We have always enjoyed using Never Summer snowboards and for the last 10 years we have used their splitboards for people coming along on our intro splitboard courses here in Chatel.
The splits are hand built and near enough indestructible, which is pretty useful when you’re riding on off-piste terrain – we’ve seen a few horror core shots and total breakages of other manufacturers splits where the NS have only taken a small base scrape.
Our only real gripe to date has been with the NS splitboard profile for more technical ascents.
Any splitboard with a rocker/camber shape is hard to use on steep and icy skin tracks, side hilling traverses as the effective skinning edge is shortened due to the profile. Most experienced splitboarders tend use a regular camber split with a little early rise rocker in the nose, this helps when riding pow in those deep days. The camber provides stability and grip when skinning.
We were therefore really interested to hear that NS have produced a splitboard version of their best selling Proto model. It’s called the Proto FR splitboard and boats a regular camber profile with a little rocker in the nose. It comes supplied with Phantom crossbar clips and Voile nose and tail hooks, it’s a directional twin and looks like a LOT of fun to ride.
We’ll build one up this weekend and get back to you with our first impressions when we ride it. We’ve just gotta let this storm pass on through first!
