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YES. Standard 2021-2022 Snowboard Review

Tested and selected for our top 100 snowboard products of the year: the YES. Standard

  • Price: £469 / €500 / $500
  • Category: All-Mountain
  • Sizes: 149, 151, 153, 156, 159, 162, 167
  • Flex: 7/10
  • Shape: Directional Volume Twin
  • Profile: CamRock
  • 3D: No
  • Base: Sintered

Why we chose the YES. Standard Snowboard: One of the most understated looking snowboards that delivers exceptional all-mountain versatility.

YES. Snowboards have given us some of the most exciting and convention-defying snowboard shapes of the last decade or so, but when you take all the cues from these designs and distil them into something a little quieter, more subtle, and less in-your-face, you wind up with the Standard. Right down to its muted monochrome colourway, it makes no attempts to fly its own flag. So we’re going to do it on its behalf instead. This thing absolutely rips.

“This thing absolutely rips”

MORE INFO:
YESNOWBOARDS.COM

Who Is The YES. Standard For?

Close down all those browser tabs you’ve had open for park and powder specific decks sitting in your shopping cart. The Standard cuts the divide between freestyle and freeride performance right down the middle and unanimously received feedback from our test team as being one of the most versatile all-mountain snowboards out there.

Shape, Profile and Sidecut

It features a CamRock profile: a mid-body, 4mm positive camber with 3mm rocker sections outside the inserts. Nothing too special here, that’s a pretty (ahem…) standard profile for this category of deck.

The magic lies in the board’s outline. The contact area of the snowboard (i.e. in between the widest part of the nose and tail) is that of a true twin. The same goes for its flex, stance and sidecut. Tick’s all the usual boxes for a freestyle deck, right?

Here’s where it gets a little different. The volume in the nose has been subtly increased by drawing out the radius from the contact points to the end of the board. This offers up all the benefits in powder, and is virtually unnoticeable back on piste. Pretty smart stuff.

If you want to really capitalise on the conditions once the storm’s rolled through, the Slamback Inserts allow you to position your bindings much further back on the board and further increase that surface area in the nose.

And then there’s the MidBite sidecut. The Standard actually has a pretty wide outline, which gives added stability underfoot as well as that increased surface area for extra lift in powder. In between the inserts, though, you’ll find the sidecut is pulled in drastically.

This gives the Standard its dual-personality. On the one hand, it’s extremely agile and nimble through the mid-section which makes it feel lively and responsive if you’re setting up for park features, or simply weaving a line down a narrow cat-track, but it retains all the volume at the ends which gives it the feel of a much wider, more beefed-up board.

“The Standard actually has a pretty wide outline, which gives added stability underfoot as well as that increased surface area for extra lift in powder”

Construction and Materials

All this shaping is backed up with a construction that’ll handle just about whatever you throw at it. The Standard features a triple-density wood core, featuring poplar, paulownia and bamboo stringers. This makes the board as light, responsive and durable as you’d ever need, while the central bamboo stringers also add an element of pop through the board’s length.

Flex wise, it sits at around a 7 out of 10. The woodcore is sandwiched between more reactive tri-ax fibreglass layers, and this gives the board a slightly more reactive torsional flex. That will be best suited for riders who like to regularly push their top-end speeds and tend to ride with a bit of aggression – which is why the Standard also comes equipped with a pretty nippy sintered base.

“It’s a case of all the simple things being done well, and some out-of-the-box thinking to create a snowboard that genuinely excels wherever you point it”

Roundup

The Standard has all the hallmarks of a modern-day classic. YES. Snowboards have a really impressive lineup of boards for the most dedicated powder hounds and park rats, but the Standard stands out as one of the most versatile offerings in the line. It’s a case of all the simple things being done well, and some out-of-the-box thinking to create a snowboard that genuinely excels wherever you point it. If you’re a confident rider looking for a quiver in one snowboard, don’t drop your standards — raise them.

Trade Secrets

David Pitschi – Brand Manager, YES. Snowboards

“On all our boards and the standard included we use what we call the foreverflex. Foreverdflex is a manufacturing process that helps stabilize the flex and rocker profile of a board for its lifetime. Our boards now finish the first stages of production slightly overbuilt and then we “break them in” using specialized machinery that mimics extreme riding use. By flexing the fresh board fibres and epoxy at the factory the materials settle into their final arrangement within the board layup much the same as if you rode the board for 20 days. This process helps us narrow our production tolerances so the board you buy has a more accurate specified flex and rocker profile that will change less as you ride it more. That’s what we have for the standard, the board is straight forward and you get what you see.”

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