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The 5th Contender has Arrived


Jack M

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How can a review of race boards be considered complete, without the board which has won the World Cup Overall for the past TWO seasons, SG!!!!!!

I asked him the same thing in a IM, I understand his answer.

he said something like he knows that they are at least as good as kessler but he's trying to find where the north american builders stand in respect to what's available in europe.

not a direct quote and I may have phrased it poorly.

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I asked him the same thing in a IM, I understand his answer.

he said something like he knows that they are at least as good as kessler but he's trying to find where the north american builders stand in respect to what's available in europe.

not a direct quote and I may have phrased it poorly.

Even more reason to test an SG as well. The SG's and Kesslers ride quite a bit differently. Some may like what the SG has to offer over a Kessler, and vice versa. So to leave the board out and try to make a test stand as legit is lame.

Actually I think most "freecarvers" would like the SG a bit better then the Kessler.......But without adding it to the test I guess we'll never know.

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Even more reason to test an SG as well. The SG's and Kesslers ride quite a bit differently. Some may like what the SG has to offer over a Kessler, and vice versa. So to leave the board out and try to make a test stand as legit is lame.

Actually I think most "freecarvers" would like the SG a bit better then the Kessler.......But without adding it to the test I guess we'll never know.

well, I have a metal topped kessler now, loan me a SG and I'll compare! I'm sure Jack would also test SG if someone will loan him one.

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The question of which brands are included and which are not, was my first question in the "first contender" thread quite some time ago.

I agree with philfell that SG would be VERY important. But then it would also be interesting to see how F2 would perform in relation to the other boards (Hey, where are the F2s? :D). Hardly anyone knows about the Black Pearls ... that would be interesting for many of us as well. Not to mention the new white Oxess or the new plate and boards by Apex.

But for one person it would be rather challenging to seriously test all these boards, not to mention the different setups, if the Vist is included ... changing the plate from one board to the next alone gets old pretty fast ... by the way, there are no Vist inserts on the Prior, right?

And I think Jack explained it quite well ... he wants to compare Doneks, Priors and Coilers to a current World Cup board and Kessler is not a bad choice at all :D ...

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To only use one World Cup board (Kessler) to compare all others does not seem like a legit test to me. Especially when you consider the results of the SG over the past two seasons. And knowing how much different they ride compared to an SG.

Have a comparison with what you have, but please don't call it "complete"

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The original mission of the review was to see how our beloved North American manufactures stacked up against a state of the art FIS WC board, from the perspective of a freecarver. I figured that for the purposes of the review, Kessler and SG were roughly equivalent (in terms of quality and capability at least), as they seem to be on the podium about as often. If a Kessler is good enough for Jasey Jay, it is good enough to serve as the benchmark in this review. So in that sense, the arrival of the Prior completed the line-up.

There was no way to get an unused demo Kessler, so I had one custom built through Bola, figuring I could sell it if I wanted. I assumed the situation would be the same with SG, and I couldn't afford to front another four figures for a board I would sell for a loss. Then Fin talked with Sigi at an FIS race in Colorado and told him about the review. He was interested so I sent him an email. He responded enthusiastically, but he didn't have a new board available to turn into a demo, nor room in his schedule to build one, so he asked if he could send a slightly used racer's board and I said that would be no problem. Never heard back after that. I'll contact him again, but at this point it will be an addendum. I'll be typing up the review on the plane to JH on Tuesday!

I rode the Kessler today with a Vist (on loan from Bola) and Sidewinders for a taste of the full WC ride. It was an eye-opener. The rest of the review was conducted with my own step-in TD2s and TD3, including on the Kessler. I would have had to quit my job to test all combinations of the 5 boards with and without the Vist (28 screws to mount just the Vist) and with and without the Sidewinders. You'll have to wait for the review to hear more about why and what happened!

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Hey Jack,

I would be glad to read a comparison of just the NA builders. Adding a Kessler and maybe a future SG is just a bonus. :)

Just out of curiosity, why did you take the WCR over the FLC?

Thanks. Prior built an FLC for the review, but then it didn't pass QC. After that, they were swamped with preparations for the Olympics (in their home town no less!). So the solution was to take a WCR from Bomber's stock. This was actually a blessing in disguise as it was striking to feel the differences back to back between a traditional straight radius board of the same length and the other blended radii boards. The Prior has a decambered nose and metal construction, so the only (large) difference was the sidecut. That did not stand in the way of getting a good feel for the (great) construction of the Prior.

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Tenorman bought one as a factory 2nd just 2 weeks ago. It had 1" of camber, other then that, perfect. He got quite excited about the high camber, he likes rebound and it should compensate for some of the over-dampness of the metal boards. I thought that might have been the one...

Come to think of it, your's was probably 187 - that would be Prior's equivalent of other makers' 185...

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1) Jack, I look forward to seeing your results

2) You guys should stop bitching about what boards are included unless you want to pony up and carry the cost. Jack financed the bulk of this on his own. If you think SG, Apex, Black Pearl, Oxxess, or any others need to be included, write a big check...I'm sure it would be great to see everything in one review, but it just ain't happenning.

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