No new board for me this season (other than the surfboard). There seems to be a lot of debate going on about rocker. It seems that it improves powder riding but is not as good as standard cambered boards on ice/hardpack.

http://www.splitboard.com/talk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7064

never ridden one myself, but on general principles, i'm against it. surely camber is better for pop.

Me too, I would not mind trying it once on a good powder day, but at the moment I am not thinking off getting a rockered board.
Probably next year I will be looking for a narrow split around 158 that can hold an edge on ice.

T6 is a good one for sure, dunno if they're changed it thou.

Have You given the various custom board brands a look ?

i haven't. which ones? i've had a lot of different snowboards over the years. A morrow that lost all pop then i snapped that (that was still the foam days). 2 Forums that i hated (one delam'd) and one just got shitty pop. A Gnu and a Lib that the cap construction delam'd and i snapped one. A Rossignol Premier that was awesome. I think the Prior split board is a shitty build to be honest for a number of different reasons (more Voile's fault and not Prior).

In my experience the Balance was always the best board around. Burton's boards are always the lightest and the construction doesn't fuck up. I wish they still made the Balance. i guess the T6 is the Balance though.

the balance was the best board experience i ever had ... (i still have one in storage). I am a huge T6 fan. easily the best of the all snowboards. I will hopefully be on a new one this winter. if your a balance personality they are the only board. I would like it rockered though. Maybe next year.

snp, don't you have huge feet? you might need to go with the t6 wide. This year's T6 has the est system for bindings which may or may not influence your decision.
Ride's have massive pop, but this year my interested has been piqued by the K2 slayblade

nope... i wear size 9 boots. yeah i think the T6 w/ the est is the way forward.

i'm lost on the camber thing. when i start my season my board has camber, when i finish my season my board has lost its camber and it feels like crap. i think we will discover that it's a fad.

so i'm guessing you don't have proform? i will have to pay US retail prices anyway, so lemme know.

Dude, you should be riding Never Summer boards. End of story.

(I pay retail as well. Very fucking uncool of us non-core types)

HAG, you know that NS now has introduced rocker to their boards.

No I didn't. I ski* these days so recent snowboard developments tend to pass be by. I wish I'd got that rather than my Summit.

* I still do both, but 75% of last season was on skis and that is where my media/consumer attention and cash goes these days. And stoke. I get a lot of stoke from skiing. I'll ski 95% of this coming season. I was going to sell most of my splits but decided to keep them for customer rentals. Ideally I'd settle for one rockered split and my old beat up Titan splitter (and my old Dupraz)..... And about 4 or 5 pairs of skis. It's endless. Warning: stay away from skiing - there is so much awsome (freeride) gear it will suck you dry. Snowboarding gear used to be so simple - it was pretty much all the same, either shit or good quality and any old boots felt good. I'd be triple fucked if I had an interest in groomer carving and skiing park.

not so sure roocker is a fad, it's not like they are selling pre-dead snowboards. It is a little different.

hag as a guide you realize you have access to a world of industry rates/deals?

There is a whole thread on TGR with boarders discussing whether rocker was a fad or not. I think almost anyone with any rockered experience said it was not but there were as lot of skiers on the thread not realising the OP was a boarder so it got a bit confused.

Yes HAG, skiing is a moneypit. Whatever you do, however, don't get into mountainbiking.

Very true that you might be able to qualify for proform.
The new Voile skis with rocker look interesting and light!
Rocker isnt a fad its here untill we findthe next best thing.
Rocker stops those dam tips or noses from diving and that is
a very good thing!

I agree with you, but in a sense, you just defined a fad. Rocker works by all accounts, it isn't a design gimick. It adds to the quality of your ride and the experience you get from being on snow. Thats what everyone who uses it says.

Riding with some guys on K2 Gyrators - they were having fun, but at speed and with power they also seemed to be having a little trouble keeping the thing down. Too short and rockered with too much tail jamming - they kept popping the tail out from under themselves and didnt seem to haul arse through turns. If you go rocker then it appears to me that you alo want to go longer than normal. So far I'd want to own one as a fun board, not a balls-to-the-wall board. For that something stiff with camber till seems best (perhaps that is just emotional bias talking).

Rocker has been with us now for about 8 years with the spats.
What I meant by Fad was really the next name for how they tweak a board.
Rocker has taken the long reverse camber definition and replaced it.

Rocker wont leave powder boards unless we come up with something better
which I cant see happening soon.

One thing I find with rocker boards is once they loose their pop or life they are done.
You can not ride those things they become a wet noodle. Push down on the board
and its a sponge! This works ok in deep snow but the board cannot transition at all.
Try riding the groomers ouch!

Full reverse camber at speed ive never liked them going straight. The spats were great
but they are great at excelling or picking up speed through a turn. If you are going to point
it down the fall line then I want a stiffer board that wont get all loose on me.

The choice now with pow boards now becomes this. How much tip or tail rocker do you want?
How stiff do you want to board under your feet if you dont want a rocker-ed tail.
I prefer a mid flexing ski with a slight rocker tip. I want a stiffish tail that helps me stick
lands and not get rocked backwards. Stiff skis/boards dont work for me as I dont have the body mass
to drive the boards down the hill.

Now this thread is as confused as the one on TGR. No one thinks rocker on skis is a fad, the question is whether rocker on snowboards is as useful.

As usefull? I still think the most usefull ski is 90 to 98 in the waist and has camber.
So I would asume all things being equal a snowboard shape would be much the same.
A T6 type of board basically does everything well.

Rocker is "useful" for powder skis. A 98 waisted cambered ski is "versitile" (and in a general sense that makes it more "useful" which is what you were getting at). I was just wondering if rocker is as useful, in the specific sense, on a board because they are shorter so have less tip dive anyway and I have never seen a snowboarder have any trouble sideslipping, suggesing they can "slarve turn" easier than longer skis.

SNP, no proform here. T6 sounds good but after riding your pos supermodel (come on dude, it was dead wood at the end of the first season....and you rode it all last year???!!!!) you'll prob find it super stiff. That said, I don't think you'll be disappointed with it (unless you want something more fun in the park). The rockered custom got good reviews, also the joystick looks cool.
I think you should just watch some snow vids when they come out and just buy the board of your favourite rider.

So how does this proform thing work anyway? I want some Barons so I email Marker telling them that they should sell them to me on discount?? I'd tell me to take a hike if I got that email. What the hell do they or any other brand in the industry owe me? I am basically an unemployed backcountry skier/snowboarder.

SNP - buy a park board and a freeride board. Why do you want to restrict your freeride choice by requiring that it also perform in the park?

you should be able to get 50% off Patagonia gear (but that's off Japanese prices)

It aint that simple HAG. Email them and tell them about your guiding op and that you would like to apply for proform.
They will send a form usually and review your application. It is worth the net time to at least try.

Blue cliff has proform if you work with them maybe they can help you.

One thing about the rockered skis and boards that people don't often consider is the fact that rockered design doesn't have to be all that flexible to work in Pow. (Skiers can think Pontoon vs. various reverse Praxis)

In theory this could mean that the fatigue resistance of the core could be made way better.
The loss of camber in trad. shape pretty much means the fatigue has taken it's toll on the core.
In real life consumers have gotten used to the sadly short lifespan of the boards - even the expensive ones - and thus manufacturers have little interest in making them last long.

Everything that makes it possible to share the load between rear and front leg more evenly is welcome.
OK the old swallow tail long guns with long sharp powder nose don't dive but they are impractically long as well - at least for the woods.

The availability of custom boards depends on how solid the demand for park ability is.
Most Custom brands - like Swell Panik - don't make boards small enough to be of any use in the park.
But I'd assume that Donek, Coiler, Prior, etc. could make some to Your specs. when it comes to flex and it can be done with the existing moulds and press tools.

There's even a Finnish custom board brand by the name of Powder Flower

Given my current geographical handicap, i have to travel. Since i usually travel with full BC gear, axe, crampons, shovel, etc etc, i cannot carry a splitboard, a FR board and a park board along with minimum 2 sets of binders. i'm an airline's wet dream.

Every skier gear whore who travels know that is why you have a "travel board" as well. When going on a trip that will include all of the above, bring the compromise board. Everyone knows the proper equation for equipmment is n= number of current boards. where ideal number of boards = n + 1

You like park. I can't help you.

(n) = n +1; my favorite equation.

Jeremy Jones gave up on riding for Rossignol in favor of starting up a snowboard brand of his own.

Swiss Nidecker is subcontracting the manufacturing of the decks.

All nidecker that I've had were of excelent build quality so the whole package sounds promising.

Given that Rossignol Jeremy Jones promodels (now that Jonesy took off renamed as Experience ) were good I see no reason that the new brand would offer anything less. + maybe better product lifespan.

I'd imagine this would be worth checking out for stillnoprogress.

thanks Teppo. I don't think they'll be in production until 2010/11 season sadly...

Ninjaman has more skis than anyone I know.

Perhaps but the guys on TGR make me look like a tightwad. I always run one pair of park skis (which I break at least once a season), one pair of all mountains, one powder skis, one touring ski and one big mountain ski. Right now I have the STLs for park, the ARVs for all mountain, the 186 Lhasa's for pow, the 196 Lhasa's for big mountain/heli, G3 Barons for Dynafit touring and 188 bros for touring in winter. Not tooooo bad.

I realize the thread's title has an "etc" in it but could you guys take your ski talk into another thread?

I'm going to say it again just for fun: I recommend the k2 slayblade since I like the graphics, it's got zero camber (which I've never ridden but heard it's got a skate-like feel) and I saw a guy land some big jumps on one in a video.

this isn't really about splitboarding, but the more that i think about it, this is the only way forward... it's sad, but true. you just can't traverse properly in soft boots without adjustable forward lean. Much less do any proper cramponing. Not sure if you could cut much weight, but you'd def cut transition time.

There s been some strong arguments with casualties on both sides in the past regarding whats better setup for a split, soft or hard boots.
Just do a search in splitboard.com.

I spent a sledmoski day last season messing around on a Banana Hammock. Its was dumping and super unstable so we were playing around on mellow stuff and towing eachother up and down a road. First time on a snowboard in about 15 years I was actually able to stay up and even link a few turns. There was about 2 feet of fresh so eating shit didn't even hurt. The Banana Hammock my favorite snowboard now. And thats all I have to say about that.

Dude, Japan is the land of sponsership. I met a bunch of gaijin guides there that are were sponsered by companies as big as Nike and Smith. Ask Dave from Evergreen, I think he's sponsered by Haglofs and a few other companies, and I know a few of the guides at Canyons have like 5 different sponsers and get all kinds of free gear and cloths.

The Pro deal debate again. Look if Hags company does well and continues for a few years he will get pro deals or a free products thrown his way. Guides become the prefect testers for mountain products. The problem though sometimes is that you cant always choose the products you like best. Hag might like company A but companies C and D might be the only one willing to help him out. Anyways I pray that we all get at least some cheap shit this season, cheap shit really helps a ski bum out!

this just popped up in my facebaook feed, not sure if it links or what but f it does theres lots of sweet sticks in this gallery
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31206578&id=30000695

http://www.angrysnowboarder.com/?p=4461

good blog explaining all the different rockers out there.