Top Ten Powder Boards (Mens)

[seemore 66]

Ok since it is so hard to find this info we might as well see if we can come up with a top 10

 

We all know most boards can cope well but we want stuff that handles the deep and floats with out back foot effort (burn)

 

The obvious would be

Burton's range:

Fish, Malolo, Barracuda, Family Tree, Fishcuit, Family Tree, Cheetah (although a few of these boards are seasonal)

 

Bataleon:

Camel Toe

 

Capita:

Charlie Slasher

 

Compatriot:

Commisioner

 

Jones:

Hovercraft

 

K2:

Ultradream, Peacekeeper

 

Lib Tech:

Banana Hammock, Birdman

 

Nitro:

Slash

 

Never Summer:

Summit

 

Ride:

Slackcountry

 

Salomon:

Powder Snake, Sick Stick, Mini Pow Ripper

 

Signal:

Epic

 

I am sure I have missed quiet a few but feel free to add and write reviews

[seemore 66]

My input

 

Itermediate rider 80-85Kgs (depending) 6' who can handle Pow and trees but still not overly confident of going full tilt in trees and dropping off cliffs and features.

 

Burton Fish 156.

I have ridden 2 Fishes both 156 older boards without swallow tails nd enjoyed the alot love the setback and stance (feet pretty close together) I surf so I really like the narrow tail to slash of lips.

Went well in tress and felt good under foot I felt in control maybe a 160 would be worth trying but wanted to try other boards.

I think the Fish is a good board and heaps of Fun I need to change Binding positions forward to ride groomers (teaching the family) confidently.

I think everyone should have ago on one.

 

Jones Hovercraft 160.

I bought the Hovercraft after reading reviews and didn't look into setback and stance suitable for me.

Don't get me wrong the board goes well and is priced as a Quiver board (in the US anyway).

It floats ok but at times I struggled to keep the nose up. I would be much more comfortable on the board with a bigger setabck and reduced stance (my legs felt a bit to far way).

Goes well on the groomers which makes up for the Pow but I need to try and find something more suitable for me.

[seemore 66]

Short and sweet please Ippy

[ippy 66]

Depends what you want it for. Not all resorts are the same, and we all don't ride the same terrain or the same nber of days anyway. We also don't all love taper nor do we all love specialist powder sticks. I like hybrids to be honest since I like venturing into slack but also don't want a board I pull out three days a year and realise only upon travelling the 250km up to the resort that I should have brought my do it all board anyway because I misread the weather or it just didn't drop like I hoped it would.

 

Having a full on quiver board is going to be unbeatable on those days, but I just don't risk it which us why my slasher barely got any real time out there. Even at 164 it just felt too specific and dull when I wasn't in the mood for it. Conversely, despite its drawbacks in seriously deep and flat like kagura trees above the gondie station, I'm never unhappy riding my zerker. The rocker on the nose does just enough to make it functional in pow. Not brilliant, but functional and that's really what I want in a stick. I'd rather have a pow stick I'm actually going to use than one that is amazing when the conditions are right. I think the new 160 slasher would maybe have worked out for me, being the flip of the zerker (powder emphasis but diverse enough to just muck about on)

 

basically the long and short is that there's way too much diversity in preference and functionality as well as of course pragmatic considerations to take into account.

[Tubby Beaver 209]

But the threads about top powder boards...not do it all's

 

I have a 163 powder snake and its great, but I have gotten stuck a couple of times even with the bindings all the way back.....thinking I need to go bigger ...171 Slash is on my radar

[ozsnowbum 9]

advanced/expert rider who did 54/74 powder days last year.

capita charlie slasher is the best value powder board on the market imo. got it $330 new delivered to australia. all reviews rate it and so do i, i dont see any need for another powder board

rode a hovercraft for 2 days, also highly rate this board, more dedicated pow stick than the slasher.

signal epic was utter shite, worse board ive ever ridden.

gentemstick big fish - rented in niseko, high anticipation, highly disappointed, i dont get the high price tag, theres no way you can justify their price/performance.

[NECK 14]

My buddy has the Ride Slackcountry and swears by it. Looks sweet with ridiculous reverse camber to compensate for it basically looking like a regular board. He rides it long, but sure I could get away with a shorter one. Tried a Salomon Powder Snake demo board and wasn't impressed with it. Never Summer Summit looks sick, but a little heavier than most. Jones Hovercraft looks good and the price is right, but never tried one. Bataleon wins for graphics!!! I would go with the Burton Fish personally. I wanna get one bad! Haven't tried a newer one, but they handle the tight trees and the open like a dream.

[gozaimaas 61]

Birdman

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the rest

[gozaimaas 61]

This is a cut and paste of my birdman review posted elsewhere

 

Im a big guy, 6'3" in the old money and 240lb with gear, I basically freeride in stupid amounts of powder in Hokkaido where it gets deep and its not that steep so a board that floats is critical.

 

First impressions.

Its pretty. +1

It has a big fat nose with a nice gradual up turn. +1

More rocker than I was expecting and less camber than I was expecting. Neutral

Magnetraction on a pow board? -1

Non full wrap steel edges. -1

Its also softer than I thought it would be. Neutral

 

So the basic over view is neutral, it has its ups but also some possible downs.

 

First impressions on the snow.

People look at you like you have 2 heads when you rock up with this bad boy.

My first turns were in some relatively deep powder, I started making some turns and it responded well, the tail is easier to push around in the powder than I was expecting.

It floats like a duck in a bath tub.

Anyone within 10m of you gets instantly sprayed with powder, its great for hosing your mates and skiers.

 

The first run looked like this

 

 

Second run, I think I like it

 

(Vids didnt link, if you want them go to yootube and search my channel "etm360"

 

 

 

 

 

More detailed impressions

 

In the powder

This board is everything you thought it would be although still requires some leaning back to keep the nose up compared to my regular swallowtail ride. If you stand neutral you can sink the nose but it will try to work its way back to the top thanks to the gentle up turn rocker profile it has.

The flex feels perfect in the soft stuff but you can feel a little bit too much impact from death cookies hidden beneath the pow etc, a lighter person will probably not have the same issue.

The tail is very easy to push around and also responds well when you need to make last minute turns to save yourself from hitting a tree etc. Its no boat, it turns on a dime.

Makes your mate on his hovercraft, fish, powder snake (insert generic powder board here) look like a taxi cab stuck in traffic as you boot past him at mach 10 and spray him in the face, basically if you dont have fun in the pow on this board you might aswell give up snowboarding right now.

 

On the hardpack.

Its too soft for me but only just, I can live with it (I have to lol).

Its definately lacking a bit of camber as I suspected when I first layed my eyes on it. It carves pretty well but not comparable to a full camber board as some other hybrids can be. A touch more camber outside the feet would really wake this board up on the groomers, it definately feels like a rocker board more than a camber board which is disappointing to me.

The shortish (for its size) effective edge probably plays a part in the lack of edge hold I am picking up on also.

The nose flaps around but so what, it has no negative effect on anything.

 

Magnetraction? Why?

Its really slow when I put it on edge, totally noticable. Im riding stupid amounts of powder and this is a total quiver board so why slow me down with bumpy edges when I just want a fast clean edge to get me to the powder stash before the next guy. I find myself flat basing everywhere because I hate the slow feeling I get when I put an edge in on anything but the steepest sections. On flat runouts putting an edge in is out of the question. Totally disappointed in magnetraction in these conditions.

 

The non full wrap steel edges leave the nose especially very succeptable to damage. Mine has 2 big hits in it after just a few days that Im quite sure wouldnt be there if there was a steel edge to protect it. Its just lazy board building lib tech! You charge the money, learn how to bend full wrap edges ffs.

 

Over all I totally love riding this board in powder and I can live with the performance on piste. I rate it 8/10. Get rid of magnetraction and put a full wrap steel edge and its 10/10 without a doubt.

 

If anyone has questions fire away.

[gozaimaas 61]

I would also like to add

Unity- the whale

Smokin - pinner (next on my most wanted list)

[seemore 66]

What other powder boards you ridden Goz apart from my Hovercraft and of course your Squirrels (great in trees). No patent on Squirrel Snowboards either (I checked)

[gozaimaas 61]

Powder orientated boards I have had the pleasure of riding are

fish, malolo, supermodel (with tail and swallowtailed), charlie slasher, hovercraft, birdman, powder snake, stepchild powder OG (with tail and swallowtailed), prior spearhead, viole swallowtail and of course my home built boards.

 

Of all the features that make a powder board work IMO the best is a looooong gradual upturned nose. This is also the hardest thing to identify when looking at boards online.

[Tubby Beaver 209]

 

gentemstick big fish - rented in niseko, high anticipation, highly disappointed, i dont get the high price tag, theres no way you can justify their price/performance.

 

I think the price is more to do with the fact everyone is hand made. I'm not sure if its only to order or not, but thats what I heard. That would make the costs so high. Ask Goz how much it was to make his board, it wasn't 2man pin board

[ozsnowbum 9]

yeah true, and they are nice to look at. i just personally couldnt justify the cost.

[Jynxx 4]

DIY board is the only way to go when it comes to powder. I`m 60 kg but I go looong ...like 170 - 180 . If you have a base to keep your boards for that day. Personally I don^t like the backfoot style one develops when ridin boards like fish/hovercraft

[gozaimaas 61]

 

gentemstick big fish - rented in niseko, high anticipation, highly disappointed, i dont get the high price tag, theres no way you can justify their price/performance.

 

I think the price is more to do with the fact everyone is hand made. I'm not sure if its only to order or not, but thats what I heard. That would make the costs so high. Ask Goz how much it was to make his board, it wasn't 2man pin board

What it cost me is not comparable to what it would cost a manufacturer because I buy materials in really small lots (mostly from the US) so its expensive for me.

My material cost is probably around $200 a board. A manufacturers would probably be around $50-$80, then you have labour.

[ippy 66]

But the threads about top powder boards...not do it all's

 

I have a 163 powder snake and its great, but I have gotten stuck a couple of times even with the bindings all the way back.....thinking I need to go bigger ...171 Slash is on my radar

ah, you kinda misunderstood me. The truth is that what gozaimaas wants in his board is actually what turned me off my slasher. If you get the conditions wrong (which is pretty easty in nagano/niigata especially if you dont live near the resort), then pulling out your epic pow stick is going to make you miserable. Conversely if you pull out your run out stick on a deep day and you have your quiver pow stick suitting at home that also bums your day out. So what i need in a powder stick isnt the best float, but the best float without too much of a sacrifice to an everyday ride. A long board or a board with a swallowtail isnt really going to be high on my list as anything but a quiver board (unless i happened to live at a resort in japan where you could literally look up at the sky and say "pow day, lets go!"). Quiver boards really really require that you a) have a decent chance of using them for more than 10% of your season to justify them; that you live near enough a resort that when you pull them out theres a decent chance youre not stuck on groomers because half the resort is shut because of too much pow or you just screwed up and picked teh wrong board once the weather radically turned in mid feb; c) your resort gets hit by pukerage and you have the means to access it. Resort pow is nice, but if youre on your own, you need to know that youre taking risks and calculate them. No point having a split after all if youve got no one to show you the ropes on touring. Much as i want a split, the one thing that stops me picking it up was 'who the hell am i riding with?' d) Can you even transport teh damn thing/ Are you driving to your resort and can maybe pull a second board with you, or is it one board on a 250km train ride with no turning back? Is it a beast to carry? Will it be worth it in the end?

 

The upshot of all this was that i just didnt pull out my slasher anywhere near enough to justify keeping it. I meant to, but because the consequences of getting it wrong was a day of boredom snowboarding, and the further i was away from teh resort the more likely id get it wrong, i just didnt bother pulling it out. By the time i got a handle on Kagura i moved to nagano. And even then January ended up blowing regardless.

 

I got 4 or 5 days on it this season, and honestly, awesome though it was, its still too big and the terrain is rarely so flat in nozawa (cough - yeah i know - but off piste its pretty decent), that you get caught out. In Kagura a pow stick was essential just because that run out is flat and youre going to get stuck in a lot of places, but in nozawa its just not that huge a thing. Gravity is taking you down. The slasher obviously added extra float but the big question i was left asking myself was this: was it enough to warrant keeping the board? And the answer was no. Again, it was exactly the things that MAKE a powder board a great board that were turning me off it - the taper and the extra length on my standard ride - 6cms extra. Both turned it into a quiver board. And because of this, i just couldnt bring myself to pick it out on the days i shoudl have. Still, i loved the rocker profile which means that instead of pushing for a powder board with a groomer lean, im venturing the flip on that which is why i love my zerker so very very much (i reckon a 160, some pop walls so i can drop the bindings back without losing the punch of it (its big failure is when you setback the bindings - more float but a complete loss of energy), and id be in bliss... well that or lose an extra 20lbs. Ill probably be waiting on the pop walls

 

So the point really is that although you can have a definite better board for a specific type of pow riding, we dont all want that board or that particular ride. Preference really should play a much bigger role in this. And with preference comes nuance and consideration that pow sticks carry with them as much variation and compromise than your average park ride. Theres a reason some are tapered, some are rockered, some are dual rockered, some are long nosed, some are massive, some are teensy tiny and fat, and all teh colors in between. Also remember that until a few seasons ago boards like teh summit were effectively just freeride cambered charging boards. People rode them happily as their pow stick. We dont all want the same shit. Thats really what i mean.

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Ah...ok ...totally agree with everything you said

 

[Jynxx 4]

remember that until a few seasons ago boards like teh summit were effectively just freeride cambered charging boards. People rode them happily as their pow stick. We dont all want the same shit. Thats really what i mean.

Got that right on Ippy. I agree that if you got a base or means to carry so many boards, it will be a different ball game... and thatz what people started doin an enjoying.

[seemore 66]

Cheers guys.

I am tempted to get 1 board that works well in all conditions but I really only like riding powder.

I will be taking a Capita BSOD to have a play on the piste and park.

But I want a board for the deep stuff. Every board is going to be different for different styles and riders.

I can understand what your saying Ippy but that was based on you traveling to get to the snow if you are located ski in ski out on a resort you would take a few boards so a go to board for all riding and something suitable for the deep stuff.

I like the idea off the something I can jam and slide of lips/ features so a real surfy board is what I am chasing I would rather turn than go fast. (that may change with experience though)

[ippy 66]

Definitely, it's one of the considerations that all go into the pot. It would be also Interesting if you could even get a consensus on what the best powder board does. I'm not just being a total cynic here, I just think the phrase the best board should always come with an asterisk and a pharmaceutical list of qualifiers

 

Again the bsod is interesting since you mention it if only because per 2009 if you wanted a bc stick from capita you probably sized that one up a few cms. Now if anything it's got even more float but it's much less likely to be your bc stick of choice. I'm also using that term deliberately because the thing with pow boards is that they run the formula backwards. You pick the board based on the terrain and what you want to get out of your ride and not as it sometimes feels, the other way around. But don't get me wrong, if thats a massive pow stick and you have the means to get the most enjoyment out of it then you keep killing it. I ain't no old timer but the whole notion of the quiver exists because we think boards are less functional and diverse than they are.

Then again it might exist because the more people buying into the idea, the more lines brands open up to accommodate them. Tricky but I honestly think, fascinating issue to get into.

[gozaimaas 61]

One of the joys of my life is riding powder. Its natural to want to maximise the experience by finding a board that works its best in those conditions.

It doesnt have to make logistical or economic sense, it just has to make you happy. I own more boards than i need, and they work so well in powder its not funny but I still think about aspects of board design every day, it keeps me sane i guess.

I just bought enough material to build another 10 boards lol.

[Dunga 1]

I just picked up a hovercraft for an insanely cheap price, 2013 160 new $250, and are super keen to try it out. Unfortunately I don't think it will be taken out of its case this year in oz the way things are going. 2014 January Japan seems to be the most likely time.

 

I tried to get a quiver killer with my attack banana but found out this year that when you have around a meter of fresh pow that no matter how far you set it back, it is not going to like pow that much and duck dive for cover. Not fun face planting most of the day.

[pdoull 2]

Have been riding an Allian Backman camber 156 board for years. Great board on groomers but even with the bindings setback as far as possible, theres boards much better suited for the deep days in Japan. Once you get some speed up its ok but always have to ride out flat spots in others tracks. For me,its time to not just settle and make do and add a more powder board to the rack.

So trying a few new/ secondhand boards next year and have acquired - 162 Malolo & hopefully a 165 NS summit (yet to pick up) and still hunting for a fish / others to try out. I have read great reviews re: the Ride slackcountry online and almost bought one last year.

[seemore 66]

I just picked up a hovercraft for an insanely cheap price, 2013 160 new $250, and are super keen to try it out. Unfortunately I don't think it will be taken out of its case this year in oz the way things are going. 2014 January Japan seems to be the most likely time.

 

I tried to get a quiver killer with my attack banana but found out this year that when you have around a meter of fresh pow that no matter how far you set it back, it is not going to like pow that much and duck dive for cover. Not fun face planting most of the day.

Cheap Hovercraft Dunga where'd you score that?