Powder-Gun, Freeride, Big-Mountain, Hypersonic Piste-Weapon Selection

Posted: 23 August 2011 03:37 AM

In late July, after waiting through the second consecutive predominantly gray Pacific NW summer, some synapse in my brain suddenly snapped and now all I can think about is boosting off a cliff in Squaw Valley with Motorhead playing at maximum volume and charging champagne powder for a couple hundred yards at Mach 7…… [sigh] A few more months

I ride a stiff setup (Ride Double Agent and Burton Driver X) on a 157cm 2004 Burton Omen currently. I am 5’10”, 165lb plus a 10-15lb pack on occasion, 10.5 boot, and a fairly advanced rider. I spend no time in the park, and thoroughly enjoy steeps, bowls, chutes, drops, and high-speed carving. The Omen has a smaller side-cut and is torsionally flexy, thus it becomes unstable at very high speed. Also, the camber and shorter length becomes a float issue in deep powder, even with a larger binding setback. I’ll likely continue riding the Omen for small resorts and poor conditions (unfortunately, a majority of the riding I do in the local Seattle area), though the new board would be my go-to for powder conditions, backcountry hiking, side-country, and larger resort riding (Whistler, Revelstoke, Squaw Valley, Mt. Baker, etc). The board would likely see a majority of powder and off-piste riding, though I want something that I can confidently push at maximum speed on very steep groomed and hardpacked trails with the same setup. If I go on a week-long trip, I only want to fly with one board, and I want that one board to levitate powder and obliterate groomers if the weather is indecisive.

The Omen is tons of fun for casual riding (extra surfy for leaning into turns for looser carving) and has treated me superbly. However, over the past few seasons, last winter in particular, I’ve increasingly arrived to a point where I’ve found myself needing something longer, faster, stiffer, more stable, and more aggressive to keep up with my riding (and make my skier friends look bad ;). I need an animal of a board. I want to back off on the reins only when the terrain and fear of imminent mortality tells me to, not when my board gets jittery a third of the way through a gnarly line.

I am interested in a ~161-164cm length (towards the longer end of things for my frame, but still need to thread the occasional mogul field or dense glade) and a directional camrock profile. Full-MTX (even detuned) feels too digitally-grippy for me, but I do want something extra that will dig-in when I push it on mixed conditions and wind-blown traverses. I don’t want much profile taper as to where trail-runs become squirrelly.

Basically, I want a board that will allow me to continue advancing my riding and negotiate bigger and more-technical terrain (including cat and heli access in future seasons), though is versatile enough to thoroughly enjoy for basic resort riding also. I would rather be punished for my riding mistakes and learn than not having enough headroom to ride harder. Going with my newfound self-improvement mantra of ‘commit, go faster and turn less’ when things get scary, a big-mountain board design philosophy is right up my alley. I need a powder-gun quiver board that isn’t a quiver board, but is much more specialized than an ‘all-mountain’ board, if that makes sense.

Here are the prospects, in likely probability:

1) Jones Flagship 161 (maybe 164 or 163W?). GOOD: Camrock, mellow-mag, stiff nose, fast. BAD?: heavy (true?), low dampening = brutal time for exclusive groomer days?, unknown changes from 2011 to 2012?

2) Nidecker Ultralight 163. GOOD: Carbon topsheet, camrock (supposedly stellar profile), serrated edges, stiff, damp, light, fast, probably a better overall board than the Jones. BAD?: Prohibitively pricey (potentially worth it?), where do I get one?

3) Nidecker Megalight 163. GOOD: See previous, less expensive than the Ultra (might actually be Candidate #1 if the $200 gap from the Jones is well-spent???). BAD?: See previous, comparative ride to Ultra (besides slightly heavier)?

4) Never Summer Raptor 159 or 164 (maybe 161W?). GOOD: Damp, fast, excellent edge-to-edge, easy to ride. BAD?: Can’t think of much….. limited comparative mixed reviews from crotchety powder snobs used to longboard Priors and Tankers?? [haha absolutely no offense intended to anyone riding one], comparative ride to Premier F1 or Summit?

5) Nidecker Legend 164. GOOD: See previous Nideckers. BAD?: Too stiff?, no camrock??

6) ????

Close calls, but not under consideration:

Rossi Experience (full-mag, Jones has stiffer nose with similar shape), Arbor A-Frame (dig the design, but wanna shy away from full camber for a change), Salomon Burner (ditto), Lib/Gnu boards (full-mag, though my friends swear by their TRS and T.Rice), Rome Notch (geared towards straight pow), Capita Charlie Slasher (ditto), Burton Malalo (ditto), Ride Slackcountry (want some level of camber, price is spendy; but in the same breath, I’m considering Nidecker), YES Optimistic (very likely an excellent all-around board, though looking for something more specialized so that I don’t retire the Omen; no mellow-mag or similar to my knowledge), Nidecker Platinum (more BX than freeride), Elan Vertigo (ditto), Venture (flat profile between bindings, definitely looking for the pop of camber in a hybrid profile with rocker for float), Bataleon Enemy +++ (is the pricetag justified? Isn’t it more of a ‘do everything awesome’ board than a purpose-built gun? is TBT an advantage or hindrance for aggressive hardpack carving?)

Any rationale based on first-hand riding experience or similar boards is most helpful. I am interested in detailed comparative perspectives and factors that I am overlooking above all else. I want the total ride that will be the heavy munitions of my arsenal for years (unless I miraculously start dropping remote heli runs in AK or upper BC regularly).

I need the board that Lemmy would ride if he wasn’t preoccupied making people’s heads explode with a Rickenbacker.

Posted: 23 August 2011 01:57 PM

That’s some pretty heavy research going on there!

Have you thought about the Capita BSOD? I know you discounted Charlie, but the 2011 BSOD has been getting a huge amount of positive feedback and comments on various forums.  It seems as if it is a do-it-all board, built for hardpack, crud, park, pipe, pow (but then the slasher, hovercraft, fish, barracuda etc would be for the bottomless days) and just general all over fun.

Feet-on experience seems to show that it’s lighter than most, with a ‘death-grip’ (a flat section to the edge at the waist) adding a bit of extra hold in ice and not being as grabby as magnetraction.

I know I shouldn’t really link elsewhere from here, but http://easyloungin.com/forum/topic.php?id=6229 is a thread running 9 pages+ of people’s experience (and video footage) of it.

Just going through your list again, and it appears as if the 2012 YES Pick Your Line board - an evolution of the optomistic - might be up your street. In fact, it seems that you could be the exact target audience for the big mountain boards by YES!

Posted: 23 August 2011 11:53 PM

Wow that’s a pretty comprehensive check list and final list of boards to choose from. From reading it the Jones Flagship does hit most of your demands with it’s toned down Mag edges and directional shape. Like wise the Nidecker boards are a good choice… I’d probably stay clear of the Ultralight and Megalight, it’s not that they’re no amazing snowboards, they really are it’s just that they’re not really rugged enough to tale the pounding a big mountain board will be exposed to… I would hold out for this year’s Legend which… yep you guessed it has Camrock.

I see you’ve also discounted the Burner. I’ve got to say, that is a real hell for leather snowboard, it’s damp, stiff and burley and the long sidecut just eats up terrain. It also has a long nose profile blending from the camber to tip and a slight taper (not enough to feel noticeable on piste) which keeps the nose up during high speed powder assaults. I’m also looking at the Raptor and thinking that would suit you down to the ground as well. You should also look at the Prior MFR which also uses a hybrid Camrock-esq profile and the Unity Dominion which has an ever so slightly rockered nose for extra float. If you ride these boards a little longer then the extra effective edge will make-up for the lack of protruding edges. If your interested in the Bataleon Enemy, I’d probably turn your thoughts to the Undisputed I rode that board and it was like an arrow, it just followed the fall-line and blasted through everything in site.

All of these boards are going to charge open bowls, drop big cliffs and point big chutes, they’ll also carve like they’re on a knife’s edge on groomed resort runs. Making a choice between them without testing them all is going to be a hard one… well aort from the fact that there is no wrong choice.

Posted: 24 August 2011 04:17 AM

Milly and Rich,

Thanks for the replies! I am now simultaneously more and less confused than where I started…..

Good call on the YES Pick Your Line. At first glance, shape looks like a hybrid between the Optimistic and a Flagship (blunted-nose and tail design). $64K question is how does the ride stack comparatively to a Flagship or Optimistic/similar-Nideckers? (I would likely be interested in a 161 or 164W)

Regarding the BSOD, call me completely mental, but I want a board different enough from my current ride to justify keeping a modest (2-board) quiver. One for all-mountain (no park/jibbing), and one for serious freeriding. I have the former, just need the later.

Rich,

I’m torn-up about the Burner and A-Frame in particular. If I had the funds, unlimited time, and local mountain options to justify a +2-board quiver, I would get a 166 cambered cruise-missile in a second. No question. As it stands, I was hooked trying hybrid rocker boards last season, and I want that feeling of autopilot float and playfulness that quickly transitions to a hard-charging beast when I really lay into a turn.

Specifically regarding your advice:

1) Everyone I’ve talked to riding a Flagship has loved it (it was the non-existent unicorn in every demo tent I checked towards the end of last season). Things I heard that are subjectively questionable are: it’s a heavy board and it gets chattery on long sections of hardpack/crud (more-so than typical). Otherwise, total Ace. Thoughts? Also, any idea what changes happened for 2012?

2) Another thing I didn’t mention was price. $500 is a comfortable upper-limit and $700 [cringes] miggghht be justifiable if the ride is really that stellar. Basically, I’m looking for the ultimate performance-value balance, and I’m willing to pay for physics-based features that really pay dividends.

3) Any musing on the ride of the Raptor compared to the Flagship? Best I can tell, they’re different balances/flavors of equal-parts awesome (Flagship for pow, Raptor for all-terrain carving). Similarly, Legend versus Flagship?

4) Regarding the Bateleon Undisputed, thoughts on TBT? Full-camber steers me elsewhere in this case due to aforementioned pseudo-logical rationale

(sorry for the posting length! I’m asking all the questions I haven’t been able to get answered in the shops I’ve been to so far ;)

Thanks again

Posted: 24 August 2011 11:20 AM

Yes the Flagship can get a little chattery on hard pistes, unfortunately that is a downside of the Camrock profile. Rossi get around it with the Experience by using Torsion Box construction where they litterally split the board into two and wrap the length of the board (excluding the tips) in glass. It gets rid of chatter and it makes the board wickedly stiff torsionally. Also the Flagship is a little heavy compared to some boards, I’m guessing the fuller nose and tail shape doesn’t help, but either does putting a wood topsheet on it that tends to hold a little water under the bindings. That said it is an awsome board to ride in pow. I’m probably more a Rossi Experience fan but I do like the Jones a lot, the Experience is just a bit more rugged and savage. I’m afraid I haven’t ridden the Legend, only the Ultralight. I should think the Legend is considerably lighter than the Flagship with it’s free flex tips and suprisingly it has a much tighter sidecut tighter 7.4m on the 164 Legend and 9.3m on the 164 Flagship so it’ll feel a lot more manouverable at low speeds but perhaps a little less stable at high speeds which is the opposite of what I expected

Also you’re spot-on again with the Raptor it did work well in powder but it was truely in its element on groomers doing long and medium length carves, the Camber in the tips and the rocker in the waist make it extemely lively out of carves and a lot of fun… I don’t think it’s as nimble as the Jones in powder but it has a bit more pop.

Posted: 24 August 2011 02:10 PM

Cloud, I’m going more from what I read by others as my riding is nowhere near yours and my average conditions mean that I’m unlikely to be trying out pretty much any of the boards you mention! But because I’m missing a pure pow board I’m tending towards the Charlie Slasher/Fish/Hovercraft as and when the conditions allow.

I’ve recently tried the BSOD - albeit in a snowdome - and even there I noticed how chatter free it was for straightlining from top to bottom, which is something I wouldn’t have managed in any other boards I’ve had. But your needs are so different from mine, and Rich and you seem to be nailing a range of boards to suit your needs.

I thought of Yes as they seem to be held in high regard and include a number of riders who seem to fit your terrain and also your size, and even the park kids on the Basic and GDOH have had little or no problems with their boards so would assume that they are hard wearing as well.

Posted: 24 August 2011 02:22 PM

No Way Milly, the BSOD was a greatd shout, I just think Cloud is after a truely specific freeride board, the kind of board that sits in the cupboard until the conditions are epic. Something that’ll last a long time because it only gets ridden when the conditions dictate and that doesn’t overlap with all-mountain practicality so there’s no decision to be made as to whether he should go with his more freestyle all-mountain board or more freeride all-mountain board… one board always gets preference. If you go for a very specific freeride board it either is or isn’t the right conditions to ride it, there’s no umm-ing or ahh-ing. That said the BSOD will do 95% of what the others will do off piste. And it’s easy to reel of tons of boards when you spend 4 months uploading the blighters to the site;)

Posted: 24 August 2011 06:18 PM

Fair point, Rich.

I think that Cloud’s requirements seem to meet the needs of freeride focussed companies - Jones and Yes spring to mind - rather than those who try to cover all bases (Burton, K2, Nitro, Never Summer, Rossi, Capita) and definitely those of a more freestyle/park/jibbing variety (Forum, Smokin, Technine, StepChild).

While Burton et al can produce freeride boards, it seems clear that Yes in particular are even identifying niches between that area, providing a board like the Pick Your Line which has 2mm of taper ( i think) compared to the 20mm or so that you see from the mainstream providers.  This then allows someone like Cloud to be able to home in on something that seems to exactly meet their needs, in the same way that a jibber has all the different variations in softness and flex, in profile, in dampness, in sidecut etc etc.

As for reeling off board names, well, if you’re a desk jockey and dream about snow then you quickly pick up catalog descriptions, variations, prewviews and reviews and all that!  Doesn’t mean I have any idea as to what I’m talking about though!

Posted: 24 August 2011 06:42 PM

For sure I’ve whittled away hundreds of office hours browsing snowboard catalogues. I really need to get another hobby, something where the information I’m absorbing isn’t completely useless the majority of the time. Fluent in snowboard catalogues isn’t really up there with a language or Egyptian symbolism.

Posted: 24 August 2011 08:09 PM

Aye, but Egyptian Symbolism won’t get you many page views!

And you know the difference between waist widths, and flex patterns is more useful than knowing the succession of the egyptian dynasty’s!

I agree with the language though :)

Posted: 25 August 2011 03:46 AM

Thanks Rich,

This clarifies things immensely.

The Raptor and Legend are migrating slightly further down the list for exactly those reasons. I would rather have something that excels in powder and straight-line stability over a little carving response. The thing that I simultaneously love and dislike (for a dedicated freeride board) on the Omen is the smaller sidecut (7.7m). Like you said, it’s a dream at slower speeds; but between the sidecut and torsional flex, I eventually hit a terminal-velocity where things become too unstable to keep picking-up speed (overall length is likely a culprit too).

The only thing that has me tripped-up on the Experience are the full-mag edges. Call me a purist,  but I’m having flashbacks of riding Lib Boards and going from feeling like I’m ice-skating when the deck is flat to instantly being fully-locked into the line that that board wants rather than what I’m telling it to do.

I tune frequently, and the combo of the Double Agent bindings and Driver X’s w/inserts gives me stupid response and leverage on my edges. Most of the time, it feels like I’m already coming out of an arc by the time my brain consciously tells my legs to turn.

Basically, I only wish I had MTX about 5% of the time, and mainly as an insurance-policy and subconscious bulletproof confidence-booster when I hit the rough-stuff in the middle of bombing a line. I’ve had way too many close-calls where I’ve washed out at-speed or inadvertently skidded the Omen in the worst of places. This is why mellow-mag, ultragrip, et cetera appeals to me. Dormant until called upon.

It might be a toss-up between the Pick Your Line and Flagship based on which is damper. Who knows? (Can’t find much info on the 2012 YES yet)

Bottom-line, I won’t know what my best option is without riding the prospects once it gets cold… decisions, decisions

p.s. - There’s much worse things you could be fluent in… For instance, you could be a mechanical engineer who specializes in composites design and stress analysis and starts inadvertently wondering about effective A*B*D matrices, transverse modulus, cross-sectional beam-bending response, and localized dampening coefficients of snowboard laminate construction (no one I know in particular ;)

Posted: 25 August 2011 10:00 AM

Well actually I have a degree of that slightly more useful knowledge myself. I studied Marine and Composite Engineering at university which was a blend of Mechanical Engineering specific composite design. Seven years later I forgotten most of it now but some of it’s still floating around.

I’ve got the 2012 Yes Catalogue here if there’s anything in particular you want to know about the Pick Your Line. It has a direction Camrock profile, the 164W is really a midwide at 26.2cm and it has Nidecker’s 8800 carbon sintered base. It also has Carbon, Kevlar, Basalt and Linseed reinforcement and Ultimate Traction edges which is basically a five bump version of Magne Traction. Actually you’ll find this pretty amusing, I’ve got the stats of both the Nidecker Legacy and the YES Pick Your Line and they are absolutely identical shapes. THe sidecut, waist widths, nose and tail widths, setback stance and the stance width are identical. The only difference i can see is that the Legacy has an 8000 base instead of 8800 and the sidewalls of the Legacy are Teak where as the PYL’s are PTEX. Hadn’t you discounted the Legacy?

Posted: 25 August 2011 12:29 PM

Hey Cloudminder,

After a full season exclusively on the flagship I can also confirm what you ve heard. I m in love with it. Never thought it possible for a board to be so stable at speed (100 km/h), grip the ice, float so well, while still being more forgiving than I was used to (my 1st non camber board). However, it is heavy and it does get chattery, but honestly who cares? Chatter is there rarely and it does not diminish stability or any other aspect of the fabulous ride it offers. After the first couple of days I didnt notice it any more. The weight is always there but it only really bothered me in one case on a really old chairlift that didnt have the support tube to rest your skis/board on.

My only problem is that its a one trick pony. There is nothing else you can do but go as fast as possible on groomers and powder, but it does this extremely well. For this season I am looking into a 2 board quiver like yourself but from the other end: I need a playful all mountain for non epic days (looking forward to the 2012 reviews).

Unfortunately I cant give you a comparison with your other candidates but I sure am a very happy flagship owner.

Hope this helps.

Posted: 26 August 2011 01:07 AM

Interesting… The plot thickens.

Sounds like I’m going to need to demo both (Flagship and Legend/PYL) and may the best board win.

Based on the advice I’ve heard, the Flagship is still the front-runner; though as you mentioned Rich, I can’t go wrong with any option I’m even half-considering. Etsi’s info reaffirms my selection pseudo-quandary, in that I’m wondering when more straight-line stability gets to the point of diminishing returns, and I would be better-suited with more rip-ability (which is why the Mega/Ultra were high in my original list). This I’m sure will be a subjective call, as there are so many interrelated factors at play (i.e. sidecut compounded by running length compounded by multidirectional flex-profile, ad infinitum). Any option on the short-list is there for a definite set of reasons. The best I can do is narrow my focus to a minimum handful of top candidates and start riding. Chatter doesn’t bother me as long as it doesn’t transition to global instability and I feel like I’m trying to control a drunken cheetah. I can live with a 60mph speed-limit :)

(Haha the random composites connection is wild. It’s such a hyper-specific field that I feel like a one-trick pony from time to time. My definitive dream is to work for a board company as a designer/analyst/process-engineer; though I’m not a pro-caliber rider, a ridiculously overqualified PhD, nor well-connected in any manner)

etsi, what size are you riding on the Flagship?

Posted: 26 August 2011 12:03 PM

163W and I m 6’3”, 180, US12.

Posted: 26 August 2011 07:57 PM

Hey Cloud,

Like Etsi, I can definitely recommend the Flagship. I had similar riding style and board preferences to yours in mind when I bought mine - even down to not being a fan of full Mag. The only other board that may top it in my mind is the Rossi Experience, which may be lighter(?), have a more durable top sheet, and maybe less chatter but like I said, I am not a fan of full mag.

The flagships weight has never bothered me tbh I hadnt noticed it was a heavy board… and any chatter does not affect the stability at all… the board is a beast! My one issue was the lack of durability of the wood topsheet - but you can always treat that if you get to it earlier than I did.

Bear in mind that I am not familiar with the a lot of the other options you have listed such as the ‘pick your line’ or the ‘legacy’ - but i have ridden the flagship down some gnarly steep terrain, and some deep deep pow last season (revelstoke, kicking horse, big white, whistler) - and it performed amazingly… I had expected to just ride it on the big days, and ride my rome agent the rest of the time, but I think I took my Agent out twice last year and both times wished I hadnt…