Nothing beats a powder day on a snowboard. Slashes, cutbacks, floaters, ollies, and pig-dogs. Powder on a snowboard is nothing but pure pleasure.
Snowboarding has been given a lot of the credit for the new freeskiing movement. Supposedly, snowboarding influenced freeskiing’s style, tricks, and ski shapes and it’s true. Snowboarding has always been progressive and cutting edge and it’s made everyone better as it rolls along.
The boards listed below will help snowboarding continue to influence and up the ante of the snow sliding world.
THE AWARD WINNING SNOWBOARDS OF 2015:
SNOWBOARD: 2015 Lib Tech Travis Rice
AWARD: Snowboarder Magazine Best of the Test
Lib Tech Travis Rice 2015
– Snowboarder Magazine gave their Best of the Test Award to 5 men’s snowboards this year, but the Lib Tech Travis Rice board is designed and ridden by Travis Rice. Enough said.
Flex: 5-7 (depending on size) – A versatile, medium-stiff flex designed to be aggressive yet playful, and great for all-mountain riding.
Shape: True Twin– A symmetrical shape for equally precise performance riding regular or switch. Park/Jib Focused Blunt Tip – Sizes: 153, 155, 157. Pow Specific Pointy Tip – Sizes 161.5, 164.5
What Snowboarder Magazine had to say about the Lib Tech Travis Rice:
“The Lib Travis Rice board has everything you can ask for from Lib Tech. It is C2BTX, which is a more aggressive rocker and camber story. It also comes in a blunt nose in the smaller sizes for the park and a pointed nose in the larger sizes for the backcountry. It’s aggressive enough for a more advanced rider but also because of the shape, it’s forgiving enough for an intermediate rider to cruise around on. Plus, T-Rice is one of the greatest snowboarders around.” — Surfside Sports, Costa Mesa, CA
SNOWBOARD: 2015 GNU Rider’s Choice
AWARD: Transworld Snowboarding’s Good Wood Award
2015 GNU Rider’s Choice
– Transworld Snowboarding gave its Good Wood Award to 5 snowboards this year, but the GNU Rider’s Choice
Flex: 5 – 7 Depending on Size – Medium stiff flex handles everything from corduroy, powder, to big mountain obstacles. A slightly stiffer medium flex is designed to be versatile with a focus towards freeriding.
Shape:
True Twin – A symmetrical shape for equally precise performance riding regular or switch
A.S.S. Pickle Technology – Deeper heelside sidecut // Asym “Pickle Barrel” core, softer heelside flex // Asym contact angles with shorter heelside contact // Asym tip and tail shapes
What Transworld Snowboarding had to say about the 2015 GNU Rider’s Choice
“The choice of Gnu riders Mathieu Crepel, Blake Paul, and Brothers Warbington for good reason. This board has four asymmetric design traits to balance out a sideways stance, including a deeper heelside sidecut, softer heelside core flex, shorter heelside contact points, and asym tip and tail shapes. These small tweaks are pressed into a rocker/camber hybrid profile with a bevy of four different woods in the core. It sounds complex, but the ride is simple.” – Transworld Snowboarding
SNOWBOARD:2015 Jones Carbon Solution Splitboard
AWARD: Backcountry Magazine’s Editors’ Choice Award
2015 Jones Carbon Solution Splitboard
– Backcountry Magazine gave itsEditors’ Choice Award to 5 splitboards but this is the biggest, baddest, stiffest, more pro splitboard ever made.
Blunt Nose – “How a board glides in powder, crust, corn, or any snow condition more then an inch deep is dictated by its front contact point and just past it. Next time you are in soft snow watch how much snow comes over the corner of the nose near the contact point. The billowing snow means you are plowing through it which is obviously slowing you down. By adding a blunt nose you get the float benefits of a much longer board tip without the added length or swing weight.” – Jeremy Jones
Progressive Sidecut – At the far ends of the side cut, the radius is incrementally increased as the edge reaches the contact point. Gradually decreasing the side cut radius towards the contact point delivers smoother turn initiation and exit as the edge tracks in and out of the snow with a less abrupt transition.
What Backcountry Magazine had to say about the 2015 Jones Carbon Solution Splitboard:
+ “Easy to whip around. Awesome while breaking trail.”
– “Stiff torsional flex and not much pop.”
= An all-around powerhouse without the weight.
Gear Review
