found the Sesh to be much looser than the BadFish. I could never get the Badfish to break loose, but the Sesh spins on a dime for me. (Take that with a grain of salt, its spins and I fall). But at least I can make it start to spin.
And then the best feature for me is the durability. I have had over 40 days on it and it looks brand new. On my River Surfer I would chip and ding it almost everytime out.
Also I am not sure about the weight that you talked about, mine is very light, much ligher than the BadFish. Mine is yellow, so maybe the new boards are lighter.
Anyways, can’t say enough good things about the sesh, its my favorite board by far.
Thanks for adding your thoughts Sam!
The performance of the Sesh vs River Surfer might depend on the wave you’re surfing. I don’t own a River Surfer, but I’ve always felt like they were pretty fast once on the wave.
It’s interesting you find the Sesh nice and loose! What fin are you using on the Sesh? I’ve been using the center fin out of this set: http://www.coloradokayak.com/River-Keel-Tri-Fin-Set but I still feel like it’s hard to side surf. I can get the board to turn sideways, but the center fin almost instantly pulls the board straight again. Next time you’re on surfing a board with a 3 fin setup, try surfing with all three fins, then try removing the center fin. You’ll be surprised how much of a difference the center fin makes!
Your yellow board is definitely lighter than mine! Starting with the yellow boards, I know they reduced the weight by not applying the GSS under the deck pad (where it isn’t really needed). Mine has also taken on its share of water, so there’s a chance it’s a bit water logged too.
To learn to spin I would go finless and I started at very low water levels. I actually was super surprised how loose the board is without a fin. It was hard to even get on the wave!
Then I tried putting the fin back on and it was next to impossible to spin. So for the next time my boyfriend chopped the stock fin down to about half the size. It looks like a little nub now. I would say its about 4 inch’s tall. And with that I can spin at will and still bring the board straight when it gets funky.
I live in Idaho so we have tiny waves to huge waves! And I think the sesh is still the most popular board on waves around here. River surfers just don’t seem to work on the faster waves.
I was totally stoked when I got my river surfer, I wanted something different, its all Glide up here, and well I ended up selling it.
Going finless is hard! I enjoy doing it every now and then just as a challenge. It sounds like the fin your using is similar to mine. I’ll play with different fins and fin positions more this coming season to see if I can find a good balance of looseness and tracking for the Sesh.
That’s crazy that the Sesh is so popular in Idaho! I guess you guys aren’t far from Salt Lake (where they’re made). The only Sesh boards I’ve seen in Colorado have belonged to the reps and Glide sponsored athletes. Colorado is the land of Badfish boards.
I agree, the River Surfer wasn’t optimized for big, fast, green waves. My favorite board for those types of waves is the definitely Starboard Impossible. We have a great wave in Glenwood that the Impossible works amazing on, but at certain flows River Surfers just aren’t fast enough. I’d love to try my impossible on Pipeline… maybe this spring!
I have a mint condition Glide Sesh (Yellow) for sale. If you are near Aspen CO let me know. Absolutely no dings or scratches. Perfect shape and look brand new. Selling for 600.00. Great board lots of fun just to busy this summer and its sitting in my garage taken up valuable space.