“A little background here: I’ve been dying to get my hands on one of these since it was launched a couple of years ago. I had a Cool Bean last winter and even took it to Japan and loved every turn on it. And, from October to May, snow allowing, I try and spend a lot of time splitboarding, so if there was a rider this board was made for, it’s me.

First, breaking the board up and swapping between modes is a breeze. I was initially confused by the lack of tail clip, but once the back binding is on and you see how close you are to the notch of the swallow tail you’ll realise how unnecessary one would be. The best thing by far is K2’s Splitrack inserts; holes in the nose and tail of the skis that give a fixed point of contact for the custom-cut skins (included in the price) and make skinning up far less of an ordeal.

“This would be perfect for Hokkaido – but for the European Alps, or anywhere with steep or exposed terrain, I’d be very cautious where you take it”

Annoyingly, that’s also where the problems start. The skins start to taper as soon as your footprint ends, so you don’t get as much grip as you’d expect – you don’t even get to use the contact points. There’s also a lot of very slidey, sintered base left exposed in front and behind your feet that makes traversing on anything that’s not pristine powder extremely tricky. The big nose rocker, oh so fun on the way down, exacerbates this whilst ascending – there’s nothing pushing down in front to help stabilise you. Rather than skis, these act like big cumbersome snowshoes, without the crampons.

K2 has its headquarters in Oregon, with plenty of gently rolling, volcano-formed mountains, and I can see how the trade off in traversing ability and grip for an easy kickturn and novel toy on the way down would make sense there. Ditto for Japan; this would be perfect for Hokkaido – but for the European Alps, or anywhere with steep or exposed terrain, I’d be very cautious where you take it. For serious backcountry riding you need a tool, not a toy.

The good news: on the way down it’s still a tonne of fun. I had the same surfy turns on thawing corn I’d expect from the usual Bean, and because of the short length there’s a lot less of that feeling of having a board split in half than you’d expect from other models on bumpy ground. It feels solid.

If you already love the original and have plenty of gentle tree runs to play with close to where you live, get one. If not, I’d advise looking for something a bit more serious, no matter how much that makes me sound like the Fun Police.

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