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Snowboards

Nidecker Smoke 2021-2022 Snowboard Review

  • Price: £595 / €600 / $620
  • Category: Freeride + Powder
  • Sizes:
  • Flex: 9/10
  • Shape: Directional
  • Profile: Combo
  • 3D: No
  • Base: Sintered

If the surf-inspired Mosquito is the equivalent of a fish, then its sister board, the Nidecker Smoke, is a mid-length. It features the same resin tint topsheet reminiscent of premium hand-shaped watercraft, and a similar penchant for carving white waves. To coin a phrase from our surfing cousins, it just goes in more conditions.

“Keen for some surfy turns but want a normal kinda length that won’t seem weird if there’s no powder around? Step this way, sir”

MORE INFO:
NIDECKER.COM

Who Is The Nidecker Smoke For?

Keen for some surfy turns but want a normal kinda length that won’t seem weird if there’s no powder around? Step this way, sir.

Shape, Profile and Sidecut

The first three quarters of this board look pretty unremarkable by today’s standards. It’s a directional shape with a long, blunt nose. OK, a very long, blunt nose. The tail, though, is a stubby thing indeed, with only the shortest of kicks. The Smoke essentially makes the most of its running length, enabling you to sink the back in powder but providing plenty of effective edge on hardpack. The sidecut is less severe than the Mosquito, too, so you can draw bigger arcs down those wide open pistes and bowls.

Camber between the feet, merging to an extended rocker at the nose, keeps your edges firmly engaged during turns but ploughs easily over rougher terrain and of course, it practically levitates in the deep stuff.

“The Smoke essentially makes the most of its running length, enabling you to sink the back in powder but providing plenty of effective edge on hardpack”

Construction and Materials

Nidecker have thrown some of their finest materials at the trio of boards in the Snow Surf Quiver. Exhibit A is the Smoke’s core, which blends poplar, paulownia and beech to give it a lively and lightweight soul with enough strength to please powerful riders. And powerful riders are certainly this board’s obvious audience, since it also runs a damn stiff flex – dialled in through a combination of biax and triax fibreglass. Put the pedal to the floor and, even with that extended nose, there’s barely any chatter.

Looks-wise, the topsheet is a gorgeous matt black/blue resin tint affair that wraps around the nose and tail in a cap construction, but which meets a razor thin sidewall on the running edge (termed ‘Nidactive Sandwich’) to give you hair-trigger control. The underside is less exciting, but that’s because everyone knows that race-grade P-tex only comes in black. Yeah, race-grade.

“It’s a firm, uncompromised design that feels cruisy even when you’re charging”

Roundup

The Smoke is not a board for everyone. But that’s why it’s good. It’s a firm, uncompromised design that feels cruisy even when you’re charging. Taking its cues from the ocean, the shape invites you to perfect your turns and seek flow state in natural contours rather than man-made transitions. Amen to that.

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