CharlieR

I'll add my perspective as a soft boot snowboarder who loves to carve. The two biggest barriers for me have been the cost and the absence of retail store stocking alpine equipment (and who have people knowledgeable in the area). A little bit about myself. I live in Australia. I've been snowboarding for about eleven years now. When I started my parents put me into my local mountains club where I settled into training and racing snowboard cross. I like to think that my soft boot carving is pretty solid after a number of years riding in the club. I raced in Europa Cup events for a couple years before leaving competition behind when I started my university studies. The reason I never really considered alpine at the time was that there weren't any coaches (and few races) in my local area. As for why I don't get into alpine snowboarding today: Firstly, I am currently a full-time student. When I get to the snow, I definitely spend most my time carving groomers, but I also like to ride the jump line in the park and smash down a tree line of piste. Alpine equipment would be amazing for one of those, but I would still need to maintain soft boot equipment to really enjoy the others. If AU$1500 wasn't a big deal for me, I would happily invest in alpine equipment, but given its niche use, can't justify it at the moment. I recently replace my six-year-old board and (having already put aside getting alpine equipment) faced the dilemma of balancing the use cases when choosing a board that would work well across the board. (I ended up buying a Korua Tranny Finder (157cm)). Secondly, none of the retail stores in my area sell alpine equipment and have staff who know what they are talking about. There is one store which stocks a couple of alpine boards, but I haven't been there when the staff had any clue about them. (I might have just been unlucky). To be honest, though, I haven't gone out of my way to search for retailers and there probably are some around the place. Ultimately, I am sure I will get an alpine board in the future. Once I graduate and have a full-time job, it shouldn't be too hard to justify AU$1500 for a long term hobby.