Hot Snowboard Gear for 2009/10
A couple of weeks ago, Snowboard-review jumped on Virgin’s finest for a day at the Slide trade show in Manchester, a huge venue full of next season’s snowboard gear. As you can imagine, we were as happy as kids with the keys to the candy store - here are some of our favourite bits of kit coming to your local snowboard shop next year…
The last 4 years have seen big developments in snowboard technology… K2 slime walls, Lib Tech’s Magnetraction and banana rocker, not forgetting Bataleon’s Triple Base technology to name a few; of all these it’s the rocker that’s blown up this season. Most will be thinking ‘camber’s been around for 20 years, it’s had a good run, maybe it’s about time we tried something new’. You probably won’t be surprised to hear the snowboard industry has decided it’s time for a change, but rather than dipping the proverbial toe into the water, to see if the concept sells, they’ve gone nuts for it. Nearly every board manufacturer has a rocker in their range and with predictions of 80% of all boards being sold in 2009/10 having rocker technology, it’s hardly surprising.
The other main craze for this coming season is green construction. Union have created a binding manufactured from repressed off-cuts of previously pressed bindings (bear-in–mind that the material retains over 98% of it’s original properties so there’s no performance compromise), and Head’s PX9 binding has a cork foot bed. Head Sales Manager Andy was proud to tell us that using this material would be holding up the declining Portuguese cork industry for another year…we’re not sure about that but damn they look slick! Bamboo is the core material of the season, extremely fast growth means it’s the most sustainable material available for cores. It also has very snappy rebound qualities to give you uber pop and spring in and out of carves. K2 are embracing green technology with the introduction of Earth Conscious and Hyperlight construction; reducing the amount of resin in a deck, removing packaging, changing the top sheet material and using 100% biodegradable wax to name but a few. Oh and Capita are making an eco board named the Green Machine… as you can see, the graphics aren’t meant to appeal to the stereotypical crusty hippy market.
Other interesting developments and refinements include Head’s Intelligence technology developed from aerospace composite technology. Intelligence turns chatter and loading strain, experienced when riding quickly over rough or icy terrain, into an electric current; this current is channelled into the Intelligence chip and amplified, before being returned to the fibres. The fibres respond to this amplified current and stiffen, in effect stiffening up the board when needed and this all happens in five-thousandths of a second.
Back to bindings and it seems Ride have beefed up their Contraband binding with some extra webbing around the toe, and have introduced the Custom Flex ankle strap, a unique system which enables the rider to adjust the feel of the binding whilst on the lift. One of the big finds at Slide was the Union Control series binding. The binding has a contoured base plate which eliminates the dead-spots on a rocker deck. Keep checking the site for some photos.
Our tip for the best upcoming brand on the market is Smokin Snowboards; Smokin is a small rider driven brand out of Tahoe who have managed to call up their friends at Mervin manufacturing and licence Magnetraction! The graphics are off the hook, and the MIP has the craziest flattened noses we’ve ever seen - the end of the MIP makes the Burton Seven’s nose look like a perfect semi circle.
Posted by Rich Ewbank in Features.
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