Location: Loveland, Colorado
Snow Conditions: Snowing with hardpacked groomers to icy groomers to fresh snow on the runs.
Setup: I rode the Salomon Sick Stick with Salomon women’s relay-e bindings and my Vans Omni Focus boots.
First Impression: Does this board have any wax on it? It must have been ridden a lot cause the base has nothing on it.
Size: 156cm
Weight: Didn’t notice at the time.
Flex: Definitely a softer flexing powder board, seemed like a more gradual even flex throughout the board making sense since it’s designed to be freestyle powder. I thought it was too soft and iffy for going faster on groomers. It rode with a very surfy feel to it and a couple slashes I did on the sides of runs were fun and I could ride in the backseat without losing edge control over the board.
Turning: It was a really easy mellow ride, didn’t take much to go into a turn and on edge I could hold a turn but it felt like I was riding a smaller board in turning that I actually was. It was predictable in the turning with no surprises. I took a couple turns of steering with my back leg and found that a lot of fun on the board. In the slight amount of powder that I had, turning was a dream, very surfy and cruiser style.
Stable: I didn’t feel as stable when hauling on the hardpacked groomers, definitely could feel the snow as I rode it…any bump on the groomers I felt it.
Powder: In one of the pictures below, you can see how much powder and the lines I took with the Sick Stick. It handled the best in the powder and even though there wasn’t much, it floated and was fun to play with through it.
Switch: I kept it to riding regular on the groomers, no switch riding on this board for me.
Overall Impression: I was bummed that the base was dry, just skating off the chairlift I would get stuck and not even make it to the strap in area. It definitely could have been faster and I blame it on the lack of wax.
The board is super environmentally friendly, it’s great to see more companies picking up being more green. At the same time I give props when needed and Arbor is the company behind using bamboo before Salomon touched it.
Finally on the board itself, it was a very surfy feel down the mountain. I definitely would love to ride it on a all powder day…versus groomers with a tiny bit of powder in one spot.
Shay’s Honesty Box: “Ride groomers all day, play in the pipe, or shred powder, this is your one-board quiver answer” is the description I’ve seen for the Sick Stick…and I would never ride this board outside of powder and eff no to riding it in the halfpipe.
Salomon Sick Stick Description
For more information on the Salomon Sick Stick go to Salomon’s website.
hoon
November 17, 2008 at 1:15 pminteresting. i wonder how much of your “instability” was due to the relays. i’ve never been a big fan of them, but that’s just personal. definitely arbor gets the props, but i have to say i think salomon beat them in terms of the level of enviro friendliness based on what i’ve read… but yes props to arbor for being a front runner. i hope this ups the ante for the others. sick stick noboard would be a good call.
qazrew
November 17, 2008 at 2:21 pmspeaking of arbor… whats your take on their boards i wont be able to demo ANY boards until december but they look really interresting. particulary the crossbow and wasteland…
qazrew
November 17, 2008 at 2:35 pmoh, just saw your comment in the chatbox 😉
Shayboarder
November 17, 2008 at 2:43 pmI question the relay’s as well but I rode them on the sanchez and didn’t feel unstable from that board.
I wanna try noboard but man…I’d definitely try it in the backcountry, wide open backcountry.
In the 07/08 review I rode the Alt which I liked. Arbors are tough to demo so I’ll be trying to track down which shops have them for demo this year.
Joshua Smith
November 17, 2008 at 3:22 pmAnyone ride the salomon official yet?
Anonymous
November 17, 2008 at 5:17 pmLame review. It’s not your fault though: it was the conditions. This board belongs in the San Juans charging lines at Silverton.
Shayboarder
November 17, 2008 at 6:07 pmOfficial is coming…
Yeah I’d love to ride the board in powder and despite the whole all mountain description, I disagreed with that. I’ll try to get it on a powder day…cause man it’d be fun.
hoon
November 18, 2008 at 11:29 ami was thinking about this a bit more… i think part of the slow wax may be because the factory wax they use is a green wax. not knocking the green stuff, but it’s still new.
re: shape and halfpipe/freestyle. i look at the shape and it reminds me a lot of the burton …5. granted the …5 has a more centered stance but it is similar in the shape of a double pintail. the …5 was billed as both a freestyle and pow board in a ~155 length. man i wish i had one of those.
Shayboarder
November 18, 2008 at 1:50 pmDefinitely could be, I figured it was a popular board and no one had waxed it recently. It was the slowest board of the 2 days of demos but I blame the wax.
Anonymous
February 12, 2009 at 10:17 pm….once again – this is a men’s board. You are a woman. Hence, you are not the target market. If the base is slow just wax it – it’s a sintered base so it should fly with a bit of wax on it. Nice review though.
ps. Sal Official is sweet!!!!
Shayboarder
February 14, 2009 at 3:01 pmSo because I’m a woman…I’m limited to only women’s boards that are too small of sizes for me? I’ve been riding men’s boards and owned them since before women’s boards existed. A snowboard doesn’t care if you are a man or woman…it matters if you have the strength to ride it and it suits you. The difference is narrower and the flex is softer for women.
Yep the base was slow because it wasn’t waxed, it was a demo. I certainly don’t have the money to go wax every demo board I ride during demo days.
BisQ
February 2, 2011 at 11:08 amlol, that’s a good answer!
nice review. We all can guess this is a powder board. It is also interesting to know how it behaves in other conditions though.
I have Relay’s and love them… in the park or on jumps and pipe. In the powder, I prefer stiffer bindings.
Thanks for the reviews and keep on the good job!