Snowboard Review

REVIEW

Discuss it here

You need to look at a picture of this board top get what’s going on. In general, it has the waist and tail of a free ride board and the nose of a swallow tail board. The nose is the first obvious feature. It is long, wide and pointed. It is also quite flexible. The mid-section is thick and stiff, so too the tail, which is very stiff. The board is not ridden like a normal snowboard which initiates a turn by pressuring the front inside edge and then following through the turn with pressure progressively being applied to the rear inside edge, effectively torsioning the board. This turning should be second nature for a snowboarder so riding a D1 for the first time takes a little getting used to. The D1 is ridden with even edge pressure and weight distribution throughout the turn. When you lay over for a toe side turn the edge pressure is immediately applied to front inside edge and well as rear inside edge. You are carving from the very start on the full effective edge of the board. The big difference is that D1 riding doesn't require a constant cycle weighting and un-weighting between front toe – rear toe – front heel – rear heel – front toe… etc. Not having to cycle through the 4 edge pressure points actually saves a lot of energy and lets you turn with a new sensation, on the rail. It is a bit like a surfboard with a relatively even centred stance. But first time riding and your will feel sore legs as it is a new movement and muscles have to fire at different times, something you will not be used to. This board is a powder board that you can carve and full throttle on piste as well.

Powder:
The nose makes it a powder board. It is long wide and soft and floats the rider onto the surface with zero effort or rear leg pressure. The tails sinks a little because it is so stiff and narrower, but mostly you are riding up over the snow rather than ploughing through it. This means you can ride low angle powder very easily, a benefit after a heavy dump when av risk is high. At speed you really feel this board and with speed you can lay out really big arcs in powder. You are on top of the snow and surfing with a lot of speed, stability and manoeuvrability. I would say that it isn’t the fastest board on powder, a straighter edges swallow tail is the true high speed rocket. The stiff D1 tail is way more robust than a swallow tail, can be ridden switch (not ideal) and can pleasantly dampen a hard cliff drop landing without risk of breaking a fork.

Piste:
Unlike most powder boards, this board can ride on piste very well. You will ride faster and harder than most and come close to g-force leg pressure than alpine carvers feel. Stiff boost and bindings help, in fact, I sometime wear AT ski boots and plate bindings. You wont be spinning tight turns, but for its size it really is very easy to manoeuvre. The stiff edges and tail allows you to put so much into y turn that would normally make a basic freeride board spin out and leave you scraping every turn. If you cant carve a turn, you cant really snowboard, your just sliding and scraping. There is serious power in the stiff tail and you can pull up from high speed very quickly. At very high speed the nose vibrates too much due to its length and softness, however maintaining straight line speed on the base rather than an edge is very easy and you will burn off nearly all snowboards on the run. Riding it on-piste is downright aggressive powerful and fun. Its not a toy.

Crap snow:
Lots of stability and tends to flatten chopped up pow in its way. Better on ice than most freeride boards.

Negatives

Rating: 9/10

The Dupraz D1 comes from the guy that made the first parabolic side cut snowboard decades ago, revolutionising the entire snow sliding industry. It takes contemporary freeride knowledge, corrects the mistake made and brings feeling and sensation back into snowboarding. It exceeds expectations because you don’t even know that you wanted what it gives. A powder gun that lets you tear pistes apart like a skier. For a hand made specialised board it is quite cheap.