Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Ride Machete Review


 First of all here are the specs straight from the Ride website.
STYLE: ALL MOUNTAIN FREESTYLE 
SHAPE: ROCKER 
STANCE: CENTERED 
FLEX: 6/10 
DESCRIPTION: The award-winning Machete snowboard features Ride’s LowRize™ rocker shape eliminating hook without sacrificing pop. Cutting through the competition, this go anywhere freestyle twin snowboard combines our Pop Rods® 1.0 for an extra dose of pop, with smooth-riding Slimewalls® and durable Cleave Edge™ for a fun surfy twin built to last. CONSTRUCTION: Thin Con Pop Rods® 1.0 Slimewalls® LowRize™ Rocker Carbon Array 3™ Cleave Edge™ Biaxial Glass Fusion 4000 Base™ 2x4 Inserts

     Allright, first of all I think LowRize™ Rocker might confuse people since it's far from a rocker board, and feels completely different. The board is flatbased betveen the bindings and got a small rocker after the inserts.

Austin Hironaka shreds everything on this board and does it with style, and it's true, you can use this board in any terrain. First impression I got from this board was that it's reeeeally precise, if you stomp a trick in a perfect straight line it will stick to that line. Sometimes it felt like your torso wanted to continue spinning but the board stops you. Straight jumps feel like you don't have to do anything at all. Even if it's really precise the LowRize™ Rocker makes it playful at the same time. But since the flex is a 6 it's not a board that bends that easy, so when doing tail/nose presses you have to push into it abit.

I didn't detune the edges on the board and it still handles really well on rails and boxes. On rails it's where you really notice how stable this board is. On hardpacked groomers it handles well when you really carv into the turns but I felt like if you get abit sloppy the contactpoints won't hold too well. It feels safe and handles well in high speeds. The turnradius feels really wide so you have to get in to cruising mode. In ice I think it's really hard to get a good grip, but then again if you're into riding groomers only I think you should get a camber board.

I didn't get to ride any powder on the Machete so kinda hard to say how it handles, but from watching other reviews it's supposed to handle really well. On slush you gotta me careful not to force the board and try just to cruise since I feel like forcing it might make you loose control of the board.

So to sum this up I would say that this is an excellent allaround freestyle board for an advanced rider, a beginner is prolly better of with the Ride Crush for example. If you aren't into the freestyle stuff this is in my opinion not the board for you, it IS a matter of opinion but Ride has really good all mountains boards for groomers.

When coming to pros and cons I think most of the cons have something to do with stuff outside the park. And as I said, this is an excellent board for everything in the park, everything from rails to big kickers. I almost forgot to mention that this board is great in the pipe aswell, made it really effortless. If you want a super soft jib board or ride mostly outside the park I don't think this is the board for you. But if you're an advanced freesyle rider who wants a board that can handle anything in the park, this is the board for you.

The bindings I use are Ride Rodeo. As you might have noticed from the pictutres and the video I got my Machete from
 
Vide-Oh! ep.5: My new toy! Ride Machete from Vide-Oh! on Vimeo.

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