...use a standard unit to indicate the amount of flex on their boards so that the flexibility between boards across multiple manufacturers can be compared easily? I'm not sure why companies still use "Flex-o-meters" with a system of arbitrary numbers that don't tell you much of anything useful in the grand scheme of things.
Would using a universally accepted unit just make too much sense?
Bataleon is a great example of why not. The ET is a 5/3/5. The Airobic is a 4/2/4. And the Funkink is a 3.5/3.5/3.5. How do you give each one of these boards a single number? The FK is stiffer between the feet than the ET and Airobic, but its tips are softer than both.
Which board is stiffer?
You can't even do this with the tip/waist/tip method either. Burton's squeezebox make the board stiffer just outside the binding, but the whole tip doesn't really stiffen up. that mean you now have #/#/#/#/#. That is far too much info for them to start making a standardized test.
Also that is what shop guys are for. Will all the models feel the same between the shop kid and you? No. Will the differences be similar. Yes. A board that feels stiffer than another will do so no matter who you are...usually
Flex will also feel different based on shape, camber, base profile, sidecut, and no two models are the same shape. The SubPop is softer than my old cambered Stairmaster but it feels similar on edge. The shape of the board makes it ride different on edge than if you were just pressing it.
Bataleon is a great example of why not. The ET is a 5/3/5. The Airobic is a 4/2/4. And the Funkink is a 3.5/3.5/3.5. How do you give each one of these boards a single number? The FK is stiffer between the feet than the ET and Airobic, but its tips are softer than both.
Where did those numbers come from then? Did they just pull them out of their asses? Did they try bending the board with their hands and come up with a ballpark estimate? If they can assign meaningless numbers like that to different segments of the boards, why can't they calculate real properties? It's not difficult to cantilever a snowboard.
Seriously you're asking this? Take into account all the differences in materials, how things are laid up, epoxies, how it's pressed, where the reference stance is, carbon vs bamboo, etc. etc. it's impossible. Let alone flex numbers are a joke a guy a 215lbs on a 155 is going to flex that board a lot more than a guy that's 165. Too many variables.
It would be virtually impossible to produce a single number that would encapsulate all of a given board's flex characteristics, but it wouldn't be that difficult to come up with a standard system for rating some flex characteristics. A board's width varies almost continuously from tip to tail, but that hasn't prevented manufacturers from providing a "waist" width measurement that, although imperfect and perhaps differently defined from board to board, still offers very useful guidance to buyers. A "center flex" measurement could be calculated at the board's exact midpoint, or its binding reference point, using a standard amount of torque (the proxy for rider weight) and expressing the amount of flex using standard units. Once riders learned how their own weight and riding style related to the standard center flex rating, I think it would be helpful in making comparisons among boards. A standard "torsional flex" rating might be produced in a comparable way.
Of course, all of this would require agreement among manufacturers on the basic units to be employed, but that's certainly not impossible. Convincing manufacturers that it would be in their interest to do it might be impossible, however.
I never said it had to be one number to describe the flex. Just a simple torsional test and a 3 point bend test and be done with it. If different parts of the board have different amounts of flex than so be it. At least those numbers will be more useful than an arbitrary flex-o-meter.
While I agree here, I'd just give local shops more business by going, trying for yourself, and buying boards there; or at the very least, trying them there and then buying online.
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