Thirst 7WARP superconductor

[kram]

I rode 3 boards at NICE that weren't my own.  Coiler EC- I got used to it after a run or 2 but wide boards aren't my thing. Donek MK- grate board supper turny just like everybody says.

The one I like the most was the Thirst Superconductor. (L)175 (w)20.4. It was quick in the transition, I could tighten turns up or lathen them out. The edge hold was great. How stable these Thirst boards are I think are different than the rest. I rode the 8R last spring and can remember telling people how stable it felt. 

My normal go to boards are a 171 (w)20 Donek metal free carve and a 174 (w)19 Coiler Nirvana energy  

[Dan]

Mark, have you ridden the Warp 8? If so, how did you think it compared to the 7?

[BLOODTYPEZX10R]

Yes Dan, he rode the original 8R WARP prototype.  There is video (3 actually) on my Thirst fb page of Kram riding it.  It's a long board for him, I have watched the videos over and over because he looks so good on it.

[b0ardski]

I rode a thirst x7 last year and was really impressed by the intuitive response and solid feel and trackability. It cut a path through chopped crud like it was fresh groom.

Need to demo the BX and superconductor to decide what to order

[BLOODTYPEZX10R]

21 hours ago, b0ardski said:

Need to demo the BX and superconductor to decide what to order

Order, order?  Boardski?  You must have been hacked! ha ha.

[Keenan]

I rode one of these at NICE.  The last day, bad visibility, legs tired.  I couldn't describe it that day but there was something unusual and magical about the way this board felt under my boots.  I had never really noticed how a board sounds before. These weren't the best testing conditions for me but I talked to Mark (the builder) for a while about what I wanted in a board, then I put down a deposit.  USPS lost it for a week but it finally arrived the day before my family spring break trip.  I have yet to ride it in anything more than mediocre conditions, so I will update this review when I can.

First Day:  Hoodoo Ski Bowl, 8-10" of wet new snow.  Not the best choice for the conditions but it never sank or got stuck due to the tail and nose shape I assume.  I found one semi groomed run where I could crank out 8-10 linked carves. Super responsive and light under foot without giving up stability.  To get to that run there was a long cat track which flattened out at the end.  90 percent of the boarders got stuck and all of the skiers were skating and poling.  I probably did this section 10-12 times and passed everyone every time.  It felt like when others were losing momentum I was still gaining.

Second Day:  Mt. Bachelor, firm snow turning a bit grabby later in the day.  I was with my 8 year old daughter on 120 cm skis, so I could really only get a few good turns at a time.  I was able to adjust the turn size quite easily, and the board seemed to power through chop just as well as any metal board I've ridden.  A couple of times I though I was catching an edge and going over, I just hopped the board onto the other edge and it kept going.  Very maneuverable and fun.

Third Day: Mt. Hood Meadows, ice with chunks and ruts, flat light.  Three runs and done, not the boards' fault.  When I got to the bottom where I would normally stop, I realized that I was going faster than usual and had to throw on the brakes.

We have rain forecast for the rest of the week, so hopefully I can get a good day in next week and update this.  The closest thing that I have ridden to this is the Oxess XXR which is over twice the cost and made overseas.  I can't wait to get on this thing again, I'm so thirsty.

[Dan]

So, I rode the 185 Warp at NICE and was hooked. I'm going to buy one, but I can't decide between the 185 (which was great), and the 175 (which I haven't ridden). Any comments out there from people who have ridden both? 

[Dan]

On 4/5/2017 at 0:16 PM, Keenan said:

 I can't wait to get on this thing again, I'm so thirsty.

Love it!

[Keenan]

Day Four - Timberline.  Hardpack/softpack depending on the run.  

Okay this board rocks.  I was able to pump through flat sections like a skateboard.  Except this skateboard left 4" trenches. 

[Dan]

OK, I demoed the Warp 7 and liked it even better than the 8. I'm going to get one! Just need to hash out my topsheet art...

[bigwavedave]

I got to demo a Superconductor WARP 7 for the better part of Sunday afternoon at Indianhead, compliments of Mark (Thirst snowboards) and @Algunderfoot

175cm, 19cm waist, 11.3m toeside scr, and 12m heelside scr (sidecut is offset for regular rider). Glass fiber? with wood core, no metal. I don't know for sure, it's all top secret.

Conditions were firm late-day groom, a bit rutted up with some icy patches, but mostly good to excellent carving conditions, except for the flat light.

This board has a noticeably softer flex than any of my other boards. It's also 1.5cm narrower than boards I've been riding lately. According to Al, the WARP design concept involves a unique core construction that helps produce a continuous flex (no flat spots under the bindings), sort of like what an isolation plate does, with the goal of producing smoother carves. So, some of the benefits of a plate, but without the loss of snow feel.

This board has a noticeably different feel─every carve feels super smooth─slippery fast/silky smooth (like a Kessler, but it likes to complete turns)─all with no chatter or pumping motion during any carves at all. Very secure edge hold, fairly damp and seems to hook up into a turn quickly (might be because it's narrower than my boards).

I never really got bounced around by the late day ruts.  Once in a steep carve I felt it slip on ice, but immediately reconnect with the carve. Afterwards, looking at some video I made, I could see that I had some boot drag when way up on edge. 

I like that the board likes to complete turns so I can bleed off speed on steeps before going into the next turn─easy to vary the size of the carve without changing the quality of the smoothness and edge hold. Despite being a fairly soft flexing board, I was surprised that I could push as hard as I wanted in a turn and it never let go of its edge.

Rode for 3 hours and had a chance to get pretty comfortable with this board. I found myself doing things I might have hesitated to do before, feeling almost... ...invincible. 

...and then thinking I didn't want to give the board back─but I knew Al would track me down, and with the rugged terrain in da UP, my remains wouldn't be found for years.

Check out the crazy flex profile on this board! Whatever Mark is doing, he's really onto something, and it's working. Apparently the result of decades of building boards in the wilds of northern Idaho. I'd put this board right up there with the best of the best carving boards. Superconductor=super clean, secure solid carves.

tail view:

from nose:

We should all feel fortunate to have such passionate board builders (and binding and boot makers) experimenting and innovating and making our small sport of carving more and more amazing and fun. 

 

Edited April 19, 2018 by bigwavedave

[bigwavedave]

A video of a demo ride on the 175 Superconductor. This is an unedited clip with flat light (not the best quality image or riding (carrying a 5' stick with a camera on the end with poor lighting kinda cramps my style)). Also, it's slowed to ½ speed to see what the board is doing.

Fast forward 5 yrs, same run with my now 5yr old custom Superconductor. Just as lively now as the first season. This board is so sure footed and smooth it makes this 70 yr old guy feel like superman. Just look in the direction you want to go and it goes. Feels more like an extension of my body rather than riding a board. It's always there with you, it never falters. 

 

[Carvin' Marvin]

Good review BWD. I've been eyeing one for a while so as soon as the funds come up imma have to get one. 

[Corey]

I rode the 7 Superconductor today. Very turn-happy board. I didn't really connect with it. I felt like we spoke different languages. It didn't do what I expected, and REALLY didn't like me loading up the nose to tighten a turn. It didn't fold or anything, but it just plowed a wide path without tightening the turn much. 

Then I hopped on Al's personal 8 (missed the letters) - now we're talking! Nice controlled turns, able to change radius with vertical pressure. It still did things a little differently than every other board I've been on before. 

I loved the topsheet material. It seemed really durable and had a cool iridescent effect. 

[Keenan]

22 hours ago, Corey said:

didn't like me loading up the nose to tighten a turn. It didn't fold or anything, but it just plowed a wide path without tightening the turn much. 

Corey,

You are trying too hard.  No need to load the nose due to the construction of these boards.  Just unweight more between the turns and bend it more right in the middle to tighten up the turns.  There seems to be less need for for/aft shifting on the Thirst boards.  It took me a little while to get used to them.  But now, me love them long time. 

[Corey]

Yeah, it quickly let me know that weight shifts are unwanted and unhelpful. It's pretty hard to de-program 10 years of riding any other board. ;) 

[bigwavedave]

Al told me not to get too aggressive going into turns when I demoed it, so my first couple of turns were very tentative, and then I realized that my fairly centered (lazy?) style of riding was right at home on this board, in fact I found myself getting on the back end a few times in more aggressive turns and getting a spring off the tail into the the next turn. Fun!

Whenever I've had any of the newer generation (metal/vscr) race boards (Kessler, Rev etc) I found I liked to move my stance 1-2cm forward of the reference stance to get the right amount of pressure on the nose, rather than changing how I rode the board.

It does make a lot of noise, but that's a non-metal glass board for ya. 

Edited March 18, 2018 by bigwavedave

[jburk]

I had the distinct pleasure to demo one of these yesterday.  Liked it so much I called Mark to ask how to put a deposit down while driving back home at the end of the day.

I’ve had several conversations with Mark Miller about what I was looking for, rider weight and riding style, etc. Then he went and built a demo board very close to those specs, but with a more (or closer to) conventional 19.1 cm waist; we had discussed an 18 or 18.5 cm waist for me since I find my 18.5 cm Donek FC Secret to be still a tad too wide.  Guess Mark figured the wider waist demo was more suitable for a general audience. 

Met @Keenan at MHM parking lot (Mark shipped the board to him, Keenan is either unofficially or officially rep’ing Thirst, I’m not sure which), mounted my bindings centred on the reference stance at my normal stance width, and away we went.  This setup turned out to feel like I had already spent several days tweaking width, angles, etc., to get to a point where everything felt dialed in, fairly remarkable given what the day’s weather had in store for us. 

Conditions were (way) less than ideal for a carving board: 12” of new in the last 24 hours, moderate to high winds. Surface was a mix of ungroomed shin-deep lightweight new mixed with wind-scoured hardpack, sometimes alternating back and forth between the two every 20 yards. 

And I have to say, this board was so versatile that it handled both of those extremes without complaint. Mark had told me that despite it being a carving board, it would ride well in the powder. What I didn’t expect was that riding it in anything more than ankle-deep would actually be grinning-like-an-idiot fun.  I followed Keenan through gullies full of new I wouldn’t normally have gone into, let alone without all the new, and it was like I’d been on that board for an entire season already. Easy board to make friends with.

When I got it out on the groomed, it was equally accommodating. Turn initiation was never an issue, didn’t take an iota of deliberation, and yet the board was nice and stable, definitely no sense of it being “hooky” or twitchy. Think both Mark and Keenan have mentioned that this board’s sidecut radii vary differently from conventional wisdom, with the sidecut being tightest under the bindings, and opening up towards the shovel and tail. There’s also a fair bit of decambering going on at both ends.  Took it down a short but fairly steep pitch at one point, it likes to finish the turns and hang on all the way across, yet really willing to move on to the next turn whenever asked.

One thing that comes to mind was how it seemed really easy to do toeside turns.  If anything, my bindings are centered or a tad biased to heelside (no gilmour bias, just maybe a few mm to heelside on the front foot), and yet toesides were always really solid.  A few times I got thrown around by the uneven surface right as I was transitioning to toeside and had that “I’m going to have to work to get myself back out of trouble” premonition, and yet the board came back around under me as if I knew what I was doing.

The only surprise when encountering hardpack or a bit of ice mid-carve was that there was no surprises; the feel underfoot changed, and the board sounded different, but there was no drama and we just kept on keeping on.  As the day progressed and the surface got all chopped, the board started to feel more and more damp.  I wouldn’t say it cut through the lumps and piles, nor did it conform to the surface. If I had to compare it to anything, I’d say it was like riding a boiler plate 4mm lite, you can feel the surface inconsistencies, but they’re not affecting you, but you’re not completely isolated from the surface either.

Have I mentioned that the bases on these things must be fast AF?  I’ve read a few other reviews of this board that have mentioned how well these glide on the flats, and I have to agree. A few times on the flats I got hit head on by a gust of wind that killed a lot of my speed and I thought I was going to have to unclip and skate, but I managed to just keep gliding, sometimes at less than walking speed, but never coming to a dead stop. Other times I was still picking up speed on what looked to the eye to be flat while other riders were coming to a stop and unbuckling to skate. 

Can’t wait for Mark to build one of these for me, think it will be my new daily driver. 

[dredman]

I think it is the depleted unobtanium that Mark puts in his boards that makes them so easy to ride and fast. 

[bigwavedave]

Vibranium! Pretty sure...

[dredman]

Rode the Superconductor at Big Sky... another amazing ride on the icy spring groomers and just got more fun as the day went on! Easy to ride, no funny fwd and back weight shifts or pedaling, roll it over and let the board do the work.  

Mark has really done some magic with his Thirst Boards.  

So many boards, so little time. 

[bigwavedave]

I may as well confess---I was going to wait until later this summer, but couldn't, so I talked to Mark last week and sent him a deposit for a full quiver of Thirst WARP boards---small, medium and large. Rode both the Super and 8RW and it was as eye opening as the first time I rode a metal board (a Kessler) compared to the ride of my then favorite glass FC1.

Plus, I'm not getting any younger, and as Dreadman has said "so many boards, and so little time"....and I was also a little afraid that with all these great reviews he might get too busy.

[Algunderfoot]

Nice! Not quite a full quiver Dave....wait till you see the new "PC", then it'll be complete! 

[bigwavedave]

1 hour ago, Algunderfoot said:

Nice! Not quite a full quiver Dave....wait till you see the new "PC", then it'll be complete! 

Okay, a full WARP carving quiver. I'm assuming the "PC" is a powder carver? split tail? Yea, I suppose I'll "need" one of those too.

I'm pretty sure my mother warned me to steer clear of guys @Algunderfoot in the parking lots at ski areas with a trunkload of "merchandise" to sample. So, now I'm a thirsty junky?

Edited May 2, 2018 by bigwavedave

[Eboot]

any chance Mark and Thirst will be at Montucky?

demo calling!