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K2 Slayblade review

Saturday, 10. 10. 2009  –  Category: Snowboarding

I’ve been flicking through this seasons gear in the latest Snowandrock catalogue and one snowboard that’s caught my eye is the K2 Slayblade. Only in researching this post did I realise this board has been brought in to replace the K2 Zeppelin - a board with a 13 year history, and generally known as one of the best freeride-leaning all mountain snowboards on the market.

K2 Slayblade

Buy online at the following places:
K2 Slayblade 156 for $549.99 at Altrec, Proboardshop
K2 Slayblade 158 for $549.99 at Proboardshop
K2 Slayblade 163 Wide for $549.99 at Altrec

The marketing spiel initially alludes to a more all mountain freestyle board than the Zep’:

New for 2009/10, the Slayblade is the next step in all terrain freestyle high performance.

..before making it clear to all exactly what the Slayblade’s hreitage is

Two years in the making, the Slayblade is the ultimate tip-of-the-hat to the legendary Zeppelin that defined All Terrain versatility for the last 13 years.

On closer inspection, its pretty clear that the 2009 Zep and 2010 Slayblade share a lot of similar technical spec’s - ICG 20 Base, Hybritaper tip, Setback twin hyper progressive shape and a WH4 core.

The Slayblade also has twin carbon torsion forks adding stiffness and pop, while I believe the Zeppelin had tripple forks. This could be one of subtle differences as far as I can tell, though pitches the board squarely between the Zeppelin’s stiffness and the K2 Believer’s all mountain freestyle playfulness.

So what else is new?

Original Penguin™ styling meets Hybrilight construction for an ultra lightweight, yet refined, board/graphic package. Integrated Harshmellow dampens the vibrations and cushions landings allowing you to constantly push your speed and open up the bag of tricks. Add Flatline Technology for the perfect balance of power and playfulness and you have the most technologically advance, highest performing ATLAS arsenal ever assembled to slay the mountain.

Flatline Technology is new to the K2 snowboard range for the 2009/2010 season. If I understand it correctly, Flatline boards sit between conventional camber and reverse cambered Rocker snowboards, with a totally flat base. The main benefit is supposed to be better float in powder. Does make me wonder why snowboards progressed away from flat bases to camber in the first place if Flatline is genuinely an innovation. It would be interesting to test the effects of this. If anyone has ridden a Flatline board, then I’d love to hear your review in the comments below.

Tags: K2, Snowboard equipment, Snowboards