What snowboard do i want?

Question

I'm looking to buy a full set of snow boarding gear (board, bindings and boots), i am about a early intermediate rider, 6 foot tall, 210 pounds, size 12 foot (US). looking for any suggestions on boards that, is relatively cheap without sacrificing the important stuff, can take a hammering and be able to be used as my skill level progresses. looking to use it for free-riding.

i got some rental gear the other day and asked the attendant what i should buy, and he said a Nitro MFM and the Salomon Prospect are worth looking at, what are your ideas on these boards? and any suggestions would be greatly appreciated?

Answer 1

Basicly dont get anything made by Burton and your all set. And dont go too cheap. You want a board with an MSRP over 300$. With your weight i would get a 158-162cm board and make sure the width is over 25.2 cm cause of your foot size. The K2 Believer and Darkstar would be good.  

Answer 2

It's certainly not the only board that would fit the bill, and the 2 you named are also good, but I would look at the Ride Fleetwood 161. It's a wide board for your size feet, and will not crush your wallet. Right now there are really good prices on last season's version.

Answer 3

Ight so my first suggestion would be:

DON'T GO OUT BUYING A SET-UP NOW. At least not the whole thing.

I rode for my first three seasons on rentals and that is the way to go.

That way you can get good at snowboarding and figure out what you really want before you buy that board. For example, if you ride for a while and then figure out that you like doing tree runs and big 60 footer jumps but then you've already bought a board that's mainly meant for the park rails and stuff like that, guess what? You might be in for some stressful seasons. There is definetly a difference between every model of board! After three seasons I found out that I'm a park rat, those guys you never see on the lifts, just walking back up to the top of the park for another run, and so now I have a rome machine which is exactly what I want for what I do, but it's really not the greatest board for carving lines in powder all day. What you should do is not rentals, but demo boards. Demoing is where you can rent out a specific board for a day or more and if you don't like it you can take the board back to the shop and try a different one the next day or even before that. Most mountains will have a shop where you can demo boards but call ahead first. If you reall can't be stopped from buying a board now, then at least look into getting an all mountain board like the Rome Crail or since you're a bigfooted guy the Rome Manual. There's lots of good companies out there besides Rome like GNU, Ride, Lib, K2, Burton (obviously but not my first choice), StepChild, Never Summer, all of which have all mountain boards and beginner and boards and what not...

As for boots, go ahead and get those, just get em at a shop so you can try em on first to make sure they're comftorable first because riding 8 hours a day and having uncomftorable boots is the absolutely freaking worst experience of your life. DC's are pretty comftorable, I rock the 32 Laced which are comfy too so just look around at your local shop and ask about which boots are the most squishy...

Binding are not super important but everyone has their preferences. I have Rome 390's and they're sick because you customize them to pretty much anyway you want to have them but a lot of bindings are like that, I'm just a brand salve if you haven't noticed. So good luck out there, and come up to Mammoth this season and visit me because I'm gonna be working up there.

Answer 4

If you know your going to continue for a few seasons and it's not your first season, I would buy.

I've seen a few burtons not sure how good they are(whether there rentals or not).

if it's your first time buying then get some X-rentals, nice and cheap.