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The swiss snowboard manufacturer Nidecker came to ISPO with a very consistent product range. Nothing to say about the boards, Nidecker covers all the aspects of snowboarding and as a manufacturer can also experiment and propose unique board structures. The NDK boards are probably their best assets, with poppy constructions and cool graphics. Where Nidecker doesn’t make a lot of noise but has one of the best offer in the industry is the binding segment! Check out our pics and powpowpow la Suisse!
“The truth is inclusive, not exclusive, and CAPiTA is the same. You don’t have to be the best snowboarder on the hill, or the best artist in the scene, or the coolest kid in town, you just have to be honest with yourself and love snowboarding like we do” from the Capita’s manifest.
For sure Salomon is the brand which improved its snowboard range the most. Compared to last season, graphics are much more sophisticated and the way they use print and die-cut on their bases is cool!
The binding range gets even wider with a few new Relay models and the fitting of boots stays one of the best in the industry. We’ve taken a short video on their booth, check it out !
Elan Chicas is the best of Elan snowboards for girls. This specific program has everything needed to satisfy the ladies! Light technical freestyle boards with nice topsheet designs, super confortable boots with optional heating system, bling bling bindings. Enjoy Elan Chicas!
The french-finnish brand Aaven – check out our BrOADER[view] from founder Seb Vassoney – was stocked to have a booth at ISPO and therefor made a real effort to design it. It was a success!
Seems that we can say the same for the 07/08 boards which look very nice with a lot of emphasis on the graphics. Make sure to support rider-driven Aaven to help them grow!
Click below to know what bears like to eat on the BBQ.
Icon is exactly the kind of brand we love to support @BrOADER!
A small team driven by their passion for snowboarding, a nice looking board range, original technical outerwear and street wear, a few experienced pro-riders (Tomi Savela, Danny Wheeler, Heppu Pentti are the most famous) and most importantly: they are European! Special thanks to Alain Frei who presented us their new 07/08 collection. Check it out!!
Arbor is a brand which claims the truth Aloha spirit! It is not surprising that they come from Venice beach and that their boards look like the first surfboards shaped in tree’s trunks. Regarding their products almost everything is made of wood: bamboo topsheets, wooden sidewalls, paulownia core, bamboo fabrics for the apparel… The shapes and sizes are freeride oriented, so that while riding big mountains you will feel like Eddie Aikau surfing Waimea! Chaka BrO!
More seriously Arbor is one of the only brand in the industry with a true ecological approach to the production of snowboards, using “fast growing” woods such as bamboo and limiting the amount of epoxy and other chemicals.
Check out part of the 07/08 line!
StepChild is a very young and cool US brand with an impressive team of riders including scandinavian rippers Markku Koski, Fredu Sirvio and Stian Solberg.
In 07/08 they are strenthening their snowboard range! With no complex StepChild is bringing back the fun and disco into snowboarding. We particularly liked the KOOL model which pays respects to one of the coolest snowboard brand of the 90’ies: Look Lamar snowboards. Otherwise they claim that powder sucks…
Make sure to come back to check out www.snowbroader.eu in the coming days, as we still have lots of cool stuff to show you from NDK snowboards, Rossignol snowboards, Capita, Sapient, Arbor, Head, Aaven, Icon, Static, Volkl, SP, Salomon…
The First Legion banners float above ISPO and the Imperivm‘s booth brings you back to the antic Rome. You cannot ignore them! They are so true and their will is too strong.
Demir Julia lives his brand, leads the wolves and fights in the alley 🙂 like a gladiator.
The range of product is getting wider with two new promodels – David Livet & Olivier Cluzel signatures – and a first price entry board under 400E with the Ghetto Civitas. The famous Parabellum and 3DJ stay in the range. At the end, 9 models compose the entire 07/08 offer. Expect high end finitions coz all boards are made in Europe (by Elan in Austria and by a small italian hand manufacturer in Italy).
AVE IMPERIVM!
Last year the K2 booth was “Saloon” style. Lots of cowboys and whisky.
This year K2 came up with a pirate theme. Their pirate boat brang a little fun in the ski area. But it seems like they didn’t cross many fregates on their way to ISPO as their treasure was pretty poor. No really new stuff except some bubbles hidden behind the top sheet and a full inverted camber board just like some of their last season skis “Pontoom”.
On that specific topic you will notice the opposite ways of developping boards between K2 and Lib Tech!! Check out the pics and leave us your comments!
Mr. Marxer was well inspired when he decided to buy HAMMER snowboards from Rossignol last year!
The shapes of the 07/08 boards are almost the same as the present collection but the graphics have improved. Stylish mat and glossy effects on the top sheet, perfect use of printed and die-cuted bases, black&white themes. Wonderful stuff!!
Hammer’s new owner has decided it was a good idea to launch a range of freestyle and freeride skis too. Snowboards and skis are well coordinated, taking the same graphics. Really hard to adapt a snowboard graphic on a pair of ski but they did it well by using asymmetrical decorations. The new hammered team takes full advantage of their agreement with Rossignol: the access to their factory and board/skis structures – the Hammer ski line uses Rossignol’s Bandit & Scratch shapes.
This full collection is so beautiful that Mr. Marxer should have called it like his daughter: Anne-Flore!
The sLOVEne brand Elan – which produces almost a third of all the snowboards found on the European market in their Austrian plant – is becoming a force to recon with. At ISPO they had a very nice booth presenting a very complete range of products including boots, bindings and boards. Elan snowboard is not imposing itself on the scene with heavy advertising. Step by step they are building a name for themselves through innovative products, quality finitions and a good team of riders which includes the likes of Aleksi Vanninen and Anssi Maninen just to name a couple.
The P.lab’s – that’s the name of their snowboard development team – most interesting line is definitly the Artec Project. In 07/08 they are increasing it, adding new models and more sizes. They also improved the graphics a lot. This last comment is true for the whole Elan range.
Producing the boards yourself gives you some advantages other brands who are outsourcing production don’t have. Elan took full advantage of it through their Blue print project which got awarded at ISPO with a “Personal design” award.
Check out what Elan/Artec is preparing for next year!
I remember when I started to ride the Beck’air was the coolest Nitro board, and one of the first pro models in Europe – you don’t remember? com’on it was not so long ago!
Nitro continues this tradition of pro models for the 07/08 season with a complete Eero Ettala signature serie including different board sizes, boots and bindings, but also the third MFM pro model, a Janna Meyer model and there’s even a signature board for brand new team rider and slopestyle ripper Andreas Wiig!
Nitro is really part of the big players in the game. Their board range covers all the type of terrain and riding style, their boots and bindings are high quality. Nitro is in for the win!
So hot right now! Union bindings are the most stylee and good looking bindings on the market today. Check out our pics of the flashy 07/08 range!
What inspires the Lib Tech ExperiMENTAL Division? Who will ever know where they get their w**d from?
But on their ISPO booth some products were looking really strange. 😉
All yellow painted, no camber and an ondulated edge! Is it still a snowboard? The Skate Banana is the new Lib Tech all terrain board featuring the 2 patented technologies : Magne-traction (ondulated edge which improves edge-hold) + Banana (inverted camber between feet and stiffened flex at the tip and tail).
“Because we are not going skiing” will drive Lib to other dimensions…
The other boards in the range are much more classical with only Magne-Traction :). Check it out!
Looking for the widest range of boots in the industry?
Check the DC 07/08 range, and you will find the one that fits you well: every kind of boot is available, from the hyper technical models (double boa-system, air cushion, pump system…) to more classical ones with black leather and simple lacing system.
Regarding the design, choose between camo, flashy colors, all dark, all white, leather look, snake look….
What about the fitting? Always on top, the cross fertilization between skate and snow department is well managed. Just one regret there were no board prototypes…yet.
We’ll have to wait next year but for sure 08/09 will be the beginning of the “BURTON vs DC” battle!
Flow is a serious contender! The inventor of the back entry binding (they have a 25% market share on the binding market!) is preparing a very solid 07/08 range of boards/boots/bindings.
They have an amazing team of riders giving them all the right inputs to improve their gear season after season. Some of their riders rule the contest scene but they also host old-school ‘legends’ such as Xaver Hoffmann and Steph ‘fils’ Routin.
On the Flow ISPO booth, we concentrated on the signature set-ups they are preparing for their TTR stars. Check out Scotty, Risto and Antti’s complete set-ups!
Once again Burton is pushing the limits and turning the industry upside down! There’s always room for innovation and Burton is leading the way. It’s hard to keep up with the leader for the other brands.
The Burton gear range is so wide that while you visit their booth, you almost loose yourself.
For the 07/08 range, Burton even has a special “Andy Warhol” edition to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the artist’s death. A very high end edition which will for sure buzz the market.
The real innovation is the awarded EST system. Two rails in the middle of the board with two inserts each to screw the sides of specifically developped bindings.
The end product is always perfect. Glassy, mat, grip skate aspect. Multimaterial sidewalls with up to five different materials. Perfectly finished and decorated bases. Wonderful bindings and boots lines. Wooow! Respect.
The Burton booth was the most controlled booth on ISPO. No way to take any pics without getting the green light from Brigit Gruber the PR Manager for Europe. But we are now a worldwide famous online magazine 😉 and she let us take a few pictures. Thanks to her!!
Check them out!
APO had a nice booth at ISPO! Check out our pics from all the board walls + the newest Espresso binding.
Régis Rolland and his crew have managed to pull off a very complete range of boards going from the big freeride Apocalypse models to the super park/jibish Selekta. Of course girls are not forgotten with a couple of dedicated boards for them.
Was it 10 years ago or more that Quiksilver first tried to make and sell snowboards?
Well as we annouced and showed you in our Emeric Front itw, Quiksilver has revealed it’s 07/08 snowboard range at ISPO.
Older riders might recognise the “cross and skull” logo that QS used already on their first boards years ago.
The industry giant takes full advantage of it’s new production facilities in Europe to come up with a short board range which looks particularly well finished.
The question is: who will ride these babies next season?
www.snowbroader.eu 2006/07 version 