Know your kit
What actually matters
when you’re choosing
Buying your first board, or replacing one you’ve outgrown? It comes down to five decisions: length, flex, shape, width and camber. This guide works through each one in plain terms.
What this guide covers
- Picking the right length for your height and weight
- How stiff your board should be
- Directional, twin or twin directional
- Whether you need a wide board
- Camber profiles
Where to start
Graphics come last
Boards come in a bewildering range of shapes, sizes, profiles and colours. The colours are the one thing that won’t affect how it rides. Get the length and width roughly right for your height, weight and boot size first, then match the flex and shape to the kind of riding you actually do.
One thing to hold in mind throughout: very little of this is fixed. The categories below are useful for narrowing things down, but every manufacturer defines them slightly differently, and a lot of the final choice comes down to personal preference. Treat the ranges here as starting points rather than rules.
If you’re still unsure after reading it, send us a message. We all ride, and we’d far rather talk you into the right board than sell you the wrong one.
Step one
What level are you riding at?
Your experience has more bearing on the right board than anything except your size. Be honest with yourself here – a board that’s too demanding will hold you back rather than push you on. Most people sit somewhere between two of these rather than squarely in one.
Beginner
Never ridden, or up to a couple of weeks on snow. Still working on linking turns and stopping with confidence.
Intermediate
Linking turns comfortably across most pistes, and starting to ride switch, hit the park or venture off the groomed runs.
Advanced
Comfortable at speed and across most of the mountain, riding switch, and happy enough off-piste or in the park.
Expert
Years of riding, at home on steep and difficult terrain in most conditions, and pushing a board hard enough to find its limits.
How this maps to our listings. Every board we sell carries an ability band – Beginner–Intermediate, Intermediate–Advanced or Advanced–Expert. We use a pair rather than a single level because a board rarely suits exactly one sort of rider, and the pair tells you the span it works across. Place yourself in the four above, then look for the bands that include you.
Step two
What length should I choose?
The old rule of thumb is that a board stood on its tail should reach somewhere between your collarbone and your chin. It’s a reasonable starting point, but your weight matters at least as much as your height.
Too light for the board and you’ll struggle to flex it into a turn. Too heavy and you’ll sink in powder, lose speed, and in extreme cases damage the board. Weight is the number most people forget.
Riding style shifts it as well. Park riders often size down a few centimetres for a board that spins and presses more easily; freeriders often size up for stability and float. Two people of identical height and weight can reasonably end up on boards 8cm apart.
There’s more to it than one measurement. We’ve put together a separate page working through height, weight, boot size and riding style together: What size snowboard is right for me?
Step three
How stiff should my board be?
Flex affects almost everything about how a board handles. Softer boards are more forgiving of mistakes and easier to turn at low speed, but get unsettled when you push them. Stiffer boards hold an edge better and stay composed at speed, but they’re hard work if you’re not yet riding them properly.
As a rough guide:
| Rider | Flex |
|---|---|
| Beginners | Soft to mid |
| Rails and jibbing | Soft to mid |
| All-mountain riding | Soft to mid-stiff |
| Big air and Half Pipe | Mid to stiff |
| Carving and Freeriding | Mid-stiff to stiff |
Step four
Directional, twin or twin directional?
Shape describes how symmetrical the board is from nose to tail, and it largely determines how comfortable it feels ridden switch.
Directional
Set-back stance, with a longer, wider nose and a shorter, stiffer tail. Tends to suit powder and higher speeds.
Carving and Freeride
Twin
Central stance and identical nose and tail, so it rides much the same in both directions. The natural choice for park and freestyle.
Park and Switch
directional Twin
Nearly a twin, with a slightly longer or softer nose. Rides switch well enough while holding its own off-piste. The all-rounder.
Versatile All Mountain
Step five
Do I need a regular or wide board?
If your boots overhang the edges of the board, your toes or heels will catch the snow as you lean into a turn. That’s toe and heel drag, and it will slow you down, unsettle the board and occasionally put you on the floor. The fix is a wider board.
| Boot size (UK) | Width to look at |
|---|---|
| Up to 10 | Regular |
| 9 – 11 | Mid-wide |
| 10.5 and up | Wide |
Those ranges overlap, and deliberately so. What actually matters is how your boot length compares with the waist width of the specific board, and that varies from model to model — two boards both sold as “regular” can be a centimetre apart at the waist.
Your stance angles play a part too: the more you angle your bindings, the more the boot sits across the board rather than square to it, and the less it overhangs. Boot brands also differ in how much shell they wrap around a given size, so two pairs of UK 10s can measure differently.
Mid-wide boards are a relatively recent addition and sit neatly in the gap. They also suit heavier riders who want more surface area underfoot regardless of boot size. If you’re in one of the overlaps, tell us your boot size and which board you’re looking at and we’ll check the waist width for you.
Step six
What sort of rider are you?
Most of the decisions above fall into place once you’re honest about where you spend your days on the hill. Plenty of people sit across two of these.
All mountain
Groomed pistes one run, off-piste powder, trees and moguls the next, with a lap of the park thrown in. Most snowboarders are here.
Twin directional, mid flex
Freestyle
Terrain park, rails and jumps, or the pipe. Splits further into jibbing (rails and buttering), slopestyle (a run of jumps and rails) and pipe.
Twin, soft to mid flex
Freeride
Off-piste, powder and steeper terrain, away from the groomed runs and the park. Wants float at the nose and a board that holds its line.
Directional, mid-stiff to stiff
Step seven
Camber profiles explained
Camber is the curve of the board along its length, seen from the side. It’s the single biggest influence on how a board feels underfoot. Every brand does theirs slightly differently, and most have their own name for it – these are the five main families.
Positive camber (traditional)
The board arches up in the middle and touches down near the tip and tail. Best turn initiation, best energy return through a turn and the most stable landings. The most pop of any profile, because the energy is built into the shape. Less forgiving if you catch an edge.
Reverse camber (rocker or banana)
The opposite curve – contact in the middle, tip and tail lifted clear. Easy to turn, hard to catch an edge and excellent float in deep snow, which makes it forgiving for beginners and fun on rails. The trade-off is edge hold at speed, though Lib Tech’s Magne-Traction and similar serrated sidecuts claw a good deal of that back.
Flat (zero camber)
Flat from contact point to contact point, with only the nose and tail turned up. Catch-free like a rocker but with more pop and a more planted feel underfoot. A sensible middle ground, and a common choice on freestyle boards
Hybrid camber
Positive and reverse camber combined in one board. Combinations vary a great deal between brands – the diagram shows one of the most common, with rocker through the middle for a loose, catch-free feel and camber out towards each contact point for grip and pop. Others invert it entirely, putting the camber underfoot and the rocker in the tip and tail, so it’s always worth reading what a specific board actually does rather than assuming from the word “hybrid”.
3D camber (triple base)
Shown end-on, looking down the length of the board. Rather than changing the curve along the board, 3D profiles lift the base near the edges. The result is a catch-free ride that still holds an edge, with easier turn initiation and better float. Approaches differ – some raise the edges, others spoon the base – and they’re usually combined with one of the profiles above. Bataleon pioneered it with Triple Base Technology.
Buying second-hand
The same rules apply —
at a fraction of the price
Everything above holds whether a board is new or has had three seasons. The only extra question is condition, and that’s the part we take off your hands: every board is inspected by hand, scored out of 10 and serviced before it ships, so you know exactly what you’re getting.
Browse snowboards1 Base, edges, topsheet all checked by hand.
2 Scored out of 5 – and the score guides the price.
3 Cleaned and serviced (if required), so it arrives ready to ride.
Common questions
Still deciding?
As a starting point, a board stood on its tail should reach between your collarbone and your chin. Weight matters just as much as height, and your riding style shifts it either way – park riders often size down, freeriders often size up. Our sizing page works through it properly, or send us your height, weight and boot size and we’ll suggest a range.
Rocker, flat, or a hybrid with rocker between the feet. All three are more forgiving of a caught edge, which is the thing that puts most beginners on the floor. Traditional camber isn’t off-limits – plenty of people learn on it perfectly well – it’s just less tolerant of mistakes while you’re making a lot of them.
Roughly speaking, regular up to around UK 10, mid-wide from about UK 9 to 11, and wide from around UK 10.5 upwards. The ranges overlap because what matters is your boot length against the waist width of that specific board, and your stance angles affect it too. Tell us your boot size and which board you’re considering and we’ll check the waist width.
Every board we list carries an ability band – Beginner–Intermediate, Intermediate–Advanced or Advanced–Expert. We give a pair rather than a single level because most boards suit a span of riders rather than one exactly. If you’re an intermediate, boards in either of the first two bands are worth a look, depending on how hard you want to be pushed.
It is if you can see what you’re buying. Every board we sell is inspected by hand – base, edges and topsheet – and given an honest score out of 5, with photographs of any damage. Ask us for extra photos of any board and we’ll happily send them.
A well-looked-after board will give you many seasons of riding. What wears out first is usually the base and edges, and both can be serviced. Delamination, a soft or dead flex, and deep core shots are the things that end a board’s life – all of which we check for before anything goes on sale.
Boots. They’re the only part that has to fit your actual feet, they make the biggest difference to comfort, and your boot size feeds into the board width you need. Get those right and the rest follows.
Next
Got the board sorted?
Bindings and boots are the other two thirds of a setup, and both matter more than people expect. Our binding buyers guide covers how to match bindings to your board and your boots.