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Hi everybody,

 

As you guys probably know, I'm really big on the second hand boards but I've managed to get myself an invitation to the Burton family sale this year so I'm seriously considering picking up a new new board. The last time I bought a board that wasn't deadstock or second hand was in 2000! I'm eyeing up a Burton Nug 142. I've never ridden rocker before so I figure this would be a good start but I wanted to hear the opinions of people who had ridden the downsized boards such the Nug or the Rome Shank or the Rossignol Mini. Supposedly you can go down 10 cms in length and I normally ride a 152. This seems pretty radical to me but from what I can gather from the net is that its just shorter but rides basically the same as a longer board. Anybody on SJ have any experience on one of these boards?

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Bought a nug flying V of a guy who rode it all year in Oz he loved it he said he even managed to do 93KMH straight lining.

I on sold it but bought a brand new fishcuit and it looks awesome

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Awesome, I think I'm ready to pull the trigger on one, although I'm looking at the completely flat rocker one rather the the camrock flying V. Fingers crossed they have one in my size when I get there.

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i HATE and DETEST boards that are too small for me.

 

Its not downsizing though. Its just 156-158 = sweet spot.

 

Anything smaller and i will blame that ride for every wipe or wash that comes my way. Ill then convince myself that the board is a piece of shit, cant be trusted and utterly dangerous. Ill then flip it for something else.

 

I aint no park rat though :) Enjoy your new wheels!

 

What, i dont care if this thread ended up being some Burton love in! If i want to talk about downsizing, im going to talk about downsizing.

 

Its stupid. ****ing pointless. And i still cannot understand why anyone would bother with it UNLESS they really really really want less pop, less stability and less control to their ride. Ah, a good old 2009 argument. I mean, in 2009 i understood it. Camber was your options. Downsizing meant still two contacts, a bit of stability, a comparatively softer and easier to wreck flex, and no heavy tail or tip to get on your rai... oh wait! blunts already existed. Honestly. Seriously. if i think about this even for a minute i feel like my brain will go blue screen of death and ill have to boot up in safe mode.

 

Downsizing rocker though is the one that always gets my head in a loop. Why would you even bother? Blunts exist, rocker exists, noodles abound! Its madness! Its like riding a womans board if youre a guy because you want a softer torsional flex. Those board EXIST and you dont have to do a bazillion calculations iniside your head to try and aproximate if the damn thing will ride the way it says it will.

 

Actually truth be told i couldnt care less. Im just practicing getting in the habit ranting about tech. As you can see, my hearts just not in it anymore. I might have to quietly skulk off and leave the tech discussions to Tubby and the like :p

 

Has anything fun happened at all this year (or last year) with tech? As far as i can see, Blauvelt and ride still havent added pop-walls to my board, Until they do, they aint getting another penny out of me. I NEEEEEED them RIDE!!! when i set back my zerker it turns to a sluggish piece of crap. When i center it, its raving. But when i center it in kagura it sinks :( Give me pop walls and be snappy about it!

 

There, thats the only thing ive got left to complain about. And its a three year old complaint. Sorry for the thread crap, but i need to keep in practice. Ive been getting lazy in the forums during off season!

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I pre-scrolled and it's not too long! :p

 

Ok.....so I read it....dude you put waaay too much thinking into the "tech"....I'm way too cynical to believe that the "tech" has any real or noticeable difference to regular riding chumps like ourselves! That said I'm with u on riding short.....I simply don't believe it works especially being on the heavier side of things...not that i've actually ridden a short. I would like to try a Fish.....for research purposes of course!!

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you talking about pop walls? I promise you man, the Highlife UL was a tank. It was literally hulk smash and would have been the worlds most boring plank of wood were it not for the pop walls. It reminded me a lot of my quiver killer. Fast, would pop to the moon if you loaded it right, but if you dont: draining, exhausting and 1 dimensional.

 

They just gave that board so much fun cheating/lazy energy by adding pop walls. If i had to load that thing all day without the popwalls id have been knackered after an hour. Nothing worse than trying to load something like that when your in hour three, youre hitting some fun rollers and every time you put the energy in, you get this lame hobble anti-pop. its LITERALLY anti-pop. You felt it load, then you felt you pull the board up with the strength of your little quads, and the board barely squeeks off the snow. GAH!!! it still burns!!! FURANO!!!!!!

 

Pop walls were so effortless, so cheat mode, that you could actually enjoy one of those tanks without having to sacrifice your legs for the pleasure of the incredibly rare moment of BLISSFUL, weightless, perfect air, You can try all day to the point of exhaustion for real nutritious and healthy pop, and then when youre knackered just go cheat mode and bounce around on everything with all that fake delicious e-number pop. It was great. It made that tank versatile. And all i could think was "hozzanah! they have solved the problem of setting back my berzerker! now it will truly be that kill it absolutely everywhere board i always knew it could be!!!"

 

But they havent because they get all worried that it'll be too close to the Highlife as if theyve completely forgotten that i ****ing hated the highlife's stiffness and inflexibility and LOVE my zerker with all my little heart! They arent the same board, ride. Stop with the bullshit!

 

Then again, maybe its just me. Maybe it dies on teh setback because it was too short at 158 for my spacehopper fat ass. Stupid downsizing! i should have been on like a 162, obviously!

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Maybe I'm just not that good to notice the difference…..but a wee bit of foam or whatever they lodge in there just doesn't seem to matter when I'm running my 90+kg bulk down the hill :p pop or no pop! :D

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I really wanted to make my quiver killer my go-to deck in season 4 so had to learn to pop it. Its a great board, but if you cant pop it, its just really a mediocre charging board with sluggish end to end. Its really meant for air. Everything else is designed around the concept of it flying ;)

 

Not sure if thats the point of the Highlife. Cant really remember, I know it was in with a shout before the demo purely from the powder tweaks. On the ride though it just felt stiff and bulky. It was about as damp a board as id ever felt though and fast as all hell. Pop walls made it enjoyable on top of that. Would have loved to have seen it in the pow.

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whoa, where do I start...

 

About the downsizing, from what I've read I'm pretty keen to try one but I guess what I really want to know is the answer to this question:

 

Does it ride well or does it ride well "for its size?"

 

Please more tech talk. Its what I'm here for.

 

Apologies for the burton love (wish I'd bought that board when i had the chance), I'm just glad I'm going to the showroom in Shibuya and hopefully walking out with a new toy.

 

Actually I'm considering last year's Ride machete as I can pick one up for about 20K. Alas, no pop walls though.

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Demo :)

 

Best way to find out im afraid.

 

As for machete. MickRich had one. He loved it i think. Still, Machete GT has popwalls. It also runs a bit stiffer so er, your call on that :) Were it not for the fact its a twin (and er, rockered), id pick it up.

 

Then again, if i was picking up a ride twin, id go for the buck up:

 

Tweak on flat cam (micro rocker/micro camber, which basically means a broken in cam ride with detuned contacts - well, a bit more than just detuned, but you get the picture). Has CA5, and i posted a bit a while back about why carbon array 3/5 makes me SQUEEEEE!!! And then the punchline! Sans popwalls, this would be a cool fun board. Itll have that nice broken in feel, itll feel loose and playful, and with CA5 (which LOCKS) youll still get solid edge giving you some of that camber style precision, hold and energy through your edge. But you will be losing a bit of pop with the micro camber. You can load it, but it wont pop, it might give you a boost, but its not going to really launch. Now you throw in pop walls and BOOSH!!! off to orbit. Suddenly flat cam is viable. Why the **** this tech is not on every non-camber board on planet earth is beyond me. Maybe everyone loves that real slack feel of reverse camber or something. Not me. I want to fly to the moon! So in sum: its a super charged flat cam ride. And if you like flat camber or like the feel of that 50/60 day ride thats lost its bite, but you cant get rid of because it still feels like a comfy slipper, then this is the solution. Pop walls are...and ive said this before... immense! theyre game changing, and ride have been sat on them for three seasons like theyre just some dumbshit minor tweak. I DONT UNDERSTAND!!!! They literally solve the biggest problem for me with reverse and flat camber. They turn one dimensional ripper boards like the HL into fun resort cruisers (if you cant be bothered loading it all day). They turn lifeless (but fun) boards into bursty energetic springy decks Its so diverse! It fits everywhere. It makes cam easy, it makes reverse cam poppy, it makes flat cam poppy, it makes charger planks FUN outside of its element. Who the hell doesnt want pop?

 

That all being said though, id go for the highlife UL. Im sure in the pow its a surfy goodness, i just need to give it more time in its element. As a speed freak, that board scared the pants off me. I felt a burning need to pull it back. So i need another go at it in its proper conditions.

 

PS. Love Burton all you like. When i tried to find info on women's boards, burton were head and shoulders above everyone else. Not just on range, but in actually bothering to inform their customers on what they were buying. I loved them for the second reason and will never hate on them again. Even IF they decide that the future of snowboarding is in luggage or some shit.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Alas, I went in on the last day so I think most of the good stuff had been cleared out already. They had a restricted nug 142 in flying V but I was after the flat rocker. It was 3 man total tax included but I didn't pull the trigger. I'm thinking about next season now when the sale rolls around again if I can't get one cheap enough in the meantime. I did pick up (another!) pair of AK457 3 layer goretex pants, marked down from 5man to 2. The cheap goretex was the real show stopper, they had jackets for 1.5 and bibs for 2 and actually in decent colours not the wack colours you usually see in sales. There should be another sale in the post season, if people want to come along, I'll see if I can arrange something.

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