Anybody interested in finding-out how next seasons Lib Tech Skate Banana rides? No? Didn’t think so…

Little more than a week ago a strange yellow tent appeared outside Sierra at Tahoe’s main building; the resort where I work as an instructor. As I was busy instructing that morning I only managed to stick my head around the corner in the afternoon and ask the guys whether they were demoing next season’s boards. Much to my surprise the decks were next season’s offerings so without delay I ran over to my supervisor and booked the afternoon off work…..I then grabbed next seasons Skate Banana, and headed for the park.

My afternoon was spent riding perfect mid-season snow in Sierra’s ‘The Alley’ park and even managed to get a couple of cheeky laps in the newly-shaped 20ft Super Pipe. Anyway, below is what I thought of Lib’s best seller.

Continue reading Tested - 2012 Lib Tech Skate Banana 156

If there are two things you have to do when you visit Japan it’s go snowboarding in bottomless powder and visiting a karaoke bar… at least that’s what I’ll be doing when I eventually get around to visiting. Dave Lee and the Signal crew recently visited Japan and because they have a snowboard factory and they can, created a snowboard that doubles as Karaoke system.

Continue reading Signal Every Third Thursday - Magic Microphone

The Wooden was my second board of the day at the Good Boards test in Hochkonig, Austria. In many respects it got a bit of a bum deal. The previous board I’d taken out was the Flash 185cm an enormous oil tanker of a snowboard that had vice like edge hold and unmatched stability. Switching down to a more conventionally sized 162cm snowboard after that is always going to be a little under whelming.

Continue reading Tested - 2011 Good Boards Wooden 162

The 2010/11 winter season was a big year for innovation, we’ve seen all sorts of camber profiles, from banana to Flying V. Nearly every brand has dabbled with sidecut geometry to put more grip at the feet of the rider and we even saw Forum lift the profile of their Honeypot and Holy Moly boards at the feet.  In comparison next year’s boards look a little bland or familiar to be more precise. A lot of brands plan to rest on their laurels for the 2011/12 season, and who can blame them; it feels like the last 3 years has seen a constant flow of innovation, and innovation costs money.  Fear not, there is one brand that comes to the market next season with one of the most exciting snowboard design innovations since Mervin decided that snowboard sidecuts would benefit from a bump or seven and Bataleon announced that building boards with a flat base was for luddites. I introduce to you Silbaerg Snowboards and their ALD technology.

Continue reading Silbaerg Snowboards - The Next Evolution of Snowboard Design?

It’s been a busy weekend of board testing at Snowboard-Review.com, but the first board of the weekend was certainly the most unique. Being an all-mountain snowboarder the range of board lengths I’ve ridden varies quite considerably. I’ve ridden boards as small as the 148 Stepchild Jib Stick and as long as the 165 Palmer Crown LE. The first board I picked up from the Good Boards Test stand towered over the Crown by a mighty 20cm. At 185cm the Good Boards Flash is without a doubt the longest board I have ever ridden, by a considerable margin.  There are very few brands producing boards of this magnitude, Rad-Air build the mighty Tanker which has a very loyal following and reaches a mighty 2m and other brands like Prior and Rossignol have reached the mid 180cms in the past with their pow specific swallow tails. The difference with all of these boards to the Flash is that their sidecuts are absolutely enormous with radii of 11m-12m meaning that you are restricted to turning like an oil tanker, at 9m the sidecut on the Flash is relatively normal.

Continue reading Tested - 2011 Good Boards Flash 185

Following the release of the latest episode of the Swatch Timeline the men in white coats are coming after Xavier De Le Rue. Conditions in Europe and in particular the West Alps have been pretty poor this season; some French resorts haven’t seen snow for almost two months. When your whole riding career is based on freeriding and in particular freeriding in powder, you need to get inventive when there’s been a drought. In the case of Xavier’s latest riding exploits there’s a fine line between being inventive and being completely insane. See for yourself, the man doesn’t have a screw that isn’t loose.

Continue reading Xavier De Le Rue Finally Loses the Plot

All-mountain snowboards are dying a bit of a death of recent. If you ride mostly in the park it’s now standard procedure to own a super short, blunted tipped, rocker profiled jib noodle. If you get your kicks from laying down epic rooster tails in chest deep powder and carving trenches in pristine corduroy then it’s a stiff tapered powder gun or an uber rockered floating banana that sits in your garage until the good stuff falls from the heavens. If you enjoy both, the likelihood is you have quiver of boards to fulfil your snowboarding needs.  What has happened to riding everything on one snowboard? Tobi and I spent a day at ISPO in Munich hunting down the best All-Mountain boards of the upcoming 2011/2012 winter season.

Continue reading 2012 All-Mountain Snowboard Preview

Before I knew it a year had passed and I was back at ISPO eyeing up 2012’s snowboard releases. I’m not going to lie to you guys, Snowboard Trade Fairs aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Sure there’s lots of opportunities to drink Grenade’s free stash of lager or perch yourself in the Ride complex and ogle at the slightly ropey looking pole dancers, but unfortunately when I go to ISPO I have a job to do and that’s going around gathering as much info on next year’s gear as possible. The fact that yearly I insist on visiting Munich’s legendary Hofbrauhaus the night before the show starts and drinking my bodyweight in Bavaria’s finest ale really doesn’t help with the enjoyment factor. However this year was slightly different, I’d managed to rope in our German forum guru Tobi (aka Zoryfl) to give me hand for the two days I would be visiting.

Continue reading 2012 Freeride Snowboard Preview

Last year we announced that legendary freerider Johan Olofsson of TB5 fame had signed to Venture Snowboards of Silverton Colorado. Well, for the 2011/12 season Johan and Venture owner Klemens Branner put their brains together to design the ultimate all conditions freeride snowboard and Johan’s first pro stick for the last decade, they are calling it the Odin, we call it about time.

Continue reading Venture and Johan Oloffson announce the Odin

Here’s a heads up for next year. It appears snowboarding’s most talented siblings Eiki and Halldor Helgason are dropping their long time board sponsors Rome and DC to start their own snowboarding brand, Lobster Snowboards.

Continue reading The Helgason Bros Launch Lobster Snowboards