Category: Summit

On day one I broke out the Nomads first thing to give them a try. I only lasted 2 runs before switching to my 120s, this was really no fault of the Nomads. There was a good bit of loose powder on the slopes that day, and I just didn’t want to try out the Nomads for the first time in those conditions. It had been a while since I’d been on anything that short, so I wasn’t comfortable.

On day two I decided I was going to force myself to ride the Nomads all day long, so I only took them to the slopes with me. The conditions were much different from day one. It started out groomed hardpack (slick in spots), and by the afternoon became soft and slushy. The temp got close to 60 degrees and the sun was shining bright. I must say that I had an absolute freakin’ blast on the Nomads. I have an enjoyable and fun time on my 120s, but the Nomads brought me back to the times when I lived in Minnesota only using sub 100cm boards. It took me a little while to get used to riding short boards again. I realized soon to have the boards perform like I wanted, I needed to push them harder. It was great to get back into a gorilla stance and carve these things tight back and forth down the slopes. I was riding fakie, doing flat 360 spins, and even hitting small jumps. All things I seldom ever feel comfortable with on my 120s.

Overall the Nomads were stable at speed, performed very well in the crud, kept a great edge, and were super light on the feet. There were a few times I sunk into the slush and felt like I might face plant, but I don’t think any other board would have performed better. And something else to mention is that these boards are simply gorgeous. When I received them I thought they were green and black, but you get them in sunlight and you learn the black is actually a dark blue. Very sharp!

General Riding
I arrived at Boston Mills at 4:30pm and got my gear on in the parking lot just so I could get to the slopes a bit faster. I got through the line to get my pass, relieved myself, and walked out onto the snow for possibly the most life changing day of my life. I put on my boards and skated, quite easily I might add, to the closest available lift I could see. The skating was something I had already tested out in my yard so I knew it would be easy on the slopes. I got on the lift and rode to the top anxiously awaiting my arrival at the top. When I got off of the lift I tried some basic turns just to get the feel of the board’s edges. I then took a bit of time in the same run to try some ground spins which were really easy on my Rossignol 120 short skis. Ground spins are much different on wide boards than on narrow skis so it took me a few tries to get it all the way around comfortably. I took the rest of the run testing the feel at speed. I bombed the blue hill from half way up to the bottom easily and at no point felt like I was out of control. I was even able to skate at times to build up even more speed to just get the feel and I still didn’t feel like I was a danger to myself or anyone else.
Run two, I have ridden back up and have decided to test to see how easily I could carve at speed, as it turns out, the width actually makes it quite easy to get on edge, so much so that I was laying out carves touching the ground without exerting any effort at all. I did the same run for a few more times just to make sure that I had the feel for it and I moved on to the park.

Jumps
I spent most of the day after the initial test runs working on my rail skills in the park. But before I even tried one rail I made sure to test the feel of jumping. I have to say, again like ground spins, the feeling of jumping is different on wide boards than on skis. I will say this though, before you get the idea that I am saying this feel is better on skiboards than on skis, I am not. I am just saying that they are different. I had a bit of a problem at first just landing straight up because of the size of the jumps being so small and my deciding that doing a safety grab was the best idea to stay stable in air when in all reality it would have been best just to jump and land at first. When I did get it there was nothing noticeably different about landing on skiboards than on skis. There was a mound of snow that people were using like a quarter pipe off to the side of the trail that I decided to try and 180 on. Landing fakie was definitely much easier on twin tipped skiboards than on non twined short skis. Next were the rails.

Rails
This was the first day that I have ever done a rail sideways and landed it, sorry Mark no footy but I assure you it happened. The first rail I tried was a basic down T rail. This was probably not the best idea for trying rails on my new boards but Graham (gracker) pressured me into doing it. I thank him for doing that, and you all see that I did thank him. If not for him I don’t think that I would have done it all during the day. I did a try on it and fell after taking a jump off the kicker just to see how it would feel. After I had hiked and tried again I just rode down to the bottom of the hill and rode the lift back up to try the down rail again and then try the other T rail they had setup which was a flat T rail. The flat T rail is where I found out what I was doing wrong. After two more tries I was able to complete the full 8 feet of the rail. And went the rest of the rail not falling on the rail itself but on the landing, if I did fall at all.

Conclusion
Over all I would have to say that these things are the best pieces of gear I have ever put on my feet and I am ready to work on throwing some real tricks when the parks are really set up and ready to go. I am also ready to get out and do some real glade skiing as soon as possible. I am really surprised at how amazingly I was able to perform on my first day out just because of the extra confidence that I got from having wider boards on my feet. I would say that if you can get these as cheap as I did go ahead and pick some up. I give these things five stars on everything I was able to test which happens to be everything but pow. So I guess that we will have to see what happens when I get a chance to do some of that…mmm hmm.

I haven’t had a chance to ride powder that is why there is no rating in that section or in all mountain.