Board Advice Please

Posted: 17 November 2009 03:16 AM

Hi,

OK, so I’m looking a bit of advice on a new board for the upcoming season i’ll be spending in Austria.

I’m after a second board that will help me progress my current riding ability towards the park. As it stands, my existing board is a Burton Uninc 156 07/08 model, on which i tended to do mostly piste/Off-piste riding but had just started spinning off jumps and attempting a couple of rails. Being a pro board, it’s a little too stiff for my current riding ability as far as buttering and jibbing goes. I plan on keeping this board for powder and carving days but looking for something a little smaller and flexier to muck around on.

I recently visited a couple of different board stores hoping the sales people would be able to tell me exactly what i was after but i’ve received a few varied solutions. Basically one store suggested the Bataleon Evil Twin with its Triple Base Technology and the other suggested the Forum Scallywag with “Chillidog rocker”, both 151. I understand these shapes are completely different and possibly uncomparable but I still wanted to throw the question out to see what your experience of the above mentioned boards are.

Or are there any other boards that you think may be of interest to me?

Cheers
Toshy

Buying Advice Template

[*] Board
[  ] Binding
[  ] regular straps
[  ] fast-entry system (Flow/Cinch/..)
[  ] Boots
[  ] Other

Measurements:

Body height:  170 cm
Weight:    73ish Kg
Shoe size:  9/10 US

Riding level:

[  ] Beginner
[*] Intermediate
[  ] Advanced
[  ] Expert

Riding style: (multiple selections allowed)

[  ] Piste   40% i.e. not a noodle
[  ] Powder 0%
[  ] Park   30%
[  ] Rails   30%

Tech:

[  ] Rocker
[  ] Camber
[*] I don’t know / what ever fits best

Posted: 17 November 2009 02:50 PM

Hey Toshy,

Have a look at the ‘Ten of the best - Park Boards’ article on the features page. It’s definitely worth looking at the following boards:

Burton Easy Livin’ - Very fun board although you’ll need to buy Burton EST bindings for the Burton channel system.

K2 Believer - I took this board away with me to Argentina over the summer and it pretty-much loved everything. It was really playful, loved powder, loved the park and gave me ridiculous confidence on rails. I would say that on some of the icier days I could have done with a bit more torsional rigidity though, just to hold onto those carves…..but if it had more torsional rigidity it wouldn’t have been as much fun on rails.

Stepchild JP Walker - A park and rail board with balls…...and a camber.

Nitro Rook - Similar to the K2 Believer but possibly a little more torsional rigidity and a scoop nose for slightly better float in powder. Probably not as much fun on rails though.

Atomic Axum - A dark horse.

K2 Darkstar/Parkstar - Worth a look. Rich had a lot of fun on the Parkstar but said it was definitely a park focused board.

With reference to the Scallywag; Rich thought it was a lot of fun but a bit too much of a noodle for someone who likes to cruise pistes a lot. He liked the Evil Twin a lot but said the responsiveness from edge to edge was compromised by the wider middle panel of the tripple base technology…...great kicker board though.

Hope this helps,

Tom

Posted: 17 November 2009 03:33 PM

I’d look at the following boards if you found the Uninc boards too stiff. Mind these are propper jib and park decks.

Stepchild ChiBorg: THis deck is telepathic, so easy to ride and just loves hitting park obsticles.

GNU Danny Kass: Pretty similar to the Park Pickle, just a little bit more pop, and you can ride a 155 as a fully grown man, and not worry about breaking it!

K2 Parkstar: Jibbalicious, but also pretty capable around the rest of the hill. Lots of people have been saying these boards suck at hitting big jumps and riding icy pipes…. duh yeah… but who would take a rockered park pastry of a monster jump?

Endeavor Live: A bit more of an all-rounder, but these decks are getting a lot of good attention.

Posted: 18 November 2009 06:51 PM

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I think i’ll head back to the board store to have a closer look at the boards you guys have suggested. I’ll keep you posted as to which board i end up getting and try to provide some feedback to other snowboard reviewers.

Thanks again
Toshy