New Brand

[D-Sub]

heh. the coiler site could use a TINY bit more to it...like some pics of boards, etc, but yeah, youre right. just the facts, ma'am

and NO mention of Bruce ANYWHERE whatsoever.

[~tb]

WHO CARES?!?!?!?!?! Got NOTHING to do with making top-level snowboards

Apparently you do. Seems to have your undies in a bunch.

So they put on their website more info than you wanted to know. We dont know that much about Bruce @ coiler. Maybe bruce's previous job was being a ballerina. If he had that on his website, would you say that his boards must ride like poo? after all, a coiler is admittably a piece of poo!

Sean Martin is one hell of a bag pipe player. we dont hold that against him.

My guess is that there are others involved that are actually making the boards, not the few people on the site.

I guess my lack of point is that if they removed this information, you would be more interested. Dont hold this additional disclosure against the unknown technical merit of their boards. Pass judgement on no piece of equipment until you have atleast held one in your hands, or hopefully ridden it.

[Mike T]

heh. the coiler site could use a TINY bit more to it...like some pics of boards, etc, but yeah, youre right. just the facts, ma'am

and NO mention of Bruce ANYWHERE whatsoever.

Given how quickly he sells out for the year, and how much many BOL members drool over the thought of owning his decks, his website seems to be filling his needs quite nicely!

BTW if you look, you can find a pic of Bruce riding. Yeah, I was really bored that day.

[D-Sub]

yeah, obviously he doesnt "need" anymore...I was presenting that from a website design perspective.

his site gets the job done, obviously quite effectively. havent seen the pics, but it's still not the same as this other site with all the horn self-tooting

:)

[Gecko]

Be interesting to see the reviews on these decks. Noticed the massive amount of taper as well - sounds like a nice freecarve/all-mt. combo. Always encouraging to see new mfg coming out with carving gear - I think it's a good sign.

Those look nice...and they won't be far from me in Groton/Westerly so I'll definatly have to look closely. That looks like further motivation to attend ECES....now if I can just get a house to live in before then

[bobdea]

Huh? I've seen a lot of skis with cap construction.

Maybe this isn't a snowboard company at all, maybe it's a ficticious company invented by some college student in a web design class.

I give him a C-

heh heh

but true race stock skis are ususally not with a few exceptions now as far as skis in the shop that you might go to probably 99% of them are cap constuction this is because your average skier is not that demanding of a customer, they usually just want some shiny doohickies that are glued onto the topsheet and some catch phrases like X-treme chrome edges Vibraride torsion system

[Alex Walters]

but true race stock skis are ususally not with a few exceptions now as far as skis in the shop that you might go to probably 99% of them are cap constuction this is because your average skier is not that demanding of a customer, they usually just want some shiny doohickies that are glued onto the topsheet and some catch phrases like X-treme chrome edges Vibraride torsion system

I wouldn't say %99 of retail skis are cap. Go to almost any ski store and you'll find at least one sidewall/sandwitch sk sometimes two or threei, but you are right the vast majority of retail skis are cap. Snowboards seem to be more balanced between the two constructions.

[Scorpio]

as per alpinecarving.com and certainly not taken as gospel.

Sidewall Construction

Sidewall construction comes in two major flavors: cap construction and sandwich construction. Cap construction is a type of sidewall construction where the topsheet is rounded to meet the metal edges, and it has a few advantages:

It's cheaper to build.

It makes it easier to create a board that is more torsionally stiff.

It can provide more edge hold, because the edge profile is thinner than sandwich construction.

Cap boards tend to be more lively.

and disadvantages:

They have durability problems: they will start to lose their structural integrity if they get dinged from the side.

They are difficult if not impossible to repair.

Cap construction is also somewhat weaker than sandwich construction.

Despite having good edge hold, cap boards tend to transmit all the terrain bumps to the rider.

Sandwich construction is a type of sidewall construction that looks like a sandwich from the side. It is stronger than cap construction, more durable, and easy to repair. Snowboard makers who know what they are doing can build a board with sandwich construction and still maintain good torsional stiffness. Slantwall construction is a type of sandwich construction, and may help provide more edge hold with a thinner edge profile.

Dualtec: Some boards have cap construction at the tip and tail, and sandwich construction in the middle - Rossignol used the term "Dualtec" for this combination.

[NateW]

But, the idea is great and the boards look like a lot of fun. They remind me of the Customcrafts that NateW was talking about having made a couple of years ago, a narrow twin-tipped carving board. I thought it was a cool idea at the time.

CustomCraft made one for me, and it works well. :) At 23cm, the waist is narrow by freeride standards but still wide by alpine standards. The Surf-Rodz boards are around 19cm which puts them squarely in the alpine range. After the CustomCraft I got a couple of Coiler AM boards with slightly bigger-than-normal-AM noses and tails; they're a lot narrower than the CustomCraft (21 and 17cm) but I still like having a freeride-ish nose and tail, and my next board will be similar.

The Surf-Rodz taper (~1.5cm on all boards) is really intriguing.

And so is the suspension they're promoting: http://www.polrdesign.com/newspecs.html

It's always cool to see a new company enter the alpine market, and it's extra cool to see them bringing something out of the ordinary.

[Steve Dold]

but true race stock skis are ususally not

Got it, Bob, thanks. I haven't looked at skis that closely. When you said "Skis have sidewalls" it sounded like you were saying all skis were sandwich construction.

Nate, I thought they had a wider board in there, around 22-23, I'll take another look. I have a hard time understanding how taper effects the ride, I guess I just gotta try one out.

I think it is very cool to see suspensions, new shapes etc. tried. Even bad ideas need to be tried, just to be sure.

[NateW]

Because I like to play with numbers.... I'm guessimating that the effective edge length of a Surf-Rodz board is 25-30cm less than the total length. This is based on the assumption that their noses and tails are a tad* bigger than Coiler's AM boards, which take about 23cm from the overall length. Plugging that, along with the widths specified on their web site, into my calculator** gives the following ranges:

Carve 180 16.9m-15.4m

Carve 170 13.6m-12.7m

Cruise 165 12.5m-11.7m

Those radii are a bit larger than average for boards of those lengths, but comparable to F2's Speedster RS series.

* A metric tad, roughly 0.8 imperial tads.

** Go to http://www.natew.com/ and click the 4th link, the one about snowboard specifications. Then click the "reverse engineering" link on the next page.

[flying_burito]

Everybody has there personal preference on boards. There is no perfect board for everybody, because we all have different riding styles.

The funny thing is that this site was mentioned to us less than 48 hours ago and we have already dissected there product and ripped it to shreds. We are some mean, die-hard snowboarders.

Hope to be able to ride with you all sometime. Till then have a good christmas. Can I still say christmas in today's day and age.

[D-Sub]

I was thinking the same thing, definitely, but...our criticisms have been legitimate. the sight almost completely focuses on how "cool" they are and leaves so much information out regarding the actual product. not a single mention of anyone having actually ridden the board even!