Welcome norcal412,Fist I must say that I really enjoy answering this question because your post is so wonderfully composed and laid out. Have you considered a career in journalism or writing? OK now I am getting off topic, so anywhooo…OK, I always say this but, width is more important than length. I believe this is especially true in your case due to your weight, boot size, and style of rising (fast and hard carving) — the “wide” width is going to invoke fatigue way too early and when it does you are not going to be able to hold up the necessary angles for carving grip. Then you will wipe out a lot. MY best advise to you is to get a board that is under 25cm wide.Now to length of board. Not as critical, but I would say around 157 to 158cm. If you go beyond that either way, no big deal. More or less, the longer board will give you more fl
Welcome norcal412,Fist I must say that I really enjoy answering this question because your post is so wonderfully composed and laid out. Have you considered a career in journalism or writing? OK now I am getting off topic, so anywhooo…OK, I always say this but, width is more important than length. I believe this is especially true in your case due to your weight, boot size, and style of rising (fast and hard carving) — the “wide” width is going to invoke fatigue way too early and when it does you are not going to be able to hold up the necessary angles for carving grip. Then you will wipe out a lot. MY best advise to you is to get a board that is under 25cm wide.Now to length of board. Not as critical, but I would say around 157 to 158cm. If you go beyond that either way, no big deal. More or less, the longer board will give you more floatibility and the shorter more spinibility. Now when you go with the longer board, it may FEEL too long at first. But actually it will be your fighting against the flow, which is natural human instinct. But once you stop fighting that longer edge and learn to subtly manipulate it using the wonderful control mechanisms of torsional flex, edge weighting/unweighting, turn size and shape, fore/aft pressuring, etc. you will then be riding WITH the flow and thus much more efficiently — washing out less, handling higher speeds and steeper runs, blazing through crud and chop as if it was fresh pow.Of all the control mechanisms mentioned above, the most important to you is torsional flex. Once you master it and what it can do for control of your board, the others will fall into the skill quiver more naturally.The GNU Rider's Choice is a fine board indeed. Lots of new technology and nice graphics, but good luck finding a GNU under 25cm width. This has been a problem with GNU I have had for a LONG time now. To put out such high quality products and then not provide the sizing variety for people is just wrong. GNU is not the only brand guilty of this. It has become a bit of a challenge challenge to find ANY brand board under 25cm in a 156 – 161 length range. Now I COULD be wrong, but I am not. I know the real reason companies make these models so damn wide and it is not because it is what the consumer is demanding for best performance. It is because, although they are “alternative” and “progressive” compared to most industry out there, they are still corporate and so much of the time the “penny for pound” mentality wins out. Their attitude basically is, “Fit as many different riders into the same model as possible, therefore increasing the quantity of potential customers for that particular model”. Making board$ wider increases that number for them, but screws guys with boot size <10 US. I am going to cut this rant short for lack of time right now, but it really grinds my gears.Now, although I disagree with a few of their business philosophies, I give props to Burton for providing a fine variety of snowboards. Here is a list of a few Burton Snowboards that are less than 25 cm waist width:Burton Custom X Snowboard 156 (24.8w)Burton Aftermath Squeezebox Snowboard 158 (24.9w)Burton Econico Snowboard 156 (24.8w)Burton Farm Snowboard 157 (25w)Burton Jeremy Jones Snowboard 159 (24.7w)Burton Jussi Snowboard 156 (24.8w)Burton Supermodel X Snowboard 156 (24.9w)Burton T6 Snowboard 159 (24.6w)Notice that most of these boards are the ones developed by Professional Snowboarders, not desk jockeys. Yes, a notable variety of boards sized for you, now you have a choice of the proprietary 3-hole or the proprietary channel binding systems. Why not industry standard 4-hole binding system you ask? Well, maybe it is so you must use B$ boards with B$ binders (for the most part, I actually use Flow bindings on my Burton Custom) or maybe Big Brother Jake knows what's best for you and that's final. You really think these professional rides are begging for these goofy systems? I think they just want what works. (Frosty now suppressing secondary rant!)Other companies make boards sized right too, they are just hard to find. Do some homework, ask around. Follow your common sense and find something you are confident in. Then ROCK ON!!!Later,FR – 8
