These things are beasts! and im not a big guy, at 6’2, 135 lbs (yeah I’m mad skinny, its annoying). So i had my doubts about how well id be able to handle the condors.
Well, as everyone knows, there was mad pow in the east coast tonight. About a foot or so. Perfect opportunity to bring out the Condors.
I strapped them on at the lift, and took a deep breath as i boarded the lift, to a comment of “where in the world did you buy those snowblades, they’re massive” from the lift operator.
I got to talking to a snowboarder on the lift, who was in awe of the size of the condors, and he was interested in seeing the rest of the boards. I gave him a business card and told him there were many pictures on the forums of most of the boards. Now it was windy going up, and the wind was catching under the boards and pushing them up, the condors were wanting to fly. I exited the lift, and traversed a little on the way to “green/blue” runs, which were covered in powder and basically, skier mad moguls, piles of powder that were pushed by boarders and skiers, then packed down by people going over them, then more powder on top. They were so much fun. I would hit one, pop up my tips, have my tails be planted, then bounce into another one. The flex on these made for fun shredding in the powder.
There was also a steeper trail that most of the powder blew off. I wanted to see how they would handle steep hard pack. I was surprised, i kept them mostly on edge, and the hold was tremendous, no skidding out or chattering, just bouncing over the occasional powder pocket, and carving up the hard pack. They went above and beyond my expectations on hard pack. But where these behemoths really opened up on the powder. These condors have gone above anything i could’ve ever thought they would do. I was using my height to really drive into carves, and really ride these aggressively, which they responded to amazingly. If i had any advise for riding these, it would be stay on edge and carve, and really put your weight into it.
Thanks Brett Connor for the inspiration and help with choosing the condors. Great all around board.
Rider – Rob Kraebel – Intermediate Skiboarder