Pipe boards

[damian 0]

Edited.

[YellowSnow 0]

Well you just need as flexible as possible. Especialy on Japanese pipes, the ones I have been on are far too narrow. Also the board should be as short as possible.

 

That being said, has anybody seen the new mini boards, not the skate boards with a blade, but just real short like 1m.

 

I think rossignol sells some.

[Oyuki kigan 0]

Actually, a lot of pipe boards are stiffer than normal park boards.

 

being that halfpipes are usually walls of ice, the boards are carving machines, with a fair bit of sidecut.

 

Of course, they are also usually twin-tip in shape (with directional cores).

[Kumapix 0]

like oyuki said: pipe boards are stiff

[AK 77 0]

Pipe boards are stiff not flexible, as the two posts above point out.

 

They are very different from 'park' boards which tend to be shorter and wider and alot softer.

 

I am a big fan of pipe boards for freeriding, for the following reasons:

 

'Freeride boards are designed for stability at speed so have long sidecut radius's (radii ??) and wide waist widths. This makes them stable but less manouverable.

 

Pipe riding is about edge control - even more than freeriding is - and quick edge to edge transfers, so pipe boards have narrow waists (under 24.4 to 24.8 typically) and tighter radius sidecuts (e.g. about 7.9m off the top of my head).

 

Although they are stiff (sometimes the stiffest boards in a company's range) they are still fs boards so they also have POP! I have found that the few freeride boards I have ridden have been stiff but lacking in pop, and pop makes life fun.

 

Overall freeride specific boards too often resemble oil tankers, whereas pipe boards should feel like riding a scalpel, or a very twitchy sports car. But like the sports car they will throw you into the ditch if you drive them sloppily - they are the easiest to catch an edge on and can get twitchy at speed on a flat base, but the most fun to ride when you are on song.

 

2 guides I met in France used longer pipe boards (161 or 162) for serious freeriding.

 

But they suck on rails, so I think you wouldn't want one Le pu!

 

My 2 Euro cents

[Kumapix 0]

yeah, Rail Master Le Pu!

[damian 0]

gone

[AK 77 0]

cheap and pipe boards don't usually go hand in hand, but you can usually find some good deals on last years models as they don't always sell that well...

 

Burton Powers for example - has hardly changed in the last 3 years - you should be able to find one cheap somewhere.

The Raven (not made this) and T6 both grew out of Balance pipe board of Terje, but are not as pipe specific as the Powers.

 

Head intelligence pipe board from last year looked nice, plus there was a 162 version, and it's suposed to get stiffer when you go faster (by magic small robots tensing their metalic abs inside the board, or something).

 

Can't think of many other pipe boards of the top of my head, there is a Salamon one called 'The Special' this year that might be in this league.

 

ps. glad someone else shares my view of pipe boards in the BC.

[AK 77 0]

Here is a good pipe board for you le pu:

 

 

and it's in Germany, so handy for you!

[bushpig 0]

[Kumapix 0]

that's a great pipe board AK

 

I didn't like the head intelligence when i rode it. It didn't feel 'smart' at all. Lots of non-Burton sponsored riders at the Olympics were riding custom x's. but that's a pricy board. but look for last year's