2012 Freeride 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.

Both nursing slightly sore heads from the previous night’s shenanigans Tobi and I decided that the first day of the show would be spent looking at 2012’s All Mountain and Freeride snowboards, mostly because the first Sunday of ISPO is notorious for being busy and secondly because the big freestyle brands tend to accompany their new releases with loud music and even louder people. Here are our highlights of 2012’s Freeride releases.

ISPO 2012 Freeride Snowboard Highlights Video

French brand APO’s range is going from strength-to-strength and like a lot of brands is moving away from the All-mountain snowboard and more towards two defined genre’s Freestyle and Freeride. On the freeride front the Apocalypse and Apocalypse Swallow Tail have a new graphic for 2012 but little else has changed, the boards remain stiff and cambered for stability at warp speed. The new addition to APO’s freeride line is the Spray. With a noticeable pin tail and big blunted shovel nose the Spray has a bit of a coffin shape about it. Only available in a 160 the Spray combines stylish graphics, a tapered shape and APO’s new Powder Camber (A rockered nose with the remained of the board’s profile remaining flat) for float even in snorkel deep pow pow.

Both Tobi and I were stunned by the aesthetic improvements to Atomic’s board line for 2012. The best priced tapered freeride board on the market the Banger returns for 2012 with much the same construction apart from a lighter lower density Poplar core. It retains the Honeycomb insert at the nose and lively Quadraxial glass construction for super snappy and exciting piste and powder turns and picks up a super slick multi-layer topsheet graphic. The big release from Atomic in 2012 is the Sir Floatalot. Designed with a short running length and relatively tight sidecut the Floatalot features a nose and tail with a rocker and equal measures of reverse sidecut, it reminds me of the shape Rossignol have used on their S7 ski. Reports are that they recently tested the design in Zauchensee’s last 2ft dump of powder and the board’s performance was mind-blowing. As the factory is around the corner from my house I’ll be sure to get hold of the Sir Floatalot if it ever decides to snow in the Alps again.

Bataleon is keeping their Freeride offering limited for those die hard Triple Base Tech fans. The Omni and Undisputed remain almost untouched other than the Bataleon continuing the TBT from the base area that comes into contact with the snow, through to the tip and tail, creating an almost boat bow like shape. The others slight change is that the Jam and the Enemy+++ both move to All-mountain TBT; a new profile with narrower flat sections at the nose and tail than Bataleon’s Freestyle TBT for improved response, but slightly wider than Freeride TBT for performance in the terrain park. We think this is a great addition to a very strong range.

For once, innovation at the Big B seems a little on the slim side, at least on the freeride front. The sad news is that both the Supermodel and the Malolo have been discontinued. The good news is that Burton is releasing a new board they call the Barracuda. The Barracuda combines a slightly tapered shape with their Flying V profile. Burton’s Squeezebox core profile seems to be the word on every Burton Rep’s lips at the moment so we’re pretty certain it will be making an appearance in the Barracuda.

Polish brand Contract Snowboards has the strongest line we’ve seen from them to date. On the Freeride front they have two boards in their line for 2012. The Code, a twin shaped board that uses Contract’s Snake Transition Technology to improve torsional rigidity without increasing longitudinal flex and pairs this technology with an enormous 20m sidecut for big open face freeriding, gets a sibling in the Code Yeti. The Yeti uses the same technology and sidecut but has a tapered shape and setback stance for uber float. We’re just a little bemused by the size options; the Yeti is available in 149 and 159 centimetres.

Serge Dupraz’s surf inspire D1 shape is getting a lot of traction in the freeride marketplace at the minute, but with looks that blow every other brand out of the water it’s really not surprising. For 2012 Serge has created a number of shorter and longer lengths and a variety of different widths.

Endeavor has now cut down its Freeride offering to one board as the Board of Directors has completely switched direction. The construction of the Next Series remains almost identical to last year, why change it? The Bamboo topsheet, stiff flex and lightening quick 7.5K sintered base have earned the Next a lot of fans. Once again Rory Doyle has smashed the graphics with his Jack Daniels inspired motif.

We’re making a lot of effort to include Flow snowboards on the site this year because of the increasing demand from you guys. The Solitude is Flow’s AK inspired backcountry artillery. Two big design modifications have been made to the Solidute for 2012 to increase edge hold. Firstly Titinal power plates have been laid under the bindings in an X shape to feed body weight directly into the sidecut, Flow call this technology Whisky X. At the point at which the Titinal power plates reach the edge the sidecut blends into a very short flat section improving edge hold at the feet, Flow call this their Progressive Dual Transitional sidecut.

Lib Tech and GNU are always a brand creating Pioneering designs. Two designs that stood out were the Birdman and the La Nina MC. The Birdman is a banana-ed powder boat with a nose that easily measures 2/5s the length of the board, we reckon this board should be reserved for the deepest of powder days only. The La Nina is Matt Cummins’ new board and is a freeride snowboard with all-mountain capabilities. The biggest innovation on the La Nina is the C1 banana profile which uses banana between the feet that blends into a very mild, almost flat camber at the nose and standard camber at the tail, this technology is pretty comparable with other brand’s powder rocker.

The lack of a catalogue and anyone to talk to at the K2 stand means that our info on next year’s boards is a little limited. What we do know is that K2 are producing a split board for 2012 and that they are also building a board that resembles a mix between the Turbo Dream and Slayblade that features K2’s Bambooyah core, it’s called the Protohype and after loving the Fastplant, we’re extremely excited about testing it!

Jeremy Jones’ self-titled brand Jones is splitting absolutely everything for 2012. Splitboarding was definitely the buzzword around ISPO and with everyone from Rome to K2 jumping on the bandwagon; it’s obvious that Jeremy wants a big piece of the emerging market.  One thing is for sure; the new colour ways for the Hovercraft and Mountain Twin are absolutely stunning .

Good Boards is a new brand from Germany producing very limited runs of longboards and freeride boards. Restricting production to around 150 boards for each model has its benefits, the quality control on these boards is absolutely insane.  We particularly liked the Moai (the Easter Island statue heads… and yep I had to Google them) graphic on the wood veneer topsheet of the Legends. Hopefully I’ll be testing some Good Boards in Hochkonig at the end of the month, so expect to hear more and more about Good Boards.

Like Atomic, Nidecker have really got their house in order for 2012. Freeride pedigree the Nidecker Legend gets Camrocked for 2012, in fact the only freeride board to retain its camber in the Nidecker range is the Platinum. The Legacy gets a number of upgrades including an 8000 grade sintered base and teak sidewalls, with the evolution of the Legacy’s Camrock last season to include a deeper camber we reckon the Legacy has blossomed.  The Nidecker Prime also gets an overhaul , the base has been upgraded to a 6000 sintered, Kevlar reinforcement has been joined by snappy Carbon and Linseed fibre laminates and of course the Prime gets Freeride Camrock. Tobi was really keen on the hand painted graphic. The other big innovation at Nidecker is Ultimate Traction. Ultimate Traction is a very mellow five bump take on Magnetraction and is available on the Platinum, Legacy and Blade. The Megalight and Ultralight retain Nidecker’s Ultimate Grip edges which use teeth on the steel edge instead of a wavy sidecut.

Finally Rossignol, Salomon and Volkl have built on the success of their top selling freeride boards. The Rossignol Experience has had huge success over the last three seasons, particularly with Xavier De Le Rue winning the Freeride World Tour three years in succession on it. For 2012 the Experience is joined by the Kyrpto, the board that’s been jogging while the Experience has been weight lifting. Based on the same shape as the Experience the Krypto has a conventionally sandwich laminated carbon and Kevlar reinforced core. The Experience uses torsion box technology which means the core is divided into three distinct sections which are wrapped in fibreglass after which the core is wrapped again creating a board with incredible torsional and longitudinal stiffness.  So the Krypto is a mellower version of the Experience for freeriders who don’t spend 100+ days a season riding. Although Rossi have produced a number of split boards for Xavier they’re not planning to move into the Split market although Arno told us that the line down the centre of the new One Magtek graphic made it “split ready”, I have a sneaking suspicion he was pulling our legs.  As I mentioned before, the Sick Stick is joined by Powder Snake in the Salomon line-up, in all honesty there isn’t a huge amount of difference between the two boards, however the Powder Snake doesn’t have Bamboo in the core like the Sick Stick and has a lower grade sintered base, so we reckon the Powder Snake is aimed at freestyle riders who want a powder specific board but can’t afford the $600 price tag of the Sick Stick. On that note a reoccurring theme of 2012 is trickle down shapes and technology through to freeride boards at the lower end of brand’s price ranges. Finally, we’ve been plugging the Volkl Coal as the ultimate board for boardercross for a while now, for 2012 it’s been superseded by its sibiling the Coal Race. With a super stumpy nose and enormous effective edge the Coal Race looks like it is going to dominate the 2012 World Cup circuit.

Posted by Rich Ewbank in Features.

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