RadmarkNJ

Hi All.

My wife and I are intermediate snowboarders in Northern NJ. We are looking to upgrade our gear and would like advice on a good set up for all mountain boarding. If anyone knows NJ and the northeast you know we have lots of ice here.

I currently Ride a 2006 Ride Havok with SPi bindings. I am 5'6 180 and my wife is 5'2, 120.

What would be a good set of gear to handle to conditions out this way?



Thanks.

Simply^Ride

Rome Agent paired with Rome 390's bindings.

I have personally rode on ice with this board yet, but I heard it holds up pretty good.

mpdsnowman

Its hard to narrow it down to one or two brands. I like to think all mfgs products will do fine. Heck u can go in the park and destroy any mfg board in an hour if u wanted too..

I am really liking the head equipment line lately. They seem to be an all mountain/terrain line. I think my next board will be one. I will however stick with the ride bindings(delta movement) and the Vans boots. Im sold on both of those lines.

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Snowolf

Atomic is known for their keen sharp edges. I recommend the Cold Smoke and the Radon to a lot of people. I have ridden my Radon down the Face at Mt. Hood Meadows which is about a 40 degree slope on solid ice that is clear blue after freezing rain and it held it`s edge in the turns and traverses. So anything by Atomic has a good solid edge. Also Rome is top notch as are some of Ride, Arbor and Neversummer boards.

In general, stay with an all mountain set up that has a 1 degree bevel and an 88 degree side bevel to give you a very sharp edge. Also, a little longer board than ideal helps a lot on ice. It`s a lot like a long wheel base car, it won`t spin out of control as fast and you can recover. I would tend to stick with boards that are a bit stiff with good dampening of vibration. One of the most annoying things about ice is the rough ride.

What is you boot size by the way? that is important when figuring out if you need a wide board or not. As for length, I would go for something around 159-163 for you and for the missus I would go for something in the 149-155 range.

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Bones

Only after a freezing rain? Lucky bastard. Seems like I see blue ice every day after 3pm around here


Seeing as how you're already on a Ride board, you might want to try the Concept TMS, the '08 replacement for the Timeless series. The dampening on the Timeless is top notch, I don't even feel rock hard corderoy under mine, but it's still a stiff board with lots of pop. A long effective edge will help hold you onto the hill, but as Snowolf said: if your edges aren't sharp it really doesn't matter what board is between you and the ice.

true_richard

i'll second this opinion & also agree with getting your board tuned with an 88 degree side bevel for a sharper ice knife.

icey conditions were a plenty on my local hill a few seasons ago, almost every week was an ice rink! i mostly road my burton floater, yes, a powder board. the extra length (167) helped w/ holding an edge down & cutting some turns vs. scraping around.

most recently i spent some icy days on my true courage 159cm & it did just fine.

but i've also ridden my 154cm store brand twin tip w/ 90 degree edges on ice - a frozen lake with just a 1/4" of snow in many places - while snowkiting. i was able to hold an edge fairly well, even with ~30knots of wind in a 9m sail. at first the wind would send me chattering down wind a bit on my heelside edge, but i stayed out for a 4 1/2 hour marathon session & was able to hold better and better lines on the icey snow - better due to working out ideal angles of attack for the kite & board directions.

just goes to show that pretty well anything, even while under additional load than good old gravity, can be pressed into holding an edge on icy conditions.

that said, pic a board that fits your riding style, height, weight etc best & then get it tuned up with an 88 bevel. 8)

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RadmarkNJ

Hey All. Thanks for the tips. We were looking at the Roxy Envy or Roxy for my wife. It has magnetraction and I have heard good things about that. Anyone else heard anything about magnetraction.

I am kind of trying to decide if I need a new board and bindings or just a binding and boot upgrade this winter. I demo'ed a Burton Custom ICS and the bindings had a toe strap which was nice. my SPi only have the front strap that covers the top of my boot. I felt the binding with the toe cover gave me some extra control.

Any thoughts on this?

true_richard

toe cap straps are great, but before you make a binding decision - if you've never stuck your boots into a pair of flows, check them out... personally, i absolutely love them. Flow Snowboarding Location Selector - the top covers make for a nice even pressure over your foot, and you can crank 'em tight (but comfortable) so response is nothing short of awesome. you move, your board moves - no strap stretch lag.

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RadmarkNJ

Do you have any suggestions on the model to take a look at?

killclimbz

The NXT models are nice from Flow. I have a pair of the NXT AT's from a couple of seasons ago. Quite happy with them, though I don't have them mounted right now. Last year at the dealer demo days I took out the team binding. I thought it was best binding I demo'd last year (tried over six new models), it's expensive but very very nice.
Union, Rome, and Flow were the top 3 bindings I tried last year. The K2 Auto does get honorable mention but they had a recall last year. I would wait another season and let them work out the tech on that one.