• 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”

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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.