I do here the translation of the message I wrote on the french forum a few day ago… My English is not that good, so I apologize for the mistakes.
Well, I tested my superb new SWOARD at the Saisies (French Alpes), during 4 days: 2 days of powdery snow, 1 day of soft and 1 of groomed.
Equipment already tested: numerous Hot boards (Spot, blast, special…), Nitro Gtx & Gtr, F2 speedster SL (thx to Nicolas Huet)…
Favourite board: The F2 SL, quite rigid torsion and a good 10m radius that allows to lay down quite well…
Presentation of the equipment used these 4 days: A brand-new SWOARD 175 Medium, Emery course bindings (in alu, very rigid), a pair of Raichle AF600TS a bit modified (toughened with some P-Tex because they’re too flexible)… A 24 years old rider, 1m85, 74Kg (feet: 45), in love with the alpin riding spirit for more than 12 years, with good legs and a quite sustained riding style.
Feelings on the SWOARD:
To be sincere I’m in heaven
! It has a very good behaviour in deep snow, it’s VERY STABLE at high speed on all kind of snow (‘ve never seen such an easy board to steer), and most of all: it blasts everything on hard snow! For the first time I could lay down completely without loosing adhesion in back side: a real dream to rub the snow with the hip and the full arm… However I have quite big feet (295cm), and I had to put some quite high angles: 55/60° not to rub too much with the boots when laid down. I know, it’s a lot, but I’ll put some lower angles on very hard snow.The tip is very well designed, the board grips on every surface and drill every relief on its way in laid curves; it’s even more stable than in low inclined curves. The SWOARD get the legs involved, and the easier way to extreme curves is to do what Jacque & Patrice call the push-pull technique: when you change edge, you gotta bring your knees up and stretch progressively in the curve – but this is very well explained on the web site – Like this, it’s less tiring and the board follows a very regular sine curve…
However, you really did good job with the SWOARD guys, it’s far and away the best carving board I’ve ever ride, it’s an access to a brand new dimension. When you’re on it, you wonder why such a great thing has waited so long to appear, it’s so obvious!!!
The only remark I would have to do is about the relative fragility of the top deco, so take care of this weapon, because it won’t appreciate that much bad transport conditions, carelessness on the chairlift queue… but its seems like you're not gonna damage it on the slopes!
Another remarkable thing is that the sole is absolutely amazing, it slides best than a wet soap on a mirror, you let everybody behind…
Be careful to what you wear with this rocket: pull-over strictly forbidden because of handles enlargement, even crack
… You need very sliding clothes or your arms will suffer a bit. I also think that it’s very useful to glue some P-tex on your gloves (to prevent rips and excessive friction), as explained by Jacques and Patrice.Well, I hope this advice will convince the hesitating riders that don’t have the luck yet to live this pure happiness.
A mammoth thanks to Jacques & Patrice for this marvellous board and for sharing their passion!
JB.