A bonus treat from the Timeline series: join Xavier De Le Rue in his cave as he makes a split board:

Using a Voilé kit and a handful of other tools, Xav turns his beloved Rossignol stick into a split, in order to have that same feel when he goes splitboarding. How he makes boards is similar to how he rides them – doing an awesome job whilst staying really mellow and making it look easy. Check back here soon to see what he does with it!

UPDATE: After we posted this, a Whitelines reader got in touch with his own splitboarding story! Over to Stuart Blick…

Hey, I saw your link to Xavier de la Rue Building his own splitboard and thought I’d share my experience from this winter. These pictures are of the 3rd board I ripped in half trying to make a splitboard! I used a Voile kit aswell, here’s how it went….

The first board was a Bataleon Hero I’d had for a while, sacrificed for the purpose of practicing cutting in a straight line. One of my favourite boards, died for the greater good….

Second: A Nitro Legion I’d bought half an hour before sawing in half. Paid a whole 150 euros for it, excitedly cut it in 2, and…. ‘Shit, it’s made of foam’. Long story short, screws and bolts don’t like foam, do your research better than I did!

Third board: An ex-rental 164 Santa Cruz Jean Simmon (think that’s spelt right) bought for 40 bucks. Sawed it in half (thank hell it was wood this time), Spent the afternoon drilling, glueing and getting confused, and a bit of glue drying later…. I have a splitboard!

Yes, it was a total pain writing off boards, but the building part was a lot of fun and I’m left with a snowboard that I took from the back of a rental shop gathering dust, and turned into a board I absolutely love. I’d recommend doing this to anyone!

Cheers, see you in the backcountry!

Stuart Blick