Review: Lib Tech Skate Banana

Now I´ve done some serious riding on this years version of the skate banana. So here´s the verdict. It´s as smooth and snappy as my older Gnu Riders Choice. Much lighter and a bit snappier.

Snowboard: Lib Tech Skate Banana 156
Setup: Flux Super Titan bindings & 32 Leashed boots
Conditions: Some pow, some trees and lots of snow. Not too hard packed groomers.

The first thing that struck me is how the board looks kind of small but it really rides more like a longer snowboard(158 or even 160). So it was kind of hard at first to adjust to the stability and feel of the board while seeing how short it was.

Super grippy edges
This board, or maybe it´s just the banana technology, really loves the pow and all sort of fluffy snow. Maybe it´s because of the new and sharp edges but I hard some problems with getting “of the edges” on hardpacked groomers. It felt as if the board always wanted to make a turn. The magnetraction sort of forced me into turning. Saying so it had no problems whatsoever holding an edge. The grip is marvellous. But still I´m going to have to detune the edges. A funny thing is that I had no problems at all with “to grippy edges” on my old Gnu.

Beside the fact that the board always wants to stay on the edges it feels really stable. Even at higher speeds. I´ve read some reviews that are talking about the skate banana as a freestyle board. For me this board is perfect as a all mountain board. It´s hard to not compare it with my Gnu, and in that way the skate banana is lighter, more flexy and overall more fun.

What really makes this board stick out is how easy it handles pow and softer snow. A great board I would recommend to anyone any day.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 15th, 2008 by Johan and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Back to frontpage