Snowboard Advisor
What types of snowboard are there?
We basically distinguish between freestyle, freeride, all-round, carving and race boards. However, these categories are not strictly segregated and there is some overlapping. As you will only find freestyle, freeride and all-round boards in our range, we will deal only with these categories.
Freeride boards
The freeride board is for everyone who loves speed and who likes to get their kicks off-piste. These boards are somewhat longer (up to between your chin and your nose) and harder, all of them have a directional shape and a setback of several centimetres. In plain English, this means that your stance is not centred in the middle of the board, but that the bindings are offset a few centimetres towards the tail. With some boards, specially designed for use in deep snow, the nose-to-tail ratio can be up to 3 to 1. This has the advantage that the long nose gives plenty of momentum in deep snow, and the usually very small radius around the rear foot gives aggressive edge performance facilitating fast carving. The direction of this board is straight ahead, i.e. switching (travelling backwards) is no fun with a freeride board. These boards are also unsuitable for rails and park kickers. The typical binding angle on a freeride board is +15° - +30° for the front foot and +6° - +20° for the rear foot. We recommend +18° at the front and +9° at the back.
Freestyle boards
The freestyle board is softer and generally somewhat shorter. When choosing the length of your board, you should think about where you will be using it most. If you need a straightforward park board for jibbing and rails, it should be no higher than your larynx and have a low flex, i.e. be pleasantly soft. For larger kickers, pipe or back country, it can by all means reach to the chin. These boards are also somewhat harder than the typical jib boards in order to facilitate the build-up of sufficient edge pressure on take-off and landing, and can also be ridden very well on the piste. The shape of a freestyle board is mostly bi-directional and is described as twin-tip. In plain English, this means that the nose and tail of these boards are practically symmetrical, which means that they can be ridden in both directions. This is also important because many tricks include a half-turn, which means that either the take-off or landing must be performed backwards. The binding angle is also set accordingly. All pure freestyle boards are ridden in duck stance, i.e. the front foot has a positive angle, usually between 12° and 25°, and the rear foot has a negative angle between -6° and -25°.
All-terrain freestyle or all-round boards
This hybrid among the snowboards is the right choice for anyone who doesn’t really want to specialise and just wants to have fun everywhere. These boards have a directional shape but can also easily be switched (ridden backwards). New types of radius such as the dual digressive radius from Nitro (extremely easy to turn and forgiving of errors through the wide radius at the front and rear edges but extremely aggressive due to the narrow radius at the edges in front of the feet) and the Omega Sidecut from Elan (mitigation of “hazardous” area at the front edge), these boards can easily be ridden practically everywhere by beginners and advanced skiboarders alike. The flex (hardness) is mostly concentrated in the central area and the binding angle can be adjusted individually. We recommend a comfortable and easily controllable foot angle of +15° at the front and -9° at the rear. In terms of length, the board should reach to between your larynx and your mouth.
What is the correct board width?
It is important to take your shoe size into account when choosing a board. From size 44 (9), you should choose at least a mid-wide board, from size 45 (10) a wide board. If you stand on a normal-width board wearing size 45 clodhoppers, you will notice no later than the first fast ride how incredibly annoying it is to keep dragging the tips of your feet in the snow or to completely lose contact with the back edge because your boot suddenly and abruptly takes control. Then you will take off! The width of some boards is sufficient even if they are not specifically described as wide boards. Just ensure that the board is no less than 26 cm wide.
How important is my weight when choosing a board?
When choosing a board, you should take you weight into account as well as your height and shoe size. If you weigh 90 kg, for example, your board should be correspondingly hard and torsion-resistant in order to exert optimum pressure on the edge. If you weigh more than 90 kg, it is often advisable to choose a wide board, as these are rather more torsion-resistant by design that normal-width boards. However, the rule of thumb is: the heavier the snowboarder, the harder the board.
Sprache / Language
