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Snowboards

Nidecker Tracer 2021-2022 Snowboard Review

  • Price: £450 / €450 / $470
  • Category: Freeride + Powder
  • Sizes: 153GL, 153RL, 157GL, 157RL, 161GW, 161RW
  • Flex: 8/10
  • Shape: Directional Asymmetric
  • Profile: Camber
  • 3D: No
  • Base: Sintruded

There’s a classic line in the Tarantino movie Jackie Brown, when a gun-dealing Samuel L Jackson is talking about the AK47. “The very best there is,” he says. “When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherfucker in the room, accept no substitutes.” Replace “kill every motherfucker in the room” with “carve the fuck out of the mountain” and you have the perfect description for this other lethal weapon: the Nidecker Tracer.

“Replace “kill every motherfucker in the room” with “carve the fuck out of the mountain” and you have the perfect description for this other lethal weapon: the Nidecker Tracer”

MORE INFO:
NIDECKER.COM

Who Is The Nidecker Tracer For?

People who like to go fast and get low – and who think switch riding is overrated.

Shape, Profile and Sidecut

A pure asymmetric snowboard is a thing of beauty indeed, and that’s exactly what we have here. The Tracer is directional in shape, with a long offset nose and short stepped tail, and features different sidecuts on each edge (the radius of the heel edge is tighter to improve carving ability on your naturally weaker side).

Observant readers will have clocked that this means regular and goofy footers can’t ride the same board. Instead, there are specific versions of each length depending on your leading leg. Naturally, this also means that the board is challenging to ride switch, but the upside of all this asymmetry is flat-out brilliant performance in your normal stance. Seriously, toeside and heelside carves feel like you’re on rails. And since most of the volume is towards the front, the Tracer is no dog in powder either.

From the side, it features a classic camber profile. Frankly, we wouldn’t expect anything less on a board built to carve. Camber is still the best way to keep the entire edge engaged during a turn and lends the board a lively, spring-loaded response.

“Seriously, toeside and heelside carves feel like you’re on rails”

Construction and Materials

The Tracer is built around Nidecker’s Master Core, made from no fewer than four wood species (poplar, beech, spruce and paulownia) for a great strength to weight ratio that’s fine-tuned across the deck. There’s no carbon in the layup, which is quite surprising for such an aggressively-designed carving machine, but this makes the flex a little more accessible for intermediate riders and up. And in any case, with a triax fibreglass topsheet the board has all the torsional response you need to flick rapidly from edge to edge, while Nidecker’s Absorbnid tech does the job of dampening the ride.

Underneath is their N-7000 ‘sintruded’ base – basically a halfway house between extruded and sintered that uses super hard P-tex with added carbon nanoparticles. The result? Face-meltingly quick performance, even without regular waxing.

The artwork is simple but stunning, with a matte/gloss finish on the topsheet that accentuates the whole batmobile vibe.

“If you want to turn heads in resort then there’s no better way than an asymmetrical snowboard”

Roundup

If you want to turn heads in resort then there’s no better way than an asymmetrical snowboard. The Tracer’s eye-catching silhouette is not just for show, though. It’s a balls-out performance design from a company that has pedigree when it comes to the art of turning. When you’re ready to ditch the park and get back to the roots of edge control – on the piste or in natural terrain – then this is the weapon to pick up. The very best there is.

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