Board: Never Summer West
Size: 154
Camber Option: Ripsaw Rocker Camber Profile. Camber under foot and reverse camber between the feet.
Bindings: K2 Indy
Stance: 21.5 Wide 18 Negative 15 Goofy
Boots: K2 Thraxis Size 10
My Weight: 195lbs
Resort: Copper Mountain
Conditions: Arctic temperatures, a couple inches of fresh snow that was heavy and wind loaded, and fresh corduroy.
Flex: This board is just under a middle of the road flex. There’s an abundance of play in the tips and between the feet with a bit more stability under foot. The overall torsional flex is highly abundant.
Stability: This board is mildly stable. You’ll notice that there’s a lot of chatter right under foot and in the tips which seems uncharacteristic of a Never Summer. Also in more rutted out terrain or busting through wind lips it got bucked around a fair bit.
Ollies: The snap is there, it’s not anything to write home about. I will say that this board is best popped skate style instead of loading it up.
Pop On Jumps: The lip of the jump will be doing most of the work rather than the board itself. Overall it’s just not the snappiest deck out there.
Butterability: Well the good news is if you don’t know how to butter and just like leaning back of forward you’ll be able to butter. The tips are playful where it counts but seemed a bit soggy when really engaging them.
Jibbing: The beauty of having reverse camber between the feet is you can manipulate the board however you want on a feature because it’s already pre-bent. With that said it did the job but wasn’t anything exciting.
Carving: The sidecut does an OK job of gripping, it never washed out when pushing it hard. I did find that it wasn’t exactly the best sidecut for laying it over and leaving a trench.
Rider in Mind: Someone that’s just going to cruise around and do a little bit of everything.
Personal Thoughts: This board just felt dead. It wasn’t like a damp dead feeling, it just wasn’t lively. It seemed so mediocre at best. The good thing about it was the torsional flex did lend itself to being highly maneuverable in the trees. Also for all you people with a hard on for Carbonium top sheets, you need to realize this is what companies use for rental boards. Not exactly something you should be paying extra for as it stiffens the board up and somewhat deadens it.
Comparable Boards: Flow Era, Weston Timber, L2R Impression
Support your local snowboard shop buy locally. Find a shop here.
The post The Never Summer West Snowboard Review appeared first on The Angry Snowboarder.