One Important Area That’s Often Ignored In Snowboard Reviews

Today’s reader question:

How do I know what’s a good snowboard review that I can trust?

When most people read snowboard reviews, there’s one area they often forget to consider:

Reviewer weight and information.

Tons of reviews will talk about performance, flex and how a board performs in different areas, but the weight and stats of the person reviewing the snowboard will totally change how the board performs for them.

20 lbs (9kg) difference in weight can totally change how a certain board performs for a rider, especially if the size of the board isn’t the ideal fit for the person reviewing the snowboard.

For example, my 156 sized K2 Parkstar is roughly a mid flex snowboard for me. However it feels like a noodle to my friend who’s 20-25 lbs heavier than me. He flexes that thing by just leaning towards the nose or tail.

So basically what I’m saying is if a review doesn’t list the rider’s information, you basically have no scale to judge how the snowboard would really performs when it’s strapped to your own two feet.

What you want to look for in a good snowboard review:

So besides weight, here’s what else you want to look for in a good snowboard review.

Ideally, you want information on more than just the board. You want to know about the rider, the snow conditions, board specs, rider setup specs.

A random review which just says performance, flex and how a snowboard turns is useless without information to let you know where the reviewer’s marks and notes are coming from.

You want to know AT LEAST the following:

• Rider weight
• Rider stance and setup stats
• Snowboard info and size (duh)
• Snow conditions
• Board performance vs what the board was intended for

As well as all this, you can’t really have too much information on the person doing the review. Things like reviewer’s riding style, preference and what features/run types they tested it on are also useful.

Basically, the rule for snowboard reviews is the more information, the better.

More information means you have a more complete picture of how the review was conducted and how the reviewer’s riding compares to your own snowboarding.

Hope that helps.

- Jed

"How To Pick The Perfect Snowboard Setup"

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