Thirst Snowboards 8R Warp

[Dan]

Thirst Snowboards is a builder in north Idaho, and they brought their demo fleet to the North Idaho Carving Event (NICE) at Schweitzer, giving me a full day to ride the 8R Warp. Conditions were near-perfect, with mostly sunny skies and firm but grippy snow. The day before, I rode my primary carving board, a Coiler Monster 182 (the mini Monster), so I naturally compared the two when I was riding the Thirst.

The first thing that I noticed was that the Thirst board felt substantially lighter than the Coiler despite being about 3 cm longer. I noticed the difference on the chair (not many lifts have foot rests at Schweitzer), and when riding, when the board felt livelier and more "flickable". Another major difference between the two is that the Warp doesn't have a metal layer like the mini Monster, which probably contributed to the feeling that I was getting more energy back out of the Warp - it was much readier to do an airborne transition than the Monster and generally felt poppier and more energetic. 

The biggest difference between the two for me was in initiating carves. I feel like the Monster is very forgiving of lazy / improper riding (the metal probably plays a part in this) and it hooks up pretty well if you just tip it over without actively pressuring the board into a turn. The Warp was still friendly, but wanted more dynamic / mindful turn initiation. I was riding it with my weight pretty much centered, but felt that some pressure on the front foot was needed to get the board hooked up. I don't mean to suggest that the Warp is excessively demanding in terms of technique -- it's not -- but I did feel like it rewarded more mindful turn initiation. 

But - having said that - once you get it hooked up, the Warp is grippier than the Monster. At 185 cm, the Warp might have a bit more effective edge than the Monster (though I didn't measure), but I felt enough difference between the two that I think construction and geometry also play a part. The Warp has some black magic in its design -- for instance, it's asymmetrical, with somewhat complex geometry, and feels soft when you hand flex it even though both myself at 155 and NWboarder at (I'm guessing) north of 200 lbs felt like the flex worked perfectly when riding it. Thirst builder Mark Miller (BLOODTYPEZX10R here on Bomber) explained how the flex and the board shape worked together to me, but frankly it was over my head. At any rate, I felt like it all came together to make a great board and the next day when I went back to the Monster, I realized that I wanted the Warp back. I'm pretty tempted to pull the trigger on an 8R, but first I want to demo the shorter Warp (the 7 Warp) and see if I can get that same grip and liveliness in a slightly turnier board - if so, that could be an even better daily driver. 

Unfortunately, I didn't get any good closeups of the board, but it's what I was riding in this photo.  

 

[BlueB]

That's a damn good action shot, Dan! Totally avatar worthy. 

[Dan]

On 2/14/2017 at 5:39 PM, BlueB said:

That's a damn good action shot, Dan! Totally avatar worthy. 

Thanks BlueB!

While thinking I was going to a NICE photo shoot, I mistakenly wound up in a photo session with the resort photographer, who was shooting for their website and social media feeds. It doesn't really look like it from this photo, but we were riding fairly steep stuff and I didn't ride very well, though she got some winners from Bloodtypezx10r and Kram. I suspect I bounced my butt off the ground shortly after she clicked the shutter...but hey, at least I held it together long enough to get one photo ;-) I think I didn't turn where she wanted me and she had to zoom way in, hence the graininess, alas.

As far as replacing my venerable avatar...never gonna happen! That was taken at an epic bachelor party that fell on Halloween, and the original photo is long lost, so the avatar has to stay :-)

 

[BlueB]

Yeah, it would be strange and confusing to see something else then your perennial avatar :)