Burton. Still what they once were?

Posted: 18 August 2009 04:54 PM

Easy all,

For one reason or another I have been on a not entirely voluntary hiatus from riding for the past 8 years. Back in my day Burton were king of the hill when it came to the popular decks, with K2 not far behind.

Now, damn, everyone is making snowboards. As someone who made the leap from straight to shaped skis back in the day I am pretty sure I don’t want to dust off anything I used to ride, so where does a target market like me find instant satisfaction?

Burton still up there?

What about bindings? What would be the Burton Custom Freestyle of today’s market? I don’t want to go too niche, so as mad as it shounds, point me to a mass produced but proven rig which will have this old snowboarder happy on the piste and not embarassing his young kids at the mountain restaurant!

Cheers for any ‘n’ all help.

Tom

Posted: 18 August 2009 05:41 PM

8 years without riding!!! Yeah the world of snowboard equipment has changed massively in that time.

I think the best thing to happen in the last 10 years is the amount of quality snowboards to choose from increased by miles.. not just that, but niche shapes are abundant, you don’t just have to settle for a directional board to ride everything, you can pick up a fish for powder in the morning and a rockered jib stick for cruising the park in the afternoons, and thanks to snowboard brands putting a nice £400 ceiling on the price of a top of the range snowboard 10 years ago, buying these niche boards won’t break the bank.

In terms of volume Burton still sell 3 times more snowboards than any other brand, and they’re constantly trying to monopolise the binding market, back in the 90s it was the 3 hole base plate and now it’s the channel… evil Burton! But they’re still pushing technology.

The real champions of technology at the minute are Mervin (Lib Tech & GNU) with magnetraction ( a wavy edge) the re-introduction of reverse camber and assymetric sidecuts the old school twin tip board with a radial sidecut are out of the window. There must be a least 6 ty[pes of camber on the market for the 09/10 season.

Bindings haven’t changed quite as drastically, but there are a lot of quality manufacturers out there now, 10 years ago it really was only Burton who made good bindings… oh and maybe Drake. Check out Union, Salomon, Forum… in fact I’d be here all day listing manufacturers. Get on the net and get surfing.