Shoreline of Tahoe Team rider Rose Marie Daiek will defend her Kirkwood North Face Masters of Snowboarding Title this weekend Friday & Saturday February 26 – 27th. The Master’s Series measures a riders freeriding talents by placing them up against anything the mountain has to throw at them. Cliffs, chutes, crud, ice, pow, rocks, and steeps; A master rider needs to ride it all in control and with style. Rose has come a long way, from early roots camping out in Kirkwood to ruling anything she sets her sights on. Always quick to flash a big smile as she flies past you to that next powder line.
Good Luck to Rose Marie and all the other competitors from the crew at Shoreline.

Elbows Up!

Shoreline Of Tahoe, Lake Tahoe’s alternative ski & snowboard shop. Is so into the ski/snowboard scene that we buy new stock all year long, so we can offer new stock on sale during the season. This year we have made some great buys from, K2, Full Tilt, Mervin and Burton. Stop on by and save. The 20% off is good only in store, K2 Skis and Full Tilt Ski Boots are on sale online.

This debate will most likely never completely be resolved, it actually begin back in 1985 when the snowboard industry followed the ski engineers use of camber. For the next 20 years rocker snowboards were only seen in museums. Then Mervin Manufacturing in 2005 offered one board with rocker. Since then most all manufactures offer a variety of different rocker snowboards.
The average snowboarder is confused about this new choice, they’ll have to make when buying a snowboard, so I will try to explain the differences based on the characteristics you will feel while riding in different terrains.

POWDER

Camber boards have had a great 20 year track record of ripping up powder. To improve your ride, many riders will set back their bindings back so that nose will increase will rise to the top easier. While your shorter tail will sink. This will give you a disadvantage if you want to ride switch, but most riders will compensate for this by leaning back.

Reverse camber boards will not have to be adjusted back to improve their buoyancy. they will hold high speed buttering, and can be ridden switch no matter how deep the powder is.

PARK RIDING

Most all tricks to date were made up while riding Cambered boards. In bigger parks the camber stability will allow you to hit the big booters with a stronger sense of calm. Camber boards give you a more consistence , crisp, pop off of jumps and allies.

Rocker boards can make many of the stylish tricks easier to do in between charging towards a rail or jump. Buttering your way towards a rail then turbo pressing the rail will be easier with rocker.

GROOMERS

Many riders will agree that on the groomers camber will delivery stability at high speeds due to the additional edge contact. The way side cut and camber work together, a properly executed turn will deliver an additional g-force feeling as you excellerate through your turn.

Rocker boards initiate turns very easily, and tend to want to finish the turn just as quick. Due to its design you end with a lot less edge on the snow. This is no problem on days where the runs are soft, but on hard pact or icy days you will fell less edge bite, that will will make you want to ride a bit slower. Note* Mervin manufacturing’s “magnetraction” and Burton’s “pressure distribution edges” will give back the bit to your edges. Both these features to a greater and lesser degree can be under stood by looking at a steak knife.

There are two major snowboard companies selling reverse camber snowboards with most all the other companies jumping on the band wagon. The 2008/2009 season we’ll see Burton offer the hero and Rome will be releasing the Postermania 1985 and Anthem Superlight Series (SS). Others soon will be joining the ranks of K2 & Mervin Manufacturing. Mervin Manufacturing, which includes Gnu, Lib Tech, and Roxy uses “Banana Technology” (patent pending). Their reverse camber snowboards have the rocker between the bindings, and the board is straight from the bindings to the nose and tail. Mervin also incorporates their patented magna traction serrated edge into all their reverse camber snowboards. Mervin Manufacturing’s reverse camber snowboards (Banana Technology) with magna traction include the following 2009 boards: Lib Tech Skate Banana, Lib Tech Box Scratcher, Lib Tech TRS Travis Rice Pro Model, Lib Tech Dark Series Lib Tech Jamie Lynn Lib Tech McKink, Lib Tech Skunk Ape and Lib Tech Snow Mullet. From their Gnu label the following boards come with the Banana Traction Technology, Riders Choice, Danny Kass, Billy Goat Banana-Traction Snowboard, and Gnu Youth Danny Kass Mini Banana-Traction Snowboard. Gnu offers woman’s reverse camber snowboards too, the following designs all come with banana traction Gnu Women’s B-Pro Banana-Traction Snowboard and Gnu Women’s B-Street Banana-Technology Snowboard. Lib Tech says that the reverse camber on their boards makes the board ride more like a skateboard than previous snowboards. Most snowboards have camber, which means the board has an arch that lifts up off the ground between the nose and tail. This is a shaping that was based off skis, when a ski or snowboard is turned on it’s side the camber kind of increases the side cut to make the ski or snowboard feel like it accelerate through the turn. Reverse camber allows the snowboard to disengage its edge easily so it feels more surfing. Additionally, reverse camber snowboards float easier in powder.

K2 Snowboards made their 2008 20th Anniversary Gyrator model with reverse camber. This reverse camber is different from Mervin Manufacturing’s. K2′s reverse camber they named “Rocker”. The board is flat between the bindings so there would be an area to assert pressure on to the snow so you can control the board, if a board were to have to much rocker it would be like standing on a saucer. The nose and tail of the K2 Gyrater swoops up passed the binding. This board design is made for riding powder.