Asking a board about a board

Posted: 28 March 2011 05:27 PM

Hey guys,

I’m looking for a guiding hand on my first purchase and you lot seem like a friendly, knowledgeable bunch.

So I got back from my first Snowboarding trip in January (Serre Chevalier, France) and as I expected, I loved the whole experience. Prior to that I had a lesson on an icey dry slope. I also spent a few hours at the snowdome a few weeks ago.

I managed to hit a few kickers at the dome due to the forgiving conditions, and really enjoyed it.

I’m hoping to pick up an end of season bargain and have been looking at just about every board I can find. I have a massive list but many of them are just flights of fancy (probably getting caught up in the aesthetics and cooperate spiel) anyway, I digress.

Picking a few stand outs in my opinion:

Bataleon : Fun Kink USA or Goliath
YES! : Typo
Forum: Scallywag
Imperivm : Parabellum
Signal : Park

I’ve got others in mind but I feel I may just be making things confusing.

As for my vitals:
Male
Height - 6ft 1
Weight - 15 st
Boot - 11 UK

I’m under the impression a softer board is better for a beginner and I’d like to progress onto parks and jumps, fancy trying to learn some sick butters also.
Either way any advice would be appreciated.

p.s sorry about the length… (ooohh err!)

Posted: 02 April 2011 06:57 PM

Wow that’s a very mixed bag of boards. The Imperium Parrabelum is a stiffer charging board and the Signal Park is a complete marshmallow of a board, it makes Jelly look hard.

My advice would be to go for something with a medium-ish flex, perhaps with a camrock profile or maybe ver slight rocker. Going too soft will restrict you to just riding park obsticles, when you go on holiday I’m sure you enjoyed getting some speed up too and trying some of the off piste at the side of the slopes… if the board is too soft you won’t have much fun riding that kind of stuff.

The YES Typo would be a good call. Having camber between the feet adds a little stablity where as the rockered tips make the board feel more manouverable, a bit more playful, they help with float in deeper snow and they make switch riding that little bit easier. You could also look at the Signal Omni and the Atomic Hatchet. Regarding board size, for these types of boards you should be looking at something between 159 and 161, you’ll also need to consider buying a wide board, a waist width in the region of 26.5cm should do the trick.

Rich

Posted: 06 April 2011 10:49 AM

Thanks Rich,

that’s a really big help. Someone else had actually recommended the Atomic Hatchet too and it’s got great reviews, so that looks like a good choice.

Appreciate the advice :)

Posted: 07 April 2011 09:24 AM

No problem, but if you can, try and hold out for next year’s Hatchet. It comes with a higher grade base and Atomic have got rid of the slightly ugly blunted tips. Next year’s looks really smart. If you check out the video with our 2012 freestyle preview you can see next year’s Hatchet at 1:40 link here .

Rich