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Lib Tech Golden Orca 2021-2022 Snowboard Review

  • Price: £720 / €750
  • Category: All-Mountain / Freeride + Powder
  • Sizes: 153, 157, 161
  • Flex: 7/10
  • Shape: Directional Twin
  • Profile: Hybrid
  • 3D: No
  • Base: Sintered

Much like the resplendent Golden Tickets in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Golden Orca is highly sought after, shiny as hell and you’re in for a real treat when you do manage to get your hands on one.

A new addition to Travis Rice’s pod for 2021/22, the Golden Orca takes features from the OG killer whale and marries them with the T.Rice Pro to give this board a slight freestyle twist.

“The Golden Orca is highly sought after, shiny as hell and you’re in for a real treat when you do manage to get your hands on one”

MORE INFO:
LIBTECH.COM

Who Is The Lib Tech Golden Orca For?

You’re probably a Travis fan, but who isn’t, right? You love the adaptability of the OG Orca but your riding is a little more playful. Your freestyle isn’t limited to the park and you’re happier throwing lofty back 3’s off of backcountry features than you are off the kicker line

Shape, Profile and Sidecut

Designed with comps like Travis’ own Natural Selection in mind, the Golden Orca has to float like a dream but also ride switch with aplomb. To get this effect, it’s a little narrower than the standard Orca, with less setback, smaller taper and a different sidecut. But the tail is kinda where the magic happens here, they’ve taken the famous Orca kink and moved it up closer to the contact points, giving you more room to have a flat transition in the tail. The result is a board that’ll ride, and float, in switch as well as it does regs.

The C2x profile sandwiches camber sections outside a shorter central rocker, this middle pivot point can go either way, kicking up the nose or the tail depending on how you’re riding. The camber sections deliver power, aggression, and stability when you’re on the harpack, with the updated MagneTraction bringing that classic Mervin grip to the table for digging into carves and saving your bacon on the ice.

“Designed with comps like Travis’ own Natural Selection in mind, the Golden Orca has to float like a dream but also ride switch with aplomb”

Construction and Materials

Using Lib’s Firepower construction, with a tri-blended wood core to deliver maximum response without a hefty weight penalty, the Golden Orca isn’t quite as tricked out as the Apex Orca, but the price tag reflects that too.
The Triax fibreglass weave offers quick response toirsionally when you’re pumping edge to edge, or reacting to external stimuli on the hill, it’s bolstered with a basalt web to soak up some of the vibrations to ensure the Golden Orca is powerful without being unwieldy.

Every snowboard has a footprint, that’s just the way it is, but you can be sure that everything coming out of the Mervin factory has been produced with zero hazardous waste, and the utmost respect to Mother Nature where possible. We can dream of a perfectly green snowboard, but for now we’ll take this.

“We can dream of a perfectly green snowboard, but for now we’ll take this”

Roundup

‘Fish’ snowboards have had a heyday in the past, settling in as the most popular powder specific decks on the market, but Travis and Lib Tech have come in with their pod of fish gobbling Orca’s to set the record straight. The Golden Orca is an awesome addition to the team, with its freestyle prowess sure to make a splash.

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