Gnu Park Pickle or Lib Tech Skate nana?

to be honest, before this thread, all I knew about the banana was its name. Sounds like a pretty wicked board. Judging from what others have said, its not limited to only excelling at freestyle?
Have you ridden it Rider? would this board still suit your riding (I’m guessing you’re more into freeriding)?

Hey Dan, I have tested a lot of reverse camber boards, including Lib Tech. The Skate Banana is essentially a freestyle board. However reverse camber has also been proved effective for powder (giving you float). In my honest opinion, reverse camber isn’t well suited for typical freeriding. My preference is definately camber for freeriding. Have a read of these threads: Camber or Rocker and Rocker VS Camber.

All that said, I have just ordered myself a reverse camber board for next season. Reverse camber is a lot of fun, and definately has advantages for some elements of riding.

If you have any questions let me know.

I had a quick look at the new banana in a shop the other day and i was a little put off by the look of the V rocker.  It looks like the board has just been bent over someones knee, its not a subtle progressive edge at all.  Also i’ve heard that people have found that when landing spins in the park that a lack of edge grip at the tips means its easy to have to revert on landing.  I have never ridden one but i’m seriously thinking of getting one (or perhaps the pickle) and would be keen to hear from someone who has tried this board spinning off jumps.

Funny that you mention reverts, didn’t really know what they were till only recently and just figured that it was actually better to off a 180 to spin straight around back to normal stance.  On my directional camber Rossi prior to this I found I was doing it without thinking about it on frontside 180’s and backside 180’s I would revert even faster.  It’s kinda hard for me to compare because I have been progressing pretty quickly, working out that revert was a bad thing and then getting tips on how to avoid it.  Now on straight hits frontside I can avoid it completely, side hits and backside are a little harder.  Could I tell you definitively that the Banana makes it harder or easier to avoid reverting, I dunno, my skill level has gone up some since I started riding it and I haven’t been back on a directional since I started on it and probably won’t for some time.

I think I have had my priorities a little mixed up when it came to what I was trying to do on a board, got front 1’s down and then straight away wanted to do front 3’s, did a couple but mostly flukes I would say.  Ate shite a couple of times and started looking at the possibility that it would be better if I got all the basics sorted prior to trying stuff like that.  Kinda like trying to airs surfing without first being able to lay down a proper bottom turn or a decent cutback.  The banana has made some stuff incredibly easy, coming from a surfing background with some skating thrown in, riding switch is a pretty foriegn concept, yeah I can do reverses and 3’s surfing but time going backwards is minimal. 

The last 2 weekends up the mountain I concentrated on riding switch and got to a level of comfortableness with it that amazed me.  Decided that I would concentrate on getting switch back and front 1’s down before I went for a full 3 again.  It’s weird that I front switch front 1’s to be harder than backside at the moment.  I’ve kinda crapped on here for a little bit, probably stuff that should be in rider progression but anyways.

Learning to ride switch can be exciting like how it was when we all made our first turns.
good to hear you are stepping back a little to focus on some basics. That is important to do and something that a lot of newer riders dont value.
I always thought that a good progression is FS1 then BS1, before 3’s.
It is so obvious that your background is surfing with expressions like “a decent cutback” and ‘I can do reverses”.

As for the banana and other rocker techs contributing to more reverts, yes in part.
Those shapes like Signal Snowboard’s Triple base technology and Burton’s Scoope nose (on the Fix) that actually lift the contact points off the snow would indeed contribute to reverts. and the ‘normal’ rockers and bananas less so, but they do a bit, yes.
I guess the point that I am making is that it will occur with some boards more than others.

After all that, I do believe I have made the decision to but the 156 LibTech Skate Banana. I am as curious about the banana rocker tech as I am about the Magnetraction. I know that if I hate it, it is the best selling board out there right now and I could resell it easily for a decent amount of what I bought it for.

I will be sure and report on how I feel it handles on snow.

awesome snowslider, looking forward to the report!

There is a lot of talk about the skate banana and i’d love to hear what you think slider. Looks like another trip to the snowflex centre is due then?

Any excuse to get to the Snowflex Centre, of course!
But the assessment of the banana on the snowflex wont be a fair report. I will have to get on snow with it and that could even be until December. It depends how son I can get up there and when they open. They generally open around here mid to late November.

Just to fill everyone in on the possible purchase of the Skate Banana.
I have decided to NOT buy a new board this season.
I might buy it next season.
I spent a bit of $ on softgoods this season, so I decided to hold off on a new board until next year.

With a new baby and all, I’m not sure how much riding I will be doing.
But a year from now I may have 2 babies… who knows!