"The Three Bears"
We have already reviewed "Mama Bear" (the Hyperlite Broadcast 4'8") and found it to be a great and versatile board -- but we want to elaborate on the triad of boards which make up this family of three.
We received Baby, Mama, and Papa Bear at the same time to demo all together. While Mama Bear was right in the "goldilocks zone" for most of our young adult surfers, the other boards have their merit too.
"Papa Bear", AKA the Hyperlite Broadcast 5'4", proved to be an ideal ride for larger surfers. The generous width and surface area makes up for the thin profile, and these factors combined makes for a wakesurfer with plenty of maneuverability, suitable for a 200lbs surfer.
"Baby Bear", AKA the Hyperlite Gromcast, is the smallest of the trio. As the name would suggest, this is the board for groms and young, light surfers. We didn't have any surfers small enough to give this board a fair review, but by all observations it seems to have the same stats as its parent boards. Here at The Keuka Boardroom, we've been known to take a good kids' board and use it as a skim board for our young adult surfers; however, this board doesn't fit the bill for that use, as it is just too small and won't support the weight outside of its marketed range. Keep this board around for your little cousins looking to learn to ride.
The fin issues we discussed in the review of Mama Bear were unfortunately also present in Baby and Papa. Hyperlite never reached back to us for correspondance on this problem. Again, we suggest keeping some back-up screws on hand.
OUR REVIEW: 4.5/5
