You can always count on the Big B aka Burton Snowboards to innovate when other brands’ R&D departments are stagnating. This year Rob from Burton IBK showed us through three boards with killer graphics and tech that are ready to blow your minds in the 2012/13 season. The Spliff is a micro splitboard based on the miniature all-mountain shape of this year’s sensation the Nug. The smallest member of Burton’s new Family Tree, freeride focused range at only 148cm in length with a stumpy tail and shovel nose we were told that the Spliff is deceptively floaty. Even if the Muppets aren’t your thing, you gotta love the Custom Restricted Flying V’s limited edition Kermit the Frog graphics… but if you want to get hold of one of these you’ll have to search hard because availablity is going to be sparse. Rob’s final choice from Burton’s ever expanding range was the Parkitect. With its matt black topsheet and little Gonz inspired graphics the Parkitect looks like any other snowboard, except for the fact that the board has a designated toe edge and heel edge. Nope, the Parkitect doesn’t have an asymmetric sidecut like the Gnu Park Pickle, it has a squeezebox core specially developed for duckfoot stances! The Parkitect will definitely be high on our testing list for 2012!

Continue reading Sh*t is Hot - 2013 Burton Snowboards Preview

With one man snowboard brand Jason Broz of Clyde Snowboards joining the Endeavor team in 2011, the 2012/13 season is looking very strong for Endeavor. Brand founders Max Jenke and Scott Serfas are still heavily involved with the board design process but Jason is in charge of putting Endeavor’s new Vancouver based Archetype R&D facility to good use. Endeavor’s 2013 line is typified by strong graphics from Snowboard-Review favourites Derek Stenning and Rory Doyle and innovative new shapes and construction. Jason showed us the revised Guerilla Series which is now twin shaped with a hybrid camber profile, the classic bamboo Next Series for big mountain charging and a new board to the line, the New Standard which is designed to be ridden shorter than your normal ride much like the Burton Nug. Apologies for the background noise in the video, Scullcandy was enjoying a mid morning rave a couple of booths away.

Continue reading Sh*t is Hot - 2013 Endeavor Snbs Preview

Last season the world of freeride snowboarding was a simpler place. There was powder in America, Europe was experience a typical season of epic snowfalls followed by torrential rainfall and flash thaws and the only snowboard to go for in the Rossignol line that could handle big mountain riding was the Experience Magtek. This season to put the proverbial cat among the pigeons Rossignol introduced a new board to their freeride line and to make things even more confusing they used the Experiences exact shape and camber profile. With so many people struggling to make a choice between the two boards, I felt it was Snowboard-Review.com’s duty to get hold of both the Krypto and Experience and put them through a vigorous SB-RV review.

Continue reading Rossignol Experience Vs Rossignol Krypto

They’ve been almost a decade in the making. An innitial star studded advertising campaign, with riders like Devun Walsh and Jeremy Jones talking about an un-named and undisclosed binding project caused a blogging and forum frenzy with members of the public even trawling through the US’s patent office submissions in an attempt to uncover the secret behind JF Pelchat’s revolutionary snowboard binding design. Post ISPO and SIA, the cat is well and truely out of the bag, but unless you’ve actually had your hands on the NOW IPO bindings it’s dificult to understand how their revolutionary pivot actually works. We managed to get hold of David, an engineer on the project, to show us the binding and how it works.

Continue reading Sh*t is Hot - 2013 NOW Bindings Preview

For the last 8 years Amplid has been creating some of the best snowboards on the market completely under the radar of the general public. Under the direction of co-owner and ex-Burton legend Peter Bauer, Amplid’s snowboards always feature a good mix of quality construction, innovative R&D and design experience. We caught-up with Peter at ISPO and he was happy to show SB-RV TV Amplid’s new board the Slogan, the exciting Green Light Project and the changes Amplid is making to the Paradigma, a Snowboard-Review favorite. Sh*t at Amplid is most definitely hot in 2013!

Continue reading Sh*t is Hot - 2013 Amplid Snowboards Preview

When you walk into the Capita stand at ISPO, you never know what you might find. Fortunately for us, we bumped into Capita’s esteemed owner Blue Montgomery who was happy to show us through three of next year’s big stories including the Defenders of Awesome snowboard, the Black Snowboard of Death (BSOD) and Dan Brisse’s new pro model collab with Volcom Snow the DBX. Exciting times for a brand which has always taken its own unique direction!

Continue reading Sh*t is Hot - 2013 Capita Snowboards Preview

Living in the Alps last winter, staring up at all the unridden lines that clutter Austria’s Salzburgerland, the idea of building a splitboard during the summer seemed like a great way to occupy myself during the snowless months. After a bit of research I’d decided that the Voile Split Decision kit was the best way to go with an outlay of $160 for the kit and $170 for the Voile Tractor skins. Around mid-May I was contacted by a fellow Brit named Dave who offered to sell me an Option 174 Freeplus for £50 (~$80). Dave had been on the site and seen from the forums that I was after a longer board for touring. Sure it’s a good ten years old now but it was in perfect condition. In June when I was back in the UK visiting my folks, my Dad and I set to work building the split, turning Dave’s unwanted gun into a fresh-line seeking powder missile.

Continue reading Voile Split Decision Review - The Build

Almost exactly 12 months ago I was strolling through the Burton ISPO stand (or should I say complex) when I noticed a display with an unnamed board and bindings balanced on a set of scales. Unsurprisingly the display was designed to show how remarkably lightweight this all-in-black setup was and it had attracted a lot of interest. After spending 2 days filling my brain with the many good, bad and ridiculous products that the snowboard industry had to show, this secretive setup evaporated from my mind. This week I noticed that a black board labelled the Mystery had appeared on the Burton website… the appropriately named shred had been revealed.

Continue reading Burton Gets All Mysterious

Our friends at DaKine Europe sent us this nice little vid of Wolle Nyvelt they made when they visited the Ästhetiker powder ninja at his home in the Zillertal.

Continue reading DaKine meets Wolle Nyvelt and Aesmo

Last year the Timeline series was launched to document French mad man Xavier De Le Rue’s season in Europe riding ridiculous lines, with the help of his meaty list of sponsors. The only thing was; while the US was getting dumped on, last season in Europe saw a bit of a drought of the white stuff.

Continue reading Good Times in Europe with the Timeline Crew