Traction upgrade recommendations

Hey gang, I've got a Triple X Composite Pro Skim with the stock traction on it. I'm looking to upgrade the traction, mainly to add an arch bar to help with the shoves. What traction kit should I get? There are about a million options on Ebay.

Do you want an arch in the back or front and back?
I love Dakine's rear traction. Most front traction pads dont come with a front arch, so you have to buy an arch separately and add it.
Hydro-Turf has a wakesurf kit that has front and rear arch. They are pretty much the only company making wakesurf kits.

What was the traction pad set up on the original Flyboy wakesurfer? What brand and size were they? I tried one and it was great.

packrat, it was astrodeck Beaker traction, but I heard they discontinued it.

The flyboys use Hyrdoturf. Hydroturf sells single archbars on their site and elsewhere. If you plan to pull all the traction off, be ready to get some goo-gone or other product help remove the residual adhesive. A lot of people like the arch bars from Xtrak, as well. They sell 13 and 15" arch bars in 2-3" lengths 'designed' or intended for skims and longboards. Your typical surf industry rear pad will either have an integrated arch and kick or will be flat. As mentioned above upper pads are not really used in the surf industry except sometimes on longboards and don't have integrated arches... If you want to integrate an arch into your current traction you can do this with a single edge razor blade by cutting the arch pattern out. The traction will slice really clean with very little pressure. Then just pull off the cut out area and place the arch in.

In the past we use to take a typical rear pad and cut the kick tail off and place it upside down for an upper pad...... this is also an option, in so much as you can get rear pads for as little as $13.

I too like to have the arch bar. Often time i just use double sided sticky tape(foam style) to build one in. Also i like the Hydro turf traction. Good kit and you can customize the height of the arch bar if you dont like it with a palm sander

Also the best stuff to get that glue off that i have found is "Duplicolor Paint Prep Spray." I found it at the local auto parts store. It turned the glue to gel in about 2 minutes then scrape it off with a plastic scraper to keep from scratching your board. I then had to follow it up with some denatured alchol to get off any remaing residue. Last step is to give it a quick wax with some are polish.

Thanks for the tips. I'm thinking an arch bar only in the back for now. Great idea to add a bar to the existing traction, but I will probably get all new traction just to jazz it up a bit. I'll post up a pic of what I come up with.

Hydro-Turf all the way. Their traction is soft, super tacky and holds up very well.

Agree on hydroturf, RJ and all of my kids love it. Soft, good traction, and once they have started using arch bars, they don't feel right when they don't have em.

What's the verdict on a front arch bar? Do you use one or not? Advantage or disadvantage?

Not many people use a front arch, but I love having a front arch bar. I never have to think about if my feet are positioned correctly because I can feel it. It makes coming down from airs of shuvits easier because you only have a brief amount of time to get back in the correct position before you lose it.
And as a skim rider, I ride my board backwards almost as much as forward so I like to have both archs. Archs give me more control when doing lipslides and boardslides because I grab them with my feet to pull or push the board around.

love the front arch bar. Had one for the first time this season and will never go back.(surf style) Just as Mitch said, you can locate your feet on the board super quick