Gnu Space Case or Stepchild Latchkey

Posted: 01 August 2014 03:56 AM

Hey,
for getting a pretty stellar average in grade 11, my father has offered to pitch in on my snowboard of choice. I ride mostly on crappy little hills in southern Ontario, Canada. This year I wanted to start doing street and more aggressive park style as my current board is just a crappy old Morrow board.

I would like a board that follows most of the following criteria:

>Can be used for jibbing
>Street Capable
>Still able to go downhill well enough to keep up with my planker wanker friends who hate the park
>Skate feel for the park
>Flexible enough to get some pop
>Stiff enough to lean into some hard turns
>A graphic I can stoked on, but one I can take on the hill without having to worry about hiding it from small children
>A board that costs under $500

My two favourites are the

GNU 2014 Forrest Bailey Space Case

and the Stepchild 2014 Latchkey

Both boards are epic park boards and I’m leaning towards the space case whenever I think about those lay down turns, but then I’ll see a sweet rail in town thats not skatebale but definitely snowboardable, and I think the Latchkey is the way to go. I don’t know if I can board gnarly rails on the Space Case, or if I can still attack a steep slope with the Latchkey. I just don’t know enough about snowboard tech. Both boards ranked highly amongst park boards in several magazines.

Any suggestions on either board is helpful.
Please let me know if there’s another board that fills most of my criteria, or if I just have to choose between the slopes or the streets.