Every board has a personality. The Tan Tien's has always been defined by feel.

That lively, springy, responsive character that makes you want to carve one more hill, pop one more manual, flow through one more intersection on the way home. That feel has always come from a proven combination of materials. Now, two key upgrades make the Tan Tien better than it's ever been.

Here's what stayed, what's new, and why it all matters.

The Core: Vertically Laminated Bamboo

It starts at the center, and this is the part that hasn't changed. The Tan Tien's core is sustainably harvested bamboo, a material that grows up to 35 times faster than traditional hardwoods and regenerates without replanting.

But we don't use bamboo because it's sustainable (though that matters). We use it because of how it rides. Bamboo has a natural lively quality that maple can't match. It's springy. It wants to move. When you lean into a carve, the bamboo core stores energy and returns it. That's the bounce-back feel that Loaded riders talk about. It's not something you can get from a traditional hardwood layup.

The Structure: Fiberglass

Bamboo is lively, but on its own, lively isn't enough. You need structure. You need something that holds the board together when you're loading it up through a hard carve, landing a trick, or scrubbing speed through a slide.

That's where fiberglass comes in, and it's another part of the formula that's stayed the same. It runs throughout the entire deck, providing the structural backbone that keeps the Tan Tien strong, consistent, and durable. The fiberglass is what lets the bamboo core do its thing without flexing out or losing shape over time.

NEW: The Reinforcement: Basalt

This is one of the two big upgrades. Drop-through decks have a weak point: the neck, where the truck mounts cut through the board. That's the zone where flex can become unpredictable and where fatigue shows up first. Previous versions of the Tan Tien relied on fiberglass alone to handle these stress points.

Now, we reinforce the neck and kicktails with basalt fiber, a natural volcanic material that adds targeted strength exactly where it's needed. The result is more predictable flex at the stress points and kicktails that stay poppy for tricks, manuals, and creative freestyle lines. Basalt works alongside the fiberglass, not instead of it. Each material doing what it does best. It's a meaningful upgrade you'll feel every time you load into a carve or pop a manual.

NEW: The Bond: Custom Super Sap Bio-Resin

Here's the other big upgrade, and it might be the most important one.

Bamboo, fiberglass, and basalt are great materials. But materials are only as good as what holds them together. For the Tan Tien, that's now our custom Super Sap bio-resin, a bio-based epoxy formulated exclusively for Loaded in collaboration with Entropy Resins. This is new to the Tan Tien and it changes everything about how the board performs.

This isn't an off-the-shelf resin. We've worked closely with Entropy to engineer every major performance characteristic for our specific application: the perfect elasticity to complement our bamboo cores and fiberglass specs. The result is a bond that's tuned for energy return, flex consistency, and long-term durability. The Tan Tien has always had great flex. Now it has the best flex it's ever had.

It also happens to be better for the planet. Super Sap uses bio-based materials from industrial waste streams (like tree sap) to replace petroleum content, reducing the carbon footprint of manufacturing. But the performance came first. We didn't choose Super Sap because it's green. We chose it because it makes the board ride better. The sustainability is a bonus.

What Happens When They Come Together

The Tan Tien was always a great board. The bamboo core and fiberglass structure gave it a feel that riders fell in love with. But with the addition of basalt reinforcement and a custom Super Sap bio-resin, it's now stronger, more consistent, and more finely tuned than any version that came before it.

That's what you feel when you stand on a Tan Tien. Not bamboo. Not fiberglass. Not resin. You feel all of them, working together. Better than ever.

Two flex options: Flex 1 for heavier riders or aggressive tricksters, Flex 2 for lighter riders and flow-seekers. Both tuned for the same thing: a board that carves, kicks, commutes, and flows like nothing else in its class.

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