Your New Surf Coach - Trace Up

Everyone knows someone who can't stop talking about the turn they just did or how slotted they just got. The over-amplification. The Exaggeration. They are all things that make up our sport. Well ,that might well be blown out of the water by a little box full of genius...

Trace up. Why has no one heard of it? If I didn't know better I would have thought there was some kind of conspiracy to keep it under wraps but it turns out we are just being a bit slow on this side of the Atlantic. Let me start at the beginning.

Trace Up is a little 'hockey puck' size device that fits snuggly to the front of your surfboard. The box ,full of genius, will hook itself into connection with satellites and record data about your waves in a session. Not that impressive you might say? What if I told you that you could analyze every turn down to the amount of degrees your board turned, the camber and severity of you top and bottom turns, how high your Ariel was and the usual stuff like length of ride, speed etc.

You really have to wonder about the applications of such a device, could you imagine if the WSL sanctioned the use of this for their comps to help with Judges scores. No more guessing, no more underscoring. Just the facts right in front of them.

Still not impressed? Well I saved the best thing for last.

This little black magic disc can sync up with your Go Pro and provide on screen data overlapping the footage of your wave! I mean, that is genius. I ask you again, can imagine the possible uses? A video speaks a thousand words so check out this cool little promo video of what our newest little mate can do.

As usual at Surf Bunker we like to go one step beyond so we decided to contact the founder and designer of the Trace Up. Dave Lokshin.

SB: Thanks for your time Dave, where are you guys based, where is the 'test ground' for Trace Up?

Dave: HQ is in Huntington Beach. For surfing we go all over Southern California—Lowers, HB, Malibu, Rincon are some favorites. For snow, it’s usually Big Bear and on longer trips, Mammoth.

SB: Trace Up is such an awesome idea, who came up with it and how did it mature into the product that we see now.

Dave: It’s been a long time in the making. Fundamentally, this is the product that Anatole and I always wanted. He’s an avid skier and I grew up surfing and snowboarding a lot. While other kids knew their batting averages, I didn’t really have a way of understanding if I was getting better or setting small goals for myself. We launched on Kickstarter in late 2013, and only went into retail in July of 2015 so there were a ton of lessons learned with that first version of hardware before we went into retail.

SB: I understand that you can sync Trace Up to your Go Pro, was that difficult to achieve? Did you have to work closely with Go Pro

Dave: We are part of the GoPro developer’s program, but we started by just reverse engineering their app and camera. Editing video footage is such a huge pain, and we were doing it all the time for the athletes that we were working with. We knew there had to be a better way. Trace is that better way. You just drag and drop your footage and BOOM it gets edited for you. Color corrected, everything.

SB: What has been the most popular market so far for Trace Up, snowboarding or surfing?

Dave: We have a lot more users in snow, but we also started there, so that’s no surprise. They’re both growing super quickly, and we have sessions on every contentment having launched less than a year ago. Our YoY growth for water sports last month was more than 10x, so we’re supper happy with the response.

SB: What is you favorite feature of Trace Up, the most fun part?

Dave: Honestly, it changes as I progress. First I had a goal of getting a certain number of waves a month. That then turned into goals around turns. Right now we have an office competition for longest wave (I’m currently at 280 yards) so I’m doing everything I can to surf long point breaks and eek out every inch of that wave!

SB: Have you got any plans for improvements on the model that is out at the moment?

Dave: What makes Trace special is really the software and hardware combo. The software gets updated constantly, sometimes every day. We’re maniacal about creating the best user experience, and we’re hard at work improving that experience every single day.

SB: Thanks a lot to Dave for all  time, sounds like they are having an awesome time in the office,  I can see the Surf Bunker HQ turning into a cutback comp frenzy as soon as we get our hands on a magic box.

We love people that make things for surfers that are surfers, it makes all the difference to us. The drive comes from the right place, making a living out of helping the sport reach new levels and having some fun in the process.

No matter what you think, there is no denying that this little magic puck is going to change things up for the better.