- Sizes:153, 156, 159
- Flex: 6-7
- Profile: CamRock
- Shape: True Twin
- Price: £579 / €609
- BUY DIRECT FROM WEST
If snowboarding is an expression of creativity, you won’t find a more visceral, in your face, depiction than the salacious topsheet of the West Salaz. Move aside Capita – there’s a new weirdo in town.
This is West’s self-proclaimed freestyle toy. Though it delivers across the rest of the mountain, it has been purpose-built for the park. A true twin shape and camrock profile virtually come as standard for freestyle oriented boards these days, and the Salaz follows suit.
It’s a snowboard you’ll be hard-pressed not to judge by its cover. Surprisingly, though, most of the detail is hidden beneath. The wood core is predominantly built up from bamboo – a go-to choice when making a board as light and poppy as possible – but gets some reinforcements with ash and paulownia to keep it braced for impact on heavy landings.
“It’s a snowboard you’ll be hard-pressed not to judge by its cover. Surprisingly, though, most of the detail is hidden beneath”
For keeping the board damp under speed and energised off the lip, West have added a composite of carbon, Kevlar and basalt stringers running lengthways, down the board, to just beyond the contact points.
There’s usually two schools of thought when adding reinforcement to freestyle decks: strengthen then nose and tail and keep the centre torsionally soft, or stiffen between the inserts and leave a little more wiggle room in the nose and tail. The Salaz opts for the latter, resulting in a board that’s solid on edge, stable through its centre, and delivers a decent level of pop, but keeps things softer at the ends for getting more creative with you flatland.
All this makes for a quality all-mountain freestyle performer where nothing’s off-limits. Not even a naked man reaching behind his arse to rudder a pontoon.
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