RIDE MACHETE GT SNOWBOARD 2013/14 REVIEW

If Ride’s Machete is their Ford Mustang, then this beefed up version is the Shelby Mustang GT500 – the car Nick Cage steals at the end of Gone in 60 seconds. It’s a powerful, versatile beast. An all-mountain twin tip with a slight freestyle bias its mid-stiff flex, fast base and combo profile shape help it handle pretty much any terrain type going.

Ride take great pride in the various profile types that feature on their boards, and the ‘hybrid lowrize’ featured here is no exception. We recently quizzed Ride’s head snowboard engineer Paul McGinty, originally a dryslope-riding Welshman who now lives and works at their headquarters in Seattle, on the subject. “We put two years of development put into refining the concept of what camber is and what rocker is,” he said. “We looked at why one is better than the other for some things, what the deficiencies of each are and how we can best combine the two.”

As you’d expect from someone with a background in aerospace engineering, their research was very thorough and their results very specific. They developed various combinations for different terrain types and snow conditions. The multipurpose hyrbrid lowrize profile on the Machete GT has what they call ‘micro-camber’ between the bindings with rocker towards the tip and the tail which raises the contact points slightly. The idea is that you get the catch-free feel of rocker without sacrificing the natural poppiness that comes with a camber shape. Strings of carbon near the sidewalls of the board (something Ride call ‘pop walls’) add further ollie power making this great on kickers.

Our testers also found it felt sturdy at speed, and while the raised contact points don’t carve with the precision of a racing board, they help with float in powder. An excellent all-round performer.

RIDE MACHETE GT SNOWBOARD 2013/14 – VIDEO REVIEW – BY WHITELINES

BUY THIS BOARD AT: granitereef.co.uk, absolute-snow.co.uk, snowfit.co.uk, snowlab.co.uk, theboardbasement.com

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