Feedback on the Swoard Extremecarver Gen5

[Swoard team]

This subject is following the Feedback on the Swoard Extremecarver Gen4.
The changes made to Gen5 (in construction and performances, not only on graphics for marketing) are summarized in this topic.

The Gen5 is an incredible board, which has its place next to the Pro2, with a character and a vivacity of its own. The difference in riding is described in this post from Patrice. We can also mention that the Gen5 "closes" the end of the turns by itself a little bit more than the Pro2, what is an advantage for those who want to progress in the technique of Swoard-EC (rotations as surfers, and "closed" turns). The Pro2 is more for riders who already know how to pilot their board in EC, and it carves perfectly even on bad snow. But let's be clear: both models are suitable for beginners and experts as well. This is one of Swoard's many assets: versatile boards (broad carving spectrum) while being super-efficient when requested.

Feel free to add your feedback in this thread as it was made for previous models.

The Swoard team

[Swoard team]

We translate here the French feedback from loic who tested his new Gen5 this summer in the longest ski dome in the world (located in Germany).
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So a good dozen descents today. Slope is maximum 25%, 600m long and 20m wide, roughly, between green and blue for track color. These are only first impressions of the GEN5 (with Deeluxe 325).

1. it goes fast, this board! I know where I come in the ski lift, each time I stopped higher, without effort.
2. very healthy and balanced. It's a board for me really easy. I'm used to ride with the gear that comes when I frame students (soft boots), so having to adapt. There the adaptation was made on 5 turns.
3. on the end, I started to better bend the knees in rhythm and there, the 20 m of track width are at once very little. The board gives back everything and much more but still very pleasantly.

I conclude it's a really nice board, it's not at all a beast where you have to find the trick to run it properly. Given what you (the Swoard team) get to do when you manage to handle it in good conditions, it will be for me a board that will allow me to progress upward without ever having a limit on the material.

It's really a great design to be as fun for the beginner as for the advanced users that you are. Really bravo

[fivat]

Thank you Loic for this cool feedback!

I'm glad that you have felt so quickly the strengths and possibilities of the board. You confirm two points, which I take advantage of to emphasize the importance in relation to wrong ideas that we sometimes read in the questions we get:

1) Swoard boards are not limited only to extremecarving
As you have felt, they are very versatile (and showing high performances at the same time: a real challenge that has been taken up), in the sense that they are easy (healthy, balanced) for carving and also for extremecarving, a field where they outperform everything. So even if the team publishes a lot of photos and videos of extremecarving (because EC = Swoard historically), the "normal" carving is hyper-efficient too.

2) Swoard boards are not specific boards, for experts only
Most beginners, like experts, quickly feel comfortable. Paradoxically, some "experts" who are used to riding boards made for slalom, with very hard boots and hyper-rigid bindings, sometimes with very high bindings angles, are a little bit lost at first. There is an effort of adaptation (of technique and material questioning) which is made more easily by beginners who start from scratch. In this sense, the Swoard boards are anything but specific and caricatural boards. "Fun" is the right word.

Regarding point 2), a simple test to do with any board is switching from carving to skidding in various situations: on narrow ways, on the ice, at high and low speed. The specific boards and the stiff gear do it very badly. I think alpine snowboarding has disgusted many people because of that... But that's another subject.

Patrice Fivat