Shoreline of Tahoe picks many of the same snowboards that win the good wood awards. After a summer spent pouring over spreadsheets, the only downside to getting to test out hundreds of new boards, the results of TransWorld SNOWboarding’s Good Wood board test are in and the winners were announced in the new Buyer’s Guide.
Here’s a breakdown of this season’s top 40 boards by category:
Here is a thought that is over looked when Shopping online. Retailers are doing all they can to get you to buy from their site. From the consumer’s point of view, they often think that is all come down to price only, but over look the expert advice, they receive from a specialty snowboard shop. Specialty Snowboard Shops don’t put together package deals online in a one size fits all way. One way to determine if a shop has your best interest in mind is weather or not they bundle together packages Boards, boots, bindings, at a great discount. The motive behind this type of packaging is greater profit for the retailer. In most cases they purchase large amounts of boards boots and bindings that don’t sell. So the question to ask is why didn’t they sell? So lets go through why these items didn’t sell. The number one reason, a board doesn’t sell is graphics, I remember the year Danny Kass one the Olympic gold, his board’s graphic was this overly punk thing that you got tired of after 10 seconds, but the board it’s self was great! So in a package deal, they may be some good decks offered. The other boards you find in these packages are made for packages. These boards are made with the motive of making it as cheap as possible, often heavier, less responsive, and prone to fall apart. The same can be said about both boots and binding.
The bindings have a job to do, they must hold your boot firmly down to your board, so your able to control your board. Some of the cheaper plastics, will stretch allowing your boot to lift up in the binding. Depending on what kind of riding you do this could be a good or bad thing. Some forgiveness from you bindings if your focus is park riding, is a good thing, being able to tweak your equipment, is desirable. If your focus is improved stability at high speeds then a stiffer binding is what you want.
The reason boots don’t sell in a small way is how they look, but a far bigger reason is fit. If your shopping packages online, with the motive of saving as much money as possible, keep in mind when it comes to boots, not all boots fit all feet. People are funny, the boot is the most important part of your equipment and is often the piece of equipment that people put the least amount of thought into. The odds are against you getting a comfortable boot that can hold your foot firmly down.
So buyer beware, if an online dealer is offering a package deal, there is a good chance that you may suffer in pain and lack the performance you want.
We want to offer our customers a package deal but don’t want to take away your freedom to get the right gear.
So pick out the best gear for you, feel free to give us a call toll free 888-866-7669 (snow) if you have any further questions about your package. We want to reward you for buying from us. So pick out any 2010 snowboarding gear… Board, boots and bindings then put in the coupon code put the word “Package” and you’ll receive 10% off your package. The Coupon code will only work with 2010 equipment, that totals over $700.00 before discount. Sorry small kids packages are not included.
The Snowboard industry is a funny one, some times you have to just laugh at the hippies. Take this Idea of some grass root movement that is all the rage in snowboarding, yet it never went “corporate” some how keep pure to the love of the sport…if that existed we wouldn’t know about it. Corporate means cor?po?rate?–adjective
1. of, for, or belonging to a corporation or corporations: a corporate executive; She considers the new federal subsidy just corporate welfare.
2. forming a corporation.
3. pertaining to a united group, as of persons: the corporate good.
4. united or combined into one.
If there is a good idea that you want to get made and sold in market, forming a corporation is a good way to do it. I laugh at some hippy snowboarders because they seem to think these boards grow on trees. The effort to design, make, distribute, and sell takes a whole year of hard corporate work. A few years ago we sold gloves from a company that was so anti-corporation, that the next year when we placed our order they lost it, blame us, and never shipped us our gloves…now that is as unincorporated as it gets.
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.
