Construction and Materials

Shape alone doesn’t guarantee performance in the park, however, and the Rival is specced up with all the right components under the hood too. A full poplar wood core, sandwiched with snappy and responsive triax fibreglass layers give the snowboard a smooth, consistent and reactive flex from tip to tail and edge to edge. Keeping the core free of any fancy carbon additives not only keeps the costs down but ensure there’s still enough playfulness in the tip and tail to get your flat land dialled in.

Underneath, a speedy sintered base retains a ton of wax and keeps the board gliding well in all conditions, so you shouldn’t find yourself coming up short on the jump line any time soon.

“The blunted outline is coupled with a fully positive, powerful camber, so getting airborne comes as natural for the Rival as spinning does”

Roundup

The Jackpot has been a long-standing test team favourite here at Whitelines HQ. It was the first board from YES. to introduce their incredibly effective MidBite sidecut, as well as one of the boards that sparked the full-camber park boards revival in the wake of all the hybrid hype. The Rival doesn’t just occupy this same space in the women’s category, it does so with its own unique shape, and a topsheet design from artist Crytal Legoffe that rubber stamps its identity as one of the best looking park boards out there.

“Like all the boards there is the foreverflex process. The camber on Juliette’s board is not massive but there is a reason for that when she was testing the boards she was only 15 and was like a feather so we needed to make the board with low camber. It’s built purposely for women and not a take me down from a man’s board.”