Here comes the first review of the blog, with a special one for me: Burton Vapor. Not all of my reviews will be positive in this blog but this one definitely deserves a 5 star. I feel lucky for having one of these indeed.
Let me begin with some background on my snowboarding hence you can better interpret the review.
How I started:
Up until this year I have been a skier (for 15 years or so) without giving snowboarding a single chance. In the last couple of years I had the feeling that I reached a plateau in skiing (I'm not trying to say I have become a world champion, on the contrary I realized that I will never win a race even), and decided to try my chances on snowboarding. From the first day I got on a board, it was brilliant, and has become an addiction. Now I regret the years I haven't tried snowboarding. If you like sports and adrenaline, skiing is good but snowboarding is a whole different level. Give it a try, starting with a proper instructor-led lesson and you won't regret!
My level:
During the winter I was up on the slopes more than 15 times, and spent over 200 hours snowboarding on a dozen of different ski-centers, probably tried 100+ runs. Starting from 0, I can say I'm not in a bad shape now - I can do almost all sorts of runs on Swiss / French Alps, all of the reds and not-so-extreme blacks (reds would be graded somewhere close to black diamond in US, and anything more difficult is simply black). I am not big on pops and jumps yet, but those will come next winter.
I started with rentals as most beginners and tried at least a dozen of different boards during the season. As I've become better and better, I decided to buy my own boots, and got a pair of Burton Imperial, which I'll review on a different post. Later towards the end of the season, I came to the point that rentals didn't feel good enough, and the inconsistency in the equipment was really annoying. I did some research on web and first I was considering to buy a Burton Custom X 2012, and Vapor was only a dream because of it's high price (recommended sale price on Burton's website is $1200!). Luckily I found a very good deal in a shop by chance and got my Burton Vapor 2012, with a pair of Burton Prophecy 2012 bindings.
So how is Burton Vapor?
The Vapor is Burton's highest performance and (probably) the lightest snowboard thanks to its carbon construction.
For me The Vapor came with full of good surprises.
First one was the weight. I didn't feel like I was holding a snowboard when I first grabbed it. Holding a 159 cm tall snowboard which weigh as much as a macbook air feels impossible, but it's great help when your carrying it around.
Then I got on the slope, excited and nervous, not able to stop myself thinking "I hope it really makes a difference so that I can feel good about the money I paid". Well, it did, and it did more. My first try was on Tignes, France, on a long red/blue slope. The difference was undeniable. I was convinced my investment more than paid out after first run.
Second surprise was edge-holding. Even though the first half of the slope was solid ice, I felt like locked to the surface on invisible lines. The board edges cut the slope like a sharp blade. You have tons of control on the board despite the ice, you hardly feel any drag during turns and you go faster than anyone else.
Third surprise is the precision. When I was buying the gear I didn't want a very hard setup which could make it a bit difficult. I wanted some flexibility, and some forgiveness. That's why I didn't go for Diode bindings but chose Prophecy, still hard but not the hardest. Having said that, it's still a very aggressive board, and I felt a great deal of precision together with Prophecy bindings. I had a few falls on my first day with the board, because of over-doing some moves. If you treat it like an average board, you will find yourself doing a turn much sharper than you meant to, and it might get you lose your balance. The Vapor and The Prophecy are not on the top in the scale of responsiveness however significantly more responsive than average boards. While you will need some time to get adjusted, you will be able to do your moves much faster with much less effort. Taking sharp turns or small slaloms are made easy with The Vapor. Just be careful not to make them too sharp.
Last but not least, forth surprise is the speed. This thing flies! I can go faster with the Vapor, but not just faster, A LOT faster. I did a torture test on Vapor's speed: In a drag race with my friend on skis on a flattish area, I was able to beat him while he was going straight to the finish and I was doing small slaloms. I never managed to pass a skier before, until the Vapor.
Conclusion:
I tried the Vapor in various conditions. Icy, sloshy or powder. All great. I think I stated all the pro's above, and he only con's I can think of are
a) the lack of color variations / choices of the Vapor, but you don't really care if you're serious about snowboarding.
b) it takes some time to get used to its responsiveness, if you have been using average gear.
If you're looking for a great performance snowboard, it's the Vapor, don't think twice. And if you search good enough I'm sure you can still find some Vapors with end season discount.
Reviewed by: Can Ceran
ceran.c@me.com
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