"According to Hansjürg Kessler, the most important component of the boards' success is the KST shape ... with a totally revolutionary nose shape, camber profile and taper to ensure fantastic edgehold as well as incredibly efficient and smooth turn initiation and completion."
and
"Unlike other board designs, which can overpressure the tip and tail during a turn (exhibited as a tendency for the nose to "dive" or "plow" during turn initiation, and the tail to "hook" at the end of the turn) ..."
The funny thing is if you watch Seth Wescott's qualifying run and Nate Holland's final run there appears to be some hook and spin out. Unsure if it was the board, the amazingly crappy conditions ro a combination of the two but if there ever looked like a moment for a traditional camber Jamie Lynn Phoenix, Burton Custom X ... that would have been it. A word to Kessler $1400 is a steep price tag to stay in the shred stick arms race every 4 years.
I was amazed at these boards as well. They looked so damn awkward. But then again their whole style was awkward. Even so it was still pretty fun to watch.
ReplyDeleteThe board in the top pic is actually an Oxess Snowboard. They are the Swiss rivals of Kessler.
ReplyDeleteThe shape of the decks look goofy but mostly in the nose and tail profile. They really just look like widened freecarve decks. The construction sounds similar to high end skis with titanal under the top sheet for more rigidity and pop. Seeing as you'll never ride pow on these things you don't need much in the way of nose or tail so I get why it's blunt. I'll agree that they look wonky, let's be honest it looks like the riders made them themselves 30 minutes before the race out of some doors they swiped from the hotel, but then again who knows more about high end winning ass decks than someone like Wescott? If a regular board was up to it you can bet your ass he'd be riding it.
ReplyDeleteSomething I can't figure out is this. Why are Kessler, Rad Air (snowboard company in Europe) and Gnu all selling the same Fastec binding? what is the link?
Oh another quickie. Kessler boards are pressed out of the Nidecker factory. My feeling is that these are very much a niche board looking at super high quality and low volume catering to the high end of slalom and boardercross. Take a look at yer hole patterns on these. Some of them have all of 1 stance width option. again I think it goes back to custom ordered decks. They did look really flexy though.
ReplyDeletethey look like an old school avalanche board
ReplyDeletethey look like an old school avalanche board
ReplyDelete