Wiredsport

Magne-Traction, EC2 Banana Tech, Banana Tech, C2 Power Banana Tech, Pickle Tech, Magnesium, Columbian Gold

Confused yet?

So stoked to see the 2012 gear rolling in!

Nice to have the Mervin Manufacturing guys building/shipping boards so close by in the Great Northwest. We have been busy unloading semi's and for those of you who work in snow shops, you know how great it is to unpeel all of the new next season's gear. Yeeeeaaahhhhh!

Anyhow, these lines are big and packed with tech. The only problem is trying to wrap your head around all of the terminology, profile types, edge contours, materials, etc and figure out how it will all work for you. I was hoping we could start up a thread here as a reference on that, share our notes from the factory, and answer any questions on these lines.

All of the 2012 boards are in already and the 2012 bindings (backdoor, etc) from both brands will be here shortly Wiredsport | GNU, Roxy, Lib Bindings, GNU, Roxy, Lib Snowboards, GNU, Roxy, Lib Boots.

We have been answering a good number of questions about the different profile shapes from Gnu for 2012. More on basic profile categories here: http://www.snowboardingforum.com/boa...g-between.html.

I hope these 3 frame grabs may be helpful:







A reference for the basic profile types:

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Gnu | Rome | Bataleon | Flow | Electric | Roxy | Arbor | Flux | Dragon | Neff

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mountaingirlpdx

Hi,
I'm trying to pick a new board for the upcoming season, and I am seeing a lot about this "pickle" "banana" stuff and am a little confused. I ride a 147 Flow Venus and am 5'5 110 lbs. I like my board now, but I tried one of my friends "rocker" boards and really liked that too. The board I'm interested in right now is the gnu park pickle board, but I just don't really understand the "pickle" terminology and if the board is even what i need. Is it anything like rocker? Is it similar to my flow board? Will it work for an intermediate freestyle rider? What are the benefits to riding pickle for someone my size.
Thanks!

Nivek

What year Venus do you have?

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Snowboarding Sucks.

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2014 Flow Rush LTD 153 $200
2014 Flow Fuse SE Med $100
2012 Trek Remedy Carbon 9.8 $3500 http://rockies.craigslist.org/bik/3766331309.html

Wiredsport

Heh MGPDX,

Pickle-Banana stuff, Yaeeeahhh.

I am pretty sure the Mervin guys just choose their tech names so they can have the styley threads at SIA



To try to simplify a little, the 3 varieties of banana refer to the profile (rocker, camber, etc) shape of the board. All Gnu boards are rockered in the mid-section between the bindings. There are 3 variations on what profile shapes are used from the bindings to the tips. Banana is flat from the bindings out to the tips. C2 Banana has a noticable cambered section between each tip and the center rocker. EC2 Banana has a more subtle cambered section between each tip and the center rocker.

Pickle Tech comes on specific models only and is a design where the toeside and heelside sidecuts have different shapes. These boards are still symetrical twins from tip to tail (if you cut one in half at the waist, the two pieces would match up exactly - don't try it) but the edge shapes on each side have different depths and dimensions. This is done to allow riders to get easy and immediate response from their heelside edge and still be able to rip into toeside turns. You will be surprised how intuitive this is...and how nice it feels.

Magne-traction refers to those cool little bumps, lumps, ripples (whatever you want to call them) that form the edge (outline) shapes. All Gnu boards for 2012 get Magne-traction. These are strategically placed on the sidecut to slice in and give better grip on hardpack, ice, you name it.

So...on to your question (sorry about the novel above, I got carried away). The Park Pickle (guys and girls models are available) have:

Banana (lets call it banana classic) the variety with rocker between your feet and flat sections out to the tip and tail
Pickle
Magnetraction

Those are the raw ingredients, but that is a pretty complex group of shapes to blend into a board and Mervin does a ton of testing to get it right. Nice being able to build boards in your own factory, take 'em up to the hill, see what works and fails, take 'em back to the factory, tear 'em apart, dumpster the fails, and do it again 'til its perfecto.

For a specific fit let's get your foot size if we could. Also, Nivek asks a great question about your old Venus, which has been produced in both Cambered and Rocker Hybrid varieties in different years.

Thanks!

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Gnu | Rome | Bataleon | Flow | Electric | Roxy | Arbor | Flux | Dragon | Neff

http://www.wiredsport.com/?snow
http://www.wiredsport.com/blog/

walove

Your wired sports image is a bit misleading, you have banana under the tip to tail full rocker profile. Where the gnu shows it as center rocker with flat/mild camber in the tips and tails. You don't want to add to any of the confusion.

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SHRED HAPPENS

Nivek

I have no clue why they are claiming BTX has micro camber in the tips. It doesn't. The only people using micro camber in the tips is Flow and Nitro with Rock tech and Gullwing. BTX is flat/reverse/flat. NO camber to speak of short of manufacturing tolerances. Which you can't claim is build design.

__________________
Snowboarding Sucks.

Buy my stuff
2014 Flow Rush LTD 153 $200
2014 Flow Fuse SE Med $100
2012 Trek Remedy Carbon 9.8 $3500 http://rockies.craigslist.org/bik/3766331309.html

Wiredsport

Hi Walove,

I appreciate your comment.

We use that graphic to decribe what we call the "basic" profile types. We hope that it is used to broadly categorize designs with the understanding that many sub-variations do exist within each broader category. Here is the orginal thread with all of the disclaimers in place http://www.snowboardingforum.com/boa...g-between.html

Please note in Mervin's image below that the board is also pictured as a classic banana shape which flattens but continues upwards outside of the bindings as opposed to what we call Flat-Rocker-Flat (AKA Bad Mustache) which more noticably redirects to flat outside of the bindings.

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Gnu | Rome | Bataleon | Flow | Electric | Roxy | Arbor | Flux | Dragon | Neff

http://www.wiredsport.com/?snow
http://www.wiredsport.com/blog/

BurtonAvenger

Do you guys have a banana that can tickle my pickle but won't hurt my Roxy spot?

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Angry Snowboarder Because someone has to call it how they see it!

Wiredsport

Yes. You will find it in our apparel section. Just search for "pass me a tissue".

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Gnu | Rome | Bataleon | Flow | Electric | Roxy | Arbor | Flux | Dragon | Neff

http://www.wiredsport.com/?snow
http://www.wiredsport.com/blog/

Wiredsport

Hi Nivek,

Thanks for the comment.

Mervin's C2 Banana uses two clearly notable cambered sections outside of the rockered center section that exists between the bindings. We should have all of the 2012 models from Gnu, Roxy, Nitro and Flow in stock over the next month and I will be happy to put up some photos of each that show the differences in their camber-rocker-camber approaches.

Thanks again!

__________________


Gnu | Rome | Bataleon | Flow | Electric | Roxy | Arbor | Flux | Dragon | Neff

http://www.wiredsport.com/?snow
http://www.wiredsport.com/blog/