UPDATE: Check out the Best Snowboards Under £350 For 2016-2017 here
As our skateboarding compadres often like to remind us, snowboarding’s an expensive sport. Travel, uplift, warm clothing; even before you make your first turns there’s a lot of stuff you need to factor in, and most of it’s expensive.
Fortunately there is a wide range of boards that come in at relatively affordable prices. They’re all still a fair bit north of your average skate deck, but then there’s a lot more going on under the graphic.
Which brings us on to tech: snowboards at the lower end of the price spectrum naturally feature less of it than their more expensive counterparts. Most feature an extruded base rather than a sintered one, which isn’t as fast, and the core is often made from one variety of wood without any carbon or other synthetic augmentations.
However, don’t instantly assume that means they’re not as good. At all times, think about your own requirements; a Bugatti Veyron ain’t ‘better’ than a Transit van when you’ve got a couch to shift.
“Snowboards at the lower end of the price spectrum feature less tech… but don’t assume that means they’re not as good”
Likewise if you’re not going to be ripping down the corduroy or popping to the moon off the XL kicker line, you’re usually better off with something simple. Or perhaps you’re eyeing up a few stairsets around your home town ahead of the next dump, in which case it’s pointless shelling out for a high-end charger if you’re just going to thrash it in the streets.
Out-and-out beginners should also check out our entry-level boards, but for everyone else these ten are definitely worth a look, regardless of your budget. Remember that whatever you buy, the key is to look after it properly – and one advantage of less expensive boards is that they don’t requre as much upkeep!
All boards are in alphabetical order, other than the category winner which can be found at the end of the list.
All photographs by Sami Tuoriniemi
Production: Ed Blomfield / Mike Brindley / Andrew Duthie / Sami Tuoriniemi
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