The 2009 Official product test of cutting edge technical sweetness

I went all the way to Snowshoe WV for two reasons, one to show support to our kick ass rep back there, Brad Wildman Bradley and second to get on as much of this new fangled technology that people are selling a shit load of product with. Damn, these days snowboarding outerwear is like the Barnum and Bailey circus where all we need is for someone to start selling red Bozo the Clown noses to go with half of these costumes that people are trying to make us buy. Then on the other side, you got all this “technology” coming into the hard goods and it kind of feels like golfing or some tech ass thing like that. “Hey we got dildo enhanced grips on our golf clubs, if you use them, you’ll drive your balls 30 yards further.” Anyway I needed to stop laughing at some of this stuff and get on it. Honestly, I went there with a completely open mind to anything and everything as it’s kind of rad to see how many yellow snowboards are on the hill this year. Hats off to these guys, they pioneered some tech, marketed it and convinced the world it would make snowboarding easier. As far as tech going this year you got heaps of choices, just pick your poison from such breakthrough’s like 2 screwed slider insert patterns, triple base boards, rockered boards, tapered boards, wavy edged boards, nano based oozing wax that senses when you need to go faster, p-tex sidewalls, urethane sidewalls, rubber sidewalls, double thickness edges, pre rounded edges, bronze edges, lycra dampeners in the insert patterns, risers, end grain orientated power throttles and every type of environmentally friendly material possible that you can put in a product constructed with toxic resins, plastic, fiber glass, foam, metal and wood. Rad. So once again, take these opinions with a grain of salt. These are my opinions on what I rode, for what ever it’s worth. Which ain’t much if you’ve seen me side slip down a blue squared run. “Green my ass, that was light blue all the way. At what altitude do deer turn to elk anyway?”
The product I ended up shredding on were:
GNU Riders Choice Banana – Double thumbs up.
GNU Riders Choice Camber – Two more thumbs up with a twitch from the middle leg.
Lib Tech Skate Banana – Single thumb up.
K2 Turbo Dream w/ Rocker – Thumbs up and a mellow shaka from the other hand.
K2 WWW Rocker – Two thumbs up.
K2 WWW Camber – Double shaka’s here.
Lib Tech Matt Cummings – Single thumb up with a set of metal horns.
Ride Contraband Binding – Thumbs down, time to get some Viagra.
DC HKD New Order Graphic snowboard – A set of horns with a lighter throwing out a huge flame.
I know the sports changing, evolving or what ever you call it and what not and you got to roll with the changes. I’m a tad close minded as in all these years of sliding sideways; I think I know what works for me and what doesn’t. My mentality comes from when someone talked about training to snowboard; it meant that they pounded a 12 pack the night before. These days you got kids going to gymnastics in the off season so they can spin, flip and twist like their Greg Louganis coming down off a 30 meter diving board. And to me, that shit’s just gay as hell. I remember hearing my buddy T-Bone clown someone who was talking about “training for snowboarding.” He was like “you want to know how you train for snowboarding??? You snowboard.” Anyway, Hi5’s to all the people with the balls to do shit differently. It’s tuff to be the first one to a party. But when you’re smart one that brought Jaeger and not some shitty plastic bottled gin, you’ll make a bunch of new friends.