Tips to help you begin your rewarding career as a snowboarder - Part 2 Special thanks to Murota Yumiko, Snowboarding Matriarch of Japan, for these translations.

Selecting a Board

Length: Longer boards are faster, more stable, and float better in powder, but they are more difficult to control. Shorter boards are more agile, but less stable. The rule of nose, rather than the rule of thumb, usually decides the ideal length, a board that comes between the chin and nose is ideal. Go longer if you intend to do some speed work. Go shorter if you want a board that is easier to turn. Heavier people, like me since my trip to the USA, may wish to purchase a slightly longer board. See Effective Edge. 

Width:  Wider boards may be good for people with larger feet – makes sense – or for people whose bindings are not angled on the board (freestylers). Wider boards also float better in powder. Narrow boards produce a faster side-to-side crossover. Use the waist measurement when comparing widths.

Flexibility:  Rigid boards are more stable under high speeds but are stiff and unforgiving. Flexible boards are springy and easy to turn but don’t hold up in high speeds.

Ideal Effective Edge length = your height x 0.7 - From various shops.

Board length – Effective Edge = ‘Forgiveness’ (The larger the difference, the ‘more forgiving’ a board is in turning. A small difference indicates a board that turns sharply or is ‘less forgiving.’ – From Snowboard Life Magazine, Interview with T. Fransen, Head of Product Development, MLY.

Sidecut (Radius): A deeper sidecut = smaller sidecut radius. Boards with a smaller Sidecut Radius, turn more sharply and are less stable. Boards with a larger Sidecut Radius make wider turns and are more stable. – From Snowboard Life, Interview with Scott Barbieri, Senior Design Engineer, Burton.

Weight: The weight of the board can make a difference when it comes to deciding who is ready for the nighter at the end of the day. Heavier boards are sturdier but they can tire out the gams.  

Personally I have a Ride Control with a picture of Fujiwara Norika glued to the tip. She takes a little muscle to make the inside turn but holds beautifully in high speed.

Japanese Brands
Thinking of ‘turning Japanese?’ I fished through Jimbotcho asking about Japanese brands. Although there are a number of brands, the actual manufacturing is handled mainly by two companies. Yonex (the tennis racquet people) make Yonex snowboards and Ogasaka basically make all the rest.

The most popular brands are Moss, Torqrex, Yonex, and RCM-Richmond, which have ranked professional riders. Moss must have gone moldy because many of the original riders quit last year and formed Grey.

If you went to a variety of different regions you would find more small time brands than I discovered in Jimbotcho. Some sports stores produce there own Ogasaka-made boards, like Himaraya’s Avalanche brand - which has yet to bump legal heads with Avalanche USA. Another popular brand, Subtle, has moved all production from Canada to Ogasaka’s factory this year.

Why do Japanese CDs cost more than western CDs? Whatever the reason, the same rules apply to Japanese snowboards. The most popular Japanese brands sell at a premium, between 70,000 – 100,000 yen. Only some of the retailers I met had tested these pricey Japanese brands but they received positive reviews. Yonex boards apparently turn beautifully. Other comments indicated that the boards were built extremely well using top quality materials. Superior Japanese craftsmanship is no shocking fabrication but I almost fell over when one shop lackey looked me in the eye and said they were built especially for Japanese snow. When he saw me reaching for my barf bag he quickly covered by saying, "But, of course, there are many different snow conditions one has to consider." I just laughed and walked out the door – you have to vote with your feet in Jimbotcho.

Crap I found, but I was actually looking for something other than the verbal variety. My friend Kenji has a Crap brand snowboard. Maybe Crap lived up to their name and went out of business because I couldn’t find any in Jimbotcho. Smelly Tuna brand must also be living up to its name because retailers, desperate to eliminate last year’s stock from stinking up their shelves, have reduced the price to 9800 yen. Indeed, Smelly Tuna’s Partridge Family-inspired artwork is a bargain at any price!

Not only did the Partridges' singing stink, their board reeks too

  
Other Japanese brands include Infinity, Maku, Scooter, 12, and Ogasaka.

Actually, I’m not sure if Smelly Tuna is Japanese or not. I asked a shop-keep if Ogasaka produced Smelly Tuna and he replied, "Those boards are five years old." We didn’t have much to talk about after that. There are plenty of boards, however, that I know did not come from Japan.  

Other Brands 

Just because most Japanese only buy Burton and Salomon doesn’t mean that there aren’t mountains and mountains of other quality boards out there. The following brands made Snowboard Life’s top 25 boards (you’ll have to buy the magazine to actually get the model names): Avalanche, Airwalk, Arbor, Atlantis, Burton, Gnu, K2, Lib Tech, MLY, Morrow, Nitro, Palmer, Random, Ride, Rossignol, Salomon, Santa Cruz, Sims, and Winterstick.

Amongst Tokyo’s categorical neighborhoods, Akihabara is wired with electronics, Tsukijima is caked with Monja, Roppongi stinks of foreigners, and Kabuki-cho is...best left for other websites. Snowboards too have staked their claim and set up shop amongst the guitars and books of Jimbotcho.

Lewis and Clark would have a hard time discovering every snowboard in Jimbotcho. The 35 snowboard shops in these five blocks reflect the sky-rocketing demand for snowboards in this country. Snowboards fall from the sky and clutter the streets of Jimbotcho in every size, shape, color, and brand you can imagine. A majority of Jimbotcho’s shops have a decent selection of this year’s and last year’s Burton, Salomon, K2, Rossignol, Santa Cruz, Lib Tech, Ride, Sims, and Morrow boards. Many stores also have Arbor, MLY, Nitro, Palmer, Subtle, Moss, Gnu, Volki, Atlantis, Torqrex, RCM-Richmond, Infinity, Scooter and many many more. Freeride and Freestyle boards claim the widest selection with fewer Alpine boards available. Some stores also contained oddities like heretic Mono-skis and boat-sized Powder Boards. Of course boots, bindings, pants, coats, goggles, waxes, tool kits, etc. also exist in great variety. Oh yeah, I also found some disgusting ski-shaped things but, you wouldn’t be interested in that.

Snowboards gather for a breath of fresh air in the streets of Jimbotcho

  
With the truckloads of snowboards comes a wealth of knowledge wedged deeply into Jimbotcho’s indifferent surplus of salespeople. Their indifference results from the herds of wishful window-shoppers who graze their stores asking about brand names, rather than board features.

In price-fixing Tokyo, the only thing that doesn’t vary among all the boards in Jimbotcho is the cost. 90% of the stores displayed the same annoying prices and even had the nerve to offer ‘discounts’ identical down to the last yen as the store across the street. The whole place is set up on a "we’ll beat any price" system so the diligent shopper can find some relative bargains by sniffing out the cheapest prices and sticking it to their favorite shops.

In order to spare your feet for our big season, some friends and I have happily volunteered to sacrifice a weekend to discover Jimbotcho’s tastiest morsels. We picked three boards to price-compare during our adventure. The omnipresent list prices were as follows:

Salomon 550 – 75,000 yen
Burton Custom – 71,400
Lib Tech Yamazaki – 82,000.

Disgusting, isn’t it? The more despicable stores, who obviously have no grasp of capitalism, nor of the common goals of free men throughout the world, marked their prices up even higher and then reluctantly came back to the list price as if they were self-inflicting pain to do us a favor. Other less insulting stores started at the list prices and dropped them considerably lower. Your best bet is to stay away from the big names like Burton and Salomon, and get an almost reasonably priced Gnu, Morrow, Palmer, or Ride. Also, I believe that many stores will have a sale from October 6^th – 9^th, which could be sweet.

In the following store details, I have listed all the stores, indicated the fairness of the prices, touched on brand availability, and commented on the helpfulness of the staff. If nothing is mentioned, assume that the store had the usual selection and prices. 

1.
Victoria Wardrobe – All Ski &Snowboard Wear

2.
Victoria Gear – Expensive boards. Maruyama-san was very helpful.

3.
Victoria West - Accessories

4.
Reds 2 – Regular selection. Female sales staff also available.

5.
Some Ski Store – Sorry, I don’t know how this got in here.

6.
Minami

7.
Crystal – Loads of Burtons and others.

8.
Field Land – Honest sales staff suggested we fly to the US and buy boards. October 6-9 %30 off sale.

9.
Victoria Main Store – Lots of sporting equipment

10.
Sporsium – Lightly scratched Morrow Dimensions at a cheap 24,000 and more.

11.
Nippin 2 – Loads of pastel colored Cosmic Surf "Shibuya Boards."

12.
Alpina – Monoski Abominations

13.
Nippin 1 – New MLYs. Knowledgable staff.

14.
There is no 14 on the map – whoops! But my birthday is June 14.

15.
F-Janck – Alternatives like Morrow, MLY, Atlantis, Palmer, etc. Japanese dressed as Santa Claus with goggles on the street out front.

16.
MDS – Last years Salomon 550 at 42,500 and more– no one would match his price.

17.
Bodoyasan – Burton Custom at 69,000 and more

18.
Peak Wave – Alternative brands like Karma and Zuma and more

19.
Liberty – Good selection. Burton, Gnu, Palmer, and more.

20.
Minami – Ride, Nitro, and more.

21.
Victoria L-Breath – Outdoor sports shop.

22.
Murasaki – My friend bought a Gnu Carbon Hi-Beam at a cheap 30,000.

23.
Powers – Yonex, Subtle, Moss, Grey, Palmer. Iwata-san speaks English and focuses on features, not brands.

24.
Minami

25.
Globus – Alpine boards. MLYs. Female staff.

26.
J-Chiyoda – Mail-order Lib Tech and Burton slightly cheaper. Smelly Tuna

27.
Inoue – Slightly cheaper

28.
Minami

29.
Himaraya – Huge selection of everything. Also alternatives like BC Stream, Ice Age, G&S. Internet access. Store-made Avalanche brand.

30.
Victoria Viento – Good slection but pricey.

31.
Al Capone

32.
Minami – Bikes and snowboards

33.
One Make - Expensive

34.
Fuso Board – Gnu, Lib-Tech, Nitro, and more.

35.
Reds

36.
Sport Function – Crack house covering as a board shop. Very large Powder boards and small selection of Alpines.