The Best Snowboard Technology of 2012

Every year around this time we select a number of innovative technologies that we believe are at the forefront of snowboard design and that really impact the feel and performance of the snowboard they’re applied to. Innovation is something that drives our sport forward and we feel it’s our duty to showcase the biggest contributions of the season.

Squeezebox Core Profile

Despite being the most popular snowboard on Snowboard-Review.com last season, the Custom Flying V was a bit of a lacklustre foray by Burton Snowboards into hybrid camber. It’s not that it sucked; it’s just that everybody expected Flying V to be the best hybrid camber on the market with rocker between the feet and camber at the tips but Nitro’s Gullwing camber, Never Summer’s RC Tech and Lib Tech’s C2 Banana were livelier and gripped better.

For the 2011/12 season Burton has introduced the Squeezebox core profile to a handful of cambered, V-rockered and Flying V boards. The Squeezebox profile has thinner core sections underfoot which transition to thicker, more powerful areas between and outside the bindings, It’s similar to Salomon’s Popster core profile but with an extra profile hump or two.

The Custom Flying V is completely transformed by this technology. I rode everything from icy pipe to park jumps and small jibs and I was surprised by the fantastic grip along the flat bottom of the pipe and up the icy shaded wall. The Custom popped easily, particularly off the heel edge during frontside spins without having to load the tail up much at all and the spring out of carves was awesome. Squeezebox tech might sound like another over hyped marketing ploy from the big B but it’s a really fantastic addition.

Basalt Reinforcement

Basalt’s not new I hear you cry, and you’d be right, but until this season it wasn’t quite as prolific and we hadn’t ridden a board with Basalt in its construction. Now we’ve ridden the Endeavor High5, BOD and Salomon Man’s board which all use Basalt laminates we’ve formed an opinion, Basalt rocks (lame pun, sorry).

Snowboards with Basalt are lighter and livelier than those boards that use fibreglass. Basalt gives a snowboard a unique feel which isn’t as raw as a fibreglass board packed full of carbon, it’s a more fluid and damp pop much like the change from a Poplar core to Bamboo, power with finesse. Because Basalt fibres have a higher tensile strength than standard E-glass fibres (in tests Basalt was proven to be 13.5% stronger than E-Glass and 17.5% stiffer) a lighter laminate can be used, cutting down board weight. More importantly, the chemicals required to create glass fibres from Silicon Oxide are not required to produce Basalt fibres. Basalt is literally mined, crushed, melted and then formed into fibres. It’s a higher performance and less environmentally harmful material than Glass Fibre but it is a little dearer.

Elliptical C2 Banana

Again strictly speaking Mervin tested the waters with EC2 Banana late last season with the mid-season release of the Lib-Tech Attack Banana so it isn’t new. To be honest the technology isn’t particularly pioneering either, but is a fresh take on a technology that has been doing the rounds for the last couple of seasons.

EC2 is based on Lib-Tech’s C2 Banana profile which blends rocker between the bindings into camber at the tips, blending the catch free and easy to press feel of rocker to the pop and stability of camber. EC2 Banana just blends the rocker between the feet into a less aggressive camber at the tips, meaning the EC2’s profile is a halfway house between Mervin’s Banana and C2 Banana profiles. It’s more playful than boards like the TRS series of boards but more lively, stable and versatile than the Skate Banana. It isn’t rocket science but it’s a good idea and the boards are bound to sell themselves.

Head Flamba Twin shape

If Mervin are the masters of snowboard design innovation in North America, the same is true of Head in Europe. Sometimes Head get it right with innovation like the i.CT chip and Intellifibres; other times they get it very wrong, their freeride S-camber being a great example of a bad idea. However Head’s Flamba shape is going to bring Head back into favour.

The premise of the Flamba shape is fairly simple; like K2’s All-Terrain rocker profile the board is flat at the waist to just beyond the inserts from which the tips rise very gradually into subtle rocker. As the tips rise the sidecut flares out aggressively turning increasingly tight as it approaches the start of the effective edge where the sidecut blends into the tips. For all intents and purposes it is the opposite of a progressive sidecut. This unique shape means that as you initiate a turn the sidecut at the start of the effective edge grips earlier than it would on a standard reverse camber snowboard. The sensation you get from riding the Evil Flamba is of incredible response, it is lightning fast edge to edge but the tips are raised so when you are straight lining they are clear of the snow giving the board a catch-free feel. This Evil Flamba truly is reverse camber evolved!

Posted by Rich Ewbank in Features.

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