Hi,

I’m shopping for a new board.  I would say I’m an intermediate, I like to carve groomers, ride in trees and love powder when there is some.  I’m not confident hitting rollers, and natural kickers in the terrain, but I really want to improve there. 

I rode a 162 Salomon burner last year, i found it very stiff and unforgiving, and my legs were usually very sore by mid-day. 

I wear a pair of 9.5 (27.5) Salomon Malamutes with Salomon Relay xtl bindings and my height and weight are 5’10 (177) & 180 lb in full gear. 

I’ve looked at the Arbor A-frame, Never summer Titan and Rossignol One.  How would you guys compare these 3 to the Salomon Burner? 

The site rocks by the way!

Hi BoardX,

Thanks for the compliments on the site. It’s coming together, but Snowboard-Review 2010/11 is going to be the bomb… got some serious developments in the pipeline.

So you’re after a piste destroying ride, which is agile and floaty in the pow, carves hard but encourages progression by not being overly stiff like the burner. So you’ve picked out some monster boards there like the Titan and the A-Frame, those boards are as stiff as the burner. Even the One is a stiffish ride.

Are you still after a stiffish ride?

Are you not at all interested in park?

How often do you ride powder?

What’s your budget?

Rich

Hi Rich,

Thanks for your prompt reply.  I really wouldn’t go to the park, I prefer hitting natural jumps that are part of the terrain.  I wouldn’t mind stiffboards, it’s just that the Burner really tires me down (sore legs) in no time, specially in less that perfect conditions.  I find it that with the Burner you have to be on all the time, once you get tired riding it is no longer fun.

I rode this year’s Burton Custom, I didn’t like it at all.  I found it too soft and too slow.  My budget is 300-400 dollars,  I was planning to get something on sale now that most shops are dropping their prices. 

I guess a more forgiving freeride board would suit my riding better right now, What do you think?

Yeah I definitely think a slightly softer board would encourage progression… riding a stiff deck like the Burner is likely to tire the most battle hardened legs by lunch.

My thoughts if you want to stay freeride focused would be:

Head AK Ict: Perhaps a little out of your price range, but this board fits your demands spot on. The AK uses Head’s Intelli fibres. These fibres react to increased vibrations stiffening up the board. So when your cruising around the board behaves like a softer easier to ride deck. When you lay down the law, the Intellifibres stiffen up and you’re riding a gun! It also has a slightly tapered shape which will help with floatin pow and improve edge to edge agility in the trees. Plus it’s a damn good looking deck. Just to let you know, for next year they’ve created a kind of strange rockered profile on the AK which should help even more with float. But this years AK is still an awsome deck.

Burton Supermodel: Not to be confused with the Supermodel X. This board has a directional shape and burton’s usual High spec construction… desiogned for riders who might consider a Custom, but want a slightly more freeride focused deck.

Amplid Paradigama: A bit more all mountain than freeride but still a force to be reckoned with. THese boards know how to carve, work well in the park and pipe and shouldn’t tire your legs out too much and they’re designed by Peter Bauer who knows a thing or two about snowboard design.

Have a look at these decks and let me know your thoughts. Currently I’m suggesting more freeride focused decks for pow and carving, but you might want something a bit more versatile.

Rich

Oh and the One is a great deck too. Quite freeride focused, but I’ve got a standard cambered Rossi J-Dub with Magnetraction and it absolutely charges… unreal grip and unbeleivable carves. You won’t find a better board for the price of the One… it’s an absolute bargain. However, it has a twin shape, so it won’t have the float qualities of the Supermodel of AK. But still it’d work well for you in all conditions and you can always set the stance back slightly

Hi Rich,

Thank you for your recommendations, I really appreciate you taking your time…

I have looked at the Burton super model, it does seem to be the perfect board for me , but I would rather not have to buy new bindings this year and use my Replay XTLs for a few more seasons. 

I just checked the Head Ak, it’s too expensive for my budget, It’s over $600 even after a 30% price drop.

Right now I’m leaning towards the Rossignol One, I can get it here for around $300 .  Do you know if it’s still manufactured in France?

I also came across the Nitro Blacklight, is it worth the extra money over Rossignol One?

One last question, I looked at the Nitro Pantera, the regular model, on the Nitro site they list the flex as just mountain, I couldn’t really tell how stiff is it.

These flex rating are really confusing, the Burner is rated at 5/5, the never summer Titan at 7/10, after doing the math I assumed the titan is a lot softer, until realizing Never Summer boards are very stiff to begin with and their flex rating cannot be compared to other boards.

Thanks for all your help.

Yeah it’s super confusing comparing board stiffness between brands… a 7/10 for Rossignol might be a 5/10 for Amplid and so on… what we need is a metric between brands. Which gives me a great idea.. a kind of Snowboard Review scale of board stiffness. So be wary of comparing stiffness between brands.

I spoke to Arno, the cheif geeza at Rossignol Snowboarding last weekend, a super nice guy and pretty much responsible for the entire snowboarding side of things at Rossi (It’s like a team of 2 guys that run the snowboarding side, actually a really core operation, nothing like you’d think), he said they’re still making the top of the range boards at their factory in Spain, that includes the One. Of course the cheaper boards are being made in China, but if you want a low pricepoint, you have to make cuts somewhere, better it be in factory and labor costs than material quality and cost. I tell you Rossi bases are grease lightening.

I think when thy say Mountain Flex, they mean just directional, stiffer tail, softer nose. Not sure about the flex on it.

Hi Rich,

I was going to get the Rossignol One this week, but saw that Arbor boards are on sale!  I was looking at Arbor element this time instead of the A-frame, What are your thoughts on this board? 

The green construction and directional shape is really appealing, but since it doesn’t really have a top sheet how durable can it be?

Thanks in advance.

Hi Board X,

Sorry for the late reply been held up riding foot deep pow in Austria! Yeah the Arbor A-Frame is a treat, probably a bit stiffer than the One and definitely more freeride focused, i.e. a long stiff nose and a slender shape with a long sidecut radius… definitely worth considering if it’s groomers and burly steeps you want to ride. the top sheet is actually a high gloss finish on laser cut hard wood… I think it’s pretty durable unless you’ve got pesky one week skier holiday makers ramming their hire skis into your tail.

Rich