Nidecker Icon characteristics and YES Basic

Posted: 15 December 2011 03:19 PM

Hello,

I started snowboarding only 3 years ago (around 6/7 times per year). Back then, I bought a cheap board to get started: a Nidecker Icon 1.53cm (2006 or 2007, I dont know for sure, but you can see it attached).

Now I am looking to buy a new board and I am leaning towards the YES Basic 1.55cm. But I would really like to know the specs and characteristics of the old board, to better understand what made it feel like it did and what I should look for/avoid. Unfortunately, I can’t find anything meaningful about it on the web. So, I was hopping someone might be able to tell me more about the Nidecker Icon. The main thinks I am interested in, are:

- was it campered? rockered? mixed? zero camper?
- how flexible would you say it was (in a scale of 0 to 10)?
- what about torsion?
- how much pop?
- weight? (very heavy? very light?)
- what kind of riding would you find most appropriate for?

Also, if you have an opinion about how it would compare to the YES Basic (in these or other aspects), I would be very willing to hear it :)

Thanks a lot for the help.

Cheers,
gumb

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Posted: 15 December 2011 03:42 PM

Nidecker Icon… hmmm you know YES are manufactured by Nidecker right?

Well I can’t find a lot of information on the ICON but here is what I can find.

Moderate sidecut of 8m… kind of standard and it appears to radial so nothing fancy here
It has Biaxial glass which suggests that it has a moderate/soft torsional and longitudinal flex.
The base is a low grade extruded so it’s not the fastest board on the planet.
The waist is quite narrow so it probably feels quite responsive edge to edge
It is definitely cambered
The specs seem to suggest it is twin shaped

It’s basically an entry level board for cruising around the pistes.

Posted: 15 December 2011 03:44 PM

Oh and I found somewhere that the weight is 2.94kg for a 157… I think that’s on the heavier side of things.

Posted: 15 December 2011 05:08 PM

Thank you Rich!

Yes I knew they were made by Nidecker :) (although I don’t understand very well what YES do then…)

So you found the specs for the board? Do you happen to have a link? Also, do you happen to know the weight of the Basic (155cm)?

Posted: 15 December 2011 05:31 PM

2,94 kg - Sorry, that’s the weight of the 153cm
Full-Wood Sandwich Construction
Dual Axial Laminates (biaxial)
Isospeed 1320 base
Radius: ca. 7,2 m
Waist 24.2 cm

No afraid I don’t have a clue what the YES basic weighs.

YES is a brand. Most brands have their boards manufactured by big snowboard manufacturers, it saves on expensive tooling and craftsmen training investment. YES essentially market Nidecker products under the YES brand… Nidecker and YES are tied quite closely together all you need to do is look through the Nidecker and YES catalogues to see that a lot of the boards are exactly the same or switch up the odd material here and there. I’m guessing YES uses Nidecker’s molds instead of spending lots of money to create their own… but that’s an assumption from looking at the geometry specs of boards.