YES Greats 158. Awesome Board. Awful Durability.

[Pow Wow]

I purchased a YES greats 158 this season.

The board is excellent. I ride mainly trees and powder in Japan. I rode it about 20 times. It`s a very agile, smooth, poppy and fun board. The flex is perfect, and it allowed my to both charge and butter. Edge hold is solid. I like to ride switch and jump off stuff in the pow. The board was perfect for that. The only minor complaint was that sometimes on landings, if I landed too far on the rockered tail the board would wash out. This was probably due to my skill level more than anything else.

I`ve tried K2, Rossignol, DC, Gentem Stick (a Japanese powder board brand), Arbor and Rome. This board was my favorite so far.

NOW on to the bad part. While riding up a natural half pipe, I ollied up to tap a tree. The base struck the tree, maybe a little harder than normal, but nothing ridiculous, I have done much worse to boards before. I sprained my foot a little, so I rode back to the parking lot. When I got to the bottom, my board was nearly snapped in half. The top sheet area had cracked completely and seperated from the board. See attached pictures. Sad.

I`ve ridden boards through parking lots, over rocks, straight into trees and over all sorts of rails, and never busted one. But this board`s base taps a tree and it splits. It performed amazing, no problem there. I liked this board so much that I wanted to purchase a new one, but I ride hard and can`t in good mind purchase a board with questionable durability.

If you`re an aggressive rider, freestyle or freeride, I can`t reccomend this board. But if you`re an intermediate or ride slow, then you`ll probably be fine.

If the toughness of their boards improves, I would consider buying another YES board. But for now I`m going board shopping for something different.

[briancgrs]

That's a bummer man but thanks for the info. I was actually thinking about getting that board next year but now it's off the list.

[linvillegorge]

"base tap"?

A "base tap" doesn't get you a busted board and a sprained foot. I know you're disappointed, but I'm betting you smashed the shit out of that tree.

[Pow Wow]

Originally Posted by linvillegorge

"base tap"?

A "base tap" doesn't get you a busted board and a sprained foot. I know you're disappointed, but I'm betting you smashed the shit out of that tree.

No, actually I didn`t smash the shit out that tree.

That`s why I`m so disappointed. I`ve hit trees much harder than that and previous boards were fine. If I ran my board head on into a tree or crash into it full speed, I`d understand. I`m sure you have bashed plenty of boards too, right?

Again, I ollied off a natural pipe wall, tapped the tree with my base and rode back down. I`ve done this before many times and never broken a board before.

[Donutz]

The tree won, though.

[PDubz]

Crazy.

That's one hell of a tree tap you do. I've broke boards by overshooting landings and landing on my tail and bashing trees at speed using my board as defense. I've never seen anything like that from what you described.

I'm not entirely sure if I can buy this, but I'm pretty content with my Evo anyway.

[briancgrs]

Originally Posted by linvillegorge

"base tap"?

A "base tap" doesn't get you a busted board and a sprained foot. I know you're disappointed, but I'm betting you smashed the shit out of that tree.

Let's, for a second, not assume he is exaggerating..... Maybe the yes boards are poorly constructed or maybe his specific board had a defect. He taps the tree harder than normal but nothing ridiculous, hits the board just right to cause the fracture on the mounting point of his bindings which, in turn, could easily cause a sprained foot because of the torquing of his foot as the binding moved and twisted on the board.....


You may want to try to warranty it, worse they could do is say no and you're still in the same boat you're in right now....just a thought

[chomps1211]

I'm just a NooB and don't know shit about board construction or anything, but am I the only one who noticed that the crack seems to run right thru the bolt pattern for the bindings??

Maybe you had the screws cranked too tight? ...or maybe they weren't too tight but bindings just stressed the board at a defective or weak spot anyway? Something about the pattern of the crack in the board definitely has me thinking manf. defect!

I'd at least look into it?

[Edit]
OK,.. got beat to the punch while I was writing this,.. Glad my thought's weren't totally out of L field!

[P3 Mammoth]

It takes A LOT of force to tear fiberglass the way you did. Either you ate it really hard or after noticing the cracked topsheet you decided to break it farther by bending the board excessively. This break looks very unnatural and forced, just saying. Good luck.

[Nivek]

Originally Posted by P3 Mammoth

It takes A LOT of force to tear fiberglass the way you did. Either you ate it really hard or after noticing the cracked topsheet you decided to break it farther by bending the board excessively. This break looks very unnatural and forced, just saying. Good luck.

^^This.

Any kind of defect that would have allowed that to happen under normal circumstances would also severely effect the ride.