SGP/lowrider plate review

[Corey]

Pat was nice enough to lend me an SGP/lowrider plate to play with. It looks like this:

Not my board, nor my van; just a picture I had from Pat.

It's cold. -30C or -22F with a light wind. I started my day out on my old Volkl SL board with no plate, just to ensure there was actually snow covering all the hill and no gravel patches. This is the prairies, such things sometimes happen on opening day. :( The snow was pretty good for this early in the season: chalky groom with small ice patches. All was clear so out came the plate on a Coiler 167 VSR.

First impressions while skating up to the lift:

It felt kind of high, but not as bad as I'd feared. This plate is a little flexible, so the fore-aft stability was pretty soft. Mixed with the cold snow that was quite sticky and pushing around was more work than you'd expect.

Getting off the lift:

(Special prairie disclaimer here: The lift off-loading ramps at this hill still scare the heck out of me. ~15 vertical feet, glare ice because no groomer can drive up the wood ramp, and steeper than any run within a 8-hour drive. Truly sketchy with one foot out!)

I was nervous about this part. It wasn't bad at all! I assume it was because of the extra height making the board even easier to tip over but I've never ridden an easier board down this ramp, even with the slightly wobbly fore-aft component under my front foot.

Impressions:

The board feels kind of hooky, like I really have to micromanage how much pressure I feed into it or it'll fold the nose. Not too bad, but it really changed the character of the board! But who took all the bumps away?!? Seriously, it was like the first time I rode on a mountain bike with suspension. You could see them coming, but it seemed like they never got to my feet. Wow. You still feel them, but it's a soft Cadillac thump instead of the 'shopping cart over a crack in the sidewalk' feeling it was before.

I'd heard the stories about the dodgy low-speed handling, so I approached the lift line with caution. No problem, it just took a tiny bit more concentration for some reason. In a few runs I was confident I could do anything I could without the plates at low speeds.

The more I rode the more comfortable I got, but the overwhelming feeling was that the rider is just one step removed from what's going on at the board. Is that bad? Depends on the rider.

I swapped the plate onto my Coiler Monster 182. I've heard that plates benefit bigger boards more. It was nice in that you typically go faster on a big board, meaning little ripples in the snow upset you more. The plate sucked those up and let me do my thing without worrying about those pesky ripples. This board would definitely benefit from a stiffer nose if it was always going to have a plate on it! It was pretty dicey when loading the nose too much; it was much happier with me in the back seat doing some mellow cruising.

The weight was definitely noticeable on the lift if you don't have footrests. I don't think they had invented footrests (or the wheel) when these lifts were installed. ;) I haven't weighed this plate so I have no idea how it stands in comparison to the others. Granted, I go down for 1 minute and then up for about 6 so I spend a lot more time on the lift for every minute on the snow than most.

As the day went on and more and more people funnelled down the one open run, it quickly turned into alternating ice patches and push-piles of medium density snow. The plate sucked up the irregularities well, though I had a hard time knowing what the board was going to do next. I think I need more time on the plate to see if that's something that I can adapt to or something intrinsic to the plate.

I decided I'd remove the plate and spend the last hour or two on the little 167 VSR without it. Ahh, there are the bumps again... That REALLY highlighted how much shock absorption the plate was doing! Even though I was getting beat up, I could 'hear' the edge talking to me again; telling me the relative grip at every second. I was much more comfortable wrapping the board into tighter turns than I was with the plate. I trusted the plate-less board a little more in every situation. Did I mention the bumps though? ;) And the lift off-ramp was noticeably harder to ride than with the plate, I still don't understand that.

I need to spend more time on the plate to see if the same signals that we use to determine edge grip are still there and just muted somewhat, or if they're just completely filtered out. I doubt the feedback is gone or the racers that depend on edge grip for their paychecks wouldn't even consider a plate.

I was a skeptic on the shock absorption front. How on earth could it matter that much? Anything that kicks the board upwards is still going to kick the plate upwards. Well, it works. I assume that it's that sudden tilting forward & backward of the board as it travels over the ripples that is so important in our perception of bumps. Very interesting: I want to throw a camera on the board to see what's going on!

I also want to experiment with moving the plate axles fore and aft while keeping the bindings in the same position relative to the board. I noticed that the Bomber plate has the axles noticeably further apart than the Donek or SGP/lowrider plates. There's no provision on this SGP/lowrider plate to get them that far apart.

Equipment used:

- SGP/lowrider plate

- Coiler 167 VSR and 182 Monster

- Bomber TD3 step-in bindings with yellow e-rings

- UPZ RC-10 boots with FinTec step-in heels

- cold weather so the boots and e-rings were quite stiff

- chemical toe-warmer packs to prevent lost toes in this weather

Rider:

- Riding hardboots for 7 years now, usually between 15-30 days/season depending on work/family

- Better at typing than snowboarding

- Back and knees hurt after the first day of the season ;)

[Corey]

I really wish I had a camera setup yesterday, I was in some _very_ rough groom. The plate was sucking up everything I could throw at it. It would have been really neat to see what the plate and board were doing over all the ridges! I should have a GoPro (thanks again Bob!) for my next round of testing to stick on the nose pointing backwards.

This plate is definitely more beneficial on a GS-style board at higher speeds. On an SL board at lower speeds the extended nose seems to limit how much the board can bend, which limits how tight you can turn. At least I think that's what's happening. Then again I really enjoy wrapping a SL board into silly turns, which is likely outside the design intent of plates.

I can see plates being very beneficial for rough snow conditions and for those that like to go really fast. For smooth snow and making tight/slow turns it seems like unnecessary weight. I loved the plate in the morning on my 182 Monster, it was a Cadillac ride over some of the worst grooming I've ever seen. Then I switched over to my 167 VSR and it was so playful and maneuverable in comparison - even though I had to work a lot harder to keep the board in contact with the snow over the irregularities. Neither setup was better than the other; just two different sides of the sport.

[Corey]

Some slow-motion video of these plates in action can be found here: http://www.bomberonline.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=32754