Never Summer and effective edges..What is the net effect?

Effective edges is the length of the board in contact with the snow... so it is sort of the "true length" of the board when you turn on the snow (as opposed to sliding on a rail or spining in the air). Effective edge is one of the major factors in how much edge hold of the board has.

The Evo and the Proto CT both have blunted tips (meaning they took a longer board and kind of sawed off a bit of the tip area to reduce swing weight for spins). The draw back is the board won't power over crud and float in powder as well (that's the purpose of the upturned, curved or pointed nose at the end).

My old K2 Jibpan also had "jib tips" so while it was only 150 cm long... it had the effective edge of a average 155 cm board - several companies have this... look for mentions of "jib tips, park tips, blunted tips, etc"... for "reduced swing weight."

Compare the Evo or Proto CT to more freeride oriented boards like the SL, Raptor and esp the Summit... and you will see that freeride boards tend to have effective edges compared to their lengths... this is because they have longer noses which help the board ride up and over crud and powder (notice that the Summit 161 has less effective edge than a Evo 152!)

Now that you understand.., help me stop the spread of half-truths and rumors about Never Summer boards "riding longer than other brands" Go forth my apostle!

Actually effective edge is the measured length along the sidecut of the board up to the contact points and will affect the ride during an "idealized" carve. A shorter effective edge implies a deeper sidecut and thus quicker turning during a carve (at possibly the cost of high-speed stability), all other things being equal.

The true measure of the board on snow is the contact length or "running length" (which only a few manufacturers list on their spec. sheets). This is the measurement between the boards contact points when weighted in a straight line from tip to tail. Thus, the contact length is always shorter than the effective edge (measuring along an arc (in a snowboard the sidecut) between two given points is always longer than a straight line, duh).

Since NS boards have a rocker/camber profile, the effective edge and contact length are pretty much measured like a traditional cambered board. Things get a little more confusing with continuous rocker boards though (e.g., is an Arbor Coda's contact length measured at the GripTech points?)