Impressions out of the Box
This past week my new 175 Swoard Dual arrived, beautiful top sheet and first class fit and finish. When flexing the board, by grabbing the nose of the board and pushing your hand on the middle of the board, the flex seemed pretty soft. I am guessing that many riders will use soft boots with this board, Jacques and Patrice included, but I have been really looking forward to seeing how the Dual will respond to plates and hard boots.
Set Up and Conditions
I mounted up my Dual with F2 RS-Carves, the very soft plastic bindings designed for lower stance angles (in the low 40 degree range was where I started) and my Northwave boots. It was a cold day, -20C with a wind chill making it colder. The snow was very nice, 10cm of fresh fluffy powder from a few days ago and hard packed lumpy bumpy stuff and a bit of corduroy here and there.
First Run - Too Much Fun
I took a cat track picked up a bit of speed and dropped into groomed run with a hard leaning larger radius frontside - backside turn combination. Literally after these first two turns of my first run on the DUAL I could instantly feel the Extremecarver inspired flex, feel and edge hold. It is just amazing how such a wide soft board had such fantastic edge hold. Did I mention that the edge hold was just excellent. Even when a bigger guy like myself decide to push hard into a turn, the support of the turn was great. At NO time did I ever think the board was too soft or too wide, it was just so easy and so damn much fun to ride!
Versatile Push-Pull Dream
I hoped this board would be fun and easy to ride, it exceeded my expectations! I am an average weekend warrior, tired legged, old school long time skateboarder (started in the late 70's) and snowboarder (started in the early 80's). I mention this only because I want to point out that I use, and have used for a long time, the rotation-push pull technique(s) regardless of the snow conditions or board I am riding. For me the feel of the flex and edge hold, when using the rotation-push pull technique(s), is just a dream!
Backside ECing on a Freeride Board
The most amazing thing to me is the DUAL's ability to do a full speed backside EC turn on a board that has a very traditional freeride shape and still have a softer flex that is also great in powder! This is the first freeride type shaped board that I have ever been able to do a full backside EC turn, ever! I have found that many freeride boards were able to to a frontside EC turn, but did not have the edge hold to do a backside. I have never understood why this was the case, seems like if the holds on one side it should hold on the other. It was so much fun to have great float when doing a few powder turns off piste, soul carve on piste, then pull off a full backside EC turn in front of the lodge.
Dual - Great for Riders New to Hard Boots
I wrote the following thoughts some time ago when thinking about the DUAL, I believe them to be even more turn after buying and riding the board. For the soft boot rider, who is interested in hard boots but has never tried Alpine, the DUAL is a great option. This type of rider can buy a Dual, use soft boots everywhere and experiment with hard boots and freecarving without having to fully commit to an alpine board. This type of rider has probably seen the Swoard movies and may be interested in extremecarving. Because the DUAL is capable of doing fully laid out turns, the rider can practice doing one or two laid out turns on equipment that won’t let them down. Next the rider can get a better idea as to whether they like ECing enough to buy the Extremecarver.
Micro Hill to Big Mountain Alps
I have read countless posts from riders in areas where their local runs are narrow and moderately steep, I too have two very small and narrow resorts a few minutes from my home. In narrow type of terrain the 13m sidecut of the Extremecarver can be a bit much for a new to hardboots rider. The 10m sidecut of the Dual is a very nice fit for carving it up with room to spare in hard boots on a narrow run for the new or experienced rider. Within a few hour drive I have big mountain riding with a lot of powder, similar to the back country terrain where the Dual was developed. The back country freeride shot in the movie Carved shows how well the Dual works in big mountain of conditions.
Hard Vs Soft Boots
When seeing J&P riding their home terrain in the Swoard videos, the two board quiver that Jacques and Patrice have developed makes perfect sense. The Extremecarver+Hard Boots for the wide open steep groomed slopes and the Dual for Soft Boots and Powder. It would appear that the Dual is a soft boot designed board that happens to be very good with hard boots. In the riding days ahead I am going to mount my soft binding set up on the DUAL and give it a go. In powder I am a soft boot believer, in mixed conditions I am still having trouble deciding whether soft or hard boots is the what to go. I had so much fun riding my plates on the the DUAL, that it may be awhile before I get to around to mounting my soft boots for a demo.
Great job Swoard team, a high quality board that many will love to ride.
Cheers
Rob
