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Lobster Eiki 2021-2022 Snowboard Review

Tested and selected for our top 100 snowboard products of the year: the Lobster Eiki

  • Price: €430
  • Category: Park + Jib
  • Sizes: 148, 151, 154, 156W, 157
  • Flex: 3/10
  • Shape: True Twin
  • Profile: Camber
  • 3D: Yes
  • Base: Sintered

Why we chose the Lobster Eiki Snowboard: It’s quite possibly one of the most confidence-inspiring and stoke inducing jib boards to master (and seriously elevate) your flatland and rail game on.

Eiki Helgason is one of the most creative, stylish, and innovative street riders in the world. So it comes as no surprise that his very own signature pro model from Lobster Snowboards isn’t just the most jib specific option in their line, it’s also one of the best boards on the market for taking to your riding to the park and streets this season. This was a real stand out snowboard for our test team this season, with some of them saying it’s one of the easiest and most forgiving boards they’ve ever ridden.

“Men, women, and youths are all welcome, but the focus on your riding should be almost exclusively set on street, rail, and dome shredding”

MORE INFO:
LOBSTER.COM

Who Is The Lobster Eiki For?

Men, women, and youths are all welcome, but the focus on your riding should be almost exclusively set on street, rail, and dome shredding. Although there’s a lot more versatility on offer here than your typical run-of-the-mill jib deck, it’s by no means an all-mountain cruiser.

Shape, Profile and Sidecut

Many jib specific boards are built around a true twin shape and a mellow flex to make switch riding, pressing and butter really accessible, and Eiki’s pro model is no different. The blunted off nose and tail are designed to reduce the swing weight of the board, so it’s much easier to control your spins and rotations in the air. It’ll also make finding the ends of the board that bit easier when you’re locking it into a press.

Perhaps surprising for a jib-specific deck is the low rise positive camber running from tip to tail. It’s not a super aggressive profile, so it’s still very easy to bend and jib around on, but that full-length camber does give you some additional ollie power when it comes to getting this thing up in the air.

Where the Eiki pro breaks away from the crowd is with its jib specific variant of Triple Base Technology. If you’re familiar with Bataleon snowboards you’ll know all about this already. Starting from just outside the inserts, the nose and tail of the board are broken into three sections.

Firstly, there’s a wide centre base section, which gives you a really stable platform if you’re popping or pressing off the ends of the board, while either side is flanked by two sidebase sections. These have a really subtle uplift which increases more around the contact area and creates a three-step spoon-like shape at the very ends of the board.

It’s pretty obvious how that translates to park riding and jibbing. By having slightly uplifted contact points, the board becomes way more forgiving on boxes, rails, or if you don’t quite get your rotations round on a kicker, but it does so without compromising any of the board’s pop or its stability when you’re riding on the centre of the base. Converts to Triple Base have long sung its praises for all-mountain versatility and performance in a variety of conditions, and while we wouldn’t completely box in the Eiki Pro to just the park line, it’s certainly going to be at its best when you’re taking it to freestyle-features.

“The blunted off nose and tail are designed to reduce the swing weight of the board, so it’s much easier to control your spins and rotations in the ai”

Construction and Materials

The core itself is very soft flexing at a three out of ten, but it’s no slouch in terms of its performance and durability. The poplar wood core is reinforced with hardwood stringers to add some extra strength around the inserts and the biax fibreglass layers won’t overly stiffen the board’s torsional flex, but they do give the core some energy through its length.

The Eiki Pro also features a couple of carbon stringers that run from the heel to toe edge, directly underneath the binding inserts. These allow the longitudinal flex to stay super mellow, but they provide a little added dose of energy underfoot. So, if you’re making some quick adjustments on the run-in of a feature or just want more control at higher speeds, these’ll help with that.

Underneath, the board’s been equipped with a super-fast sintered base – something you don’t often find on jib boards, but that adds some durability and extra speed to the underside of the board. The sidewalls have also been infused with urethane, adding a bumper-like finish down the sides of the board to fend off any big impacts and dampen higher speed vibrations.

“The core itself is very soft flexing at a three out of ten, but it’s no slouch in terms of its performance and durability”

Roundup

Jib specific boards often fall into the trap of trading a soft flex for any real lack of performance in other areas, but Eiki’s signature Lobster snowboard manages to walk that line of a board that’s super fun, intuitive and forgiving to ride but is still built with premium materials and a construction that just goes for day after day of riding in the park and streets. It was a real standout for us this year and remains one of the best boards to push your park riding this season.

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