Is there anything more frustrating than snowboarding on an icy groomer? You know, those days when your skier buddies — hey, why do we have skier buddies anyway? — are cruising around you while you’re trying to get that edge to stick? It’s a fact; snowboards suck on icy pistes, right? Right? Anyone? If this sounds like you on any day that isn’t at least knee-deep powder, then boy, have we — and Never Summer — have got some bad news coming your way.
If you’ve not seen it yet, Never Summer put one of their boards in the capable hands — or at the capable feet — of Nick Larson, Never Summer team rider and all-around carving machine. While that in itself would usually warrant a video watch, they took things to a whole new place, specifically a really frozen one. That place was Georgetown Lake, Colorado, where fifteen inches of ice provided the perfect platform to prove that their edge grip is second to none.
Carving turns on a snowboard is easily one of the most satisfying things to watch, especially when they’re super laid out like these. With a tow rope to get him up to speed and a whole lot of commitment, Larson transitions into the sort of extended toe-edge turn that most snowboarders can only dream of. But he does it on a surface more at home with skates than with a snowboard.
True, he hasn’t put in any heel edge turns — yet — but it’s hard to fault this video as a way of Never Summer promoting their 2024 line of snowboards.
It’s not just all a bit. Apparently, Larson didn’t stand for hours with an edge tool manicuring his board to a point that he could use it for a quick shave before hitting the lake. If you believe everything that Never Summer has written in the video description — and knowing their manufacturing standards and board performance, I’ve no reason not to here — this is an ‘off the shelf’ snowboard. This is how they come, straight from the factory, straight out of the store.
What that means is that you can head out and buy yourself a 2024 Never Summer snowboard next year, and it would be ready to do exactly this. What it probably doesn’t mean, though, is that just because you buy that snowboard, you should go out and do exactly this. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Nick Larson is probably a better carving snowboarder than most of us.
But the good news is that when you’re out snowboarding on the slopes on an icy day or slashing through that crust-on-dust powder, you could trust that your board is going to hold its edge just like it did for Larson on that lake in Colorado.
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