Wed, 02/24/2010 - 12:52pmKnow your all mountain snowboard

Gary Greenshields, Nordpark near Innsbruck

Snowboarding is expensive. Yeah we said it.

On the pages of a snowboard webzine, we said it. A full hardware set-up will cost you upwards of six hundred smackers, add to that the usual costs associated with a trip abroad – and we’re not talking pocket money here.

With that in mind, it’s unlikely that most riders have deep enough pockets for a quiver of boards. If you’re not a dedicated jib monkey or out-and-out powder hound though, the chances are you (or most of your riding, anyway) could easily fit into the all mountain box. You’re a jack-of-all-trades; rails and park to pow and a bit of backcountry, with a few euro carves thrown in too.

This is by far the biggest category of boards.

All mountain DNA

Shape

Here’s another invented snowboard word for your dictionaries – twinnish. Directional twins would be the traditional term. Something with bindings that can be set back for powder riding, whilst also having enough tail for switch riding.

Sidecut radius

Things can actually get pretty techy here, with multi-radius sidecuts used to improve turn entry and exit. No boards are that complicated though, with such a wide diversity within the category, generally anything goes.

Length and waist width

"The board needs to touch your chin when standing." No, that’s a load of crap. It’s a kind of compromise between a shorter board for jib ease at one end and the longer, powder-floating sizes at the other. Personal preference, in short.

Camber

Again, anything goes. Personal choice dictates whether you’re happy with the skate style ride of a reverse camber or prefer the edge hold and pop of a regular bend.

Flex rating

A wide range of flex depending on personal choice and how much park, freeride or piste bashing you intend to do.

Topsheet

Horses for courses once again, with biax, triax, quadax and every variation under the sun on offer in this category.

Base

Generally, sintered is the more popular, offering higher speeds and toughness, although on the more freestyle leaning models, extruded and variations of it are available too.