At the risk of sounding like someone against any sort of innovation, I’m starting this by mentioning just how skeptical I am… Looking at pictures of this thing, I can feel my left eyebrow racing up my forehead and merging into my hair. However, a couple of Adelaide residents (skepticism rising further) have reworked the snowboard into something more like a skateboard configuration, where the board elements connected to the snow are separated from the board your standing on by a set of trucks with added suspension for forward/backward flex.
Reviewers describe the effect as one that makes riding easier and smooths out potential mistakes making it a better way to start riding. Apparently there’s a review at Boardworld but they seem to have blown their bandwidth or something so I can check out what they think as yet.
Does it look better than a normal board? Hell no. Is it reminiscent of a ski-skate or something similarly quirky and awkward you see on rare occasions on the hill? Absolutely. Does that mean it’s bad? Possibly not. Although it fits neatly into my category of wacky-semi-related-boards, it’s one that doesn’t seem to have been outright panned from the get-go by everyone. And it’s been 20 years in the making so they have to have got at least something on it right, you’d hope.
I won’t be racing out to spend money or time on it but I will refrain from raining internet-hate on it till I’ve heard a little more and maybe given it one run.
