Mate,
I saw your recommendations on the other thread, if you do buy one I don’t think you’ll be disappointed - it’s a good board. Although I have to say, your Dupraz sounds better! Arbor have made some changes to the side cut and stuff so it might not be quite the same board in terms of performance – might be better.
I was looking to upgrade from my entry level Timeless a few years back and wanted something different that still had some performance credibility. Arbor weren’t selling the Abacus at the time otherwise I might have bought that instead – I like that one a lot as well. Because I do most of my riding in Japan the powder performance is a bigger factor than it otherwise would be, but in all other respects the A-Frame is pretty much everything I’m after. Even in the powder, if I keep my speed up (which I’m naturally inclined to do anyway) I don’t have too many problems.
The topsheet is fragile. Arbor are improving the protection all of the time, but it is something you have to watch out for. It’s a pain and maybe a factor when deciding to buy. There’s no point is a board looking tooooo good. Indigo make a stunning bamboo board that costs a fortune – nice to have framed on the wall but hardly the kind of thing you’d want to take into the trees or stand on in a crowded lift queue.
http://www.indigosnow.de/1_framesets/ind_o_snowb_framset_e.htm The damage? During my first morning on the board I caught a tree root on the tail of the board and when I finally stopped rag dolling and looked at my board I found that I had compressed the edge and buckled a short section of the base between the toes of my rear foot and the end of the board – looked like someone had hit it hard with a large hammer. A couple of runs later I hit something under the snow and put a large chip in the nose - the top sheet doesn’t sit flush with the sidewall so if you run a fingernail along the sidewall from the base to the topsheet you can feel a very small lip where the topsheet joins the sidewall. In the wrong situation is seems that it is possible for this fine lip to get caught and get lifted off – it’s very easy to glue back down but still…. Because I had a new board I decided to splash out on a new set of bindings and was stupid enough to buy the new Burton Fusion – what a load of crap they were. They only sold them for one year and they’ve since disappeared without a trace because they’re the worst kind of shit. The system worked with the top part of the binding strapping to the boot and then connecting to the bottom part of the binding which stays on the board. This is great in theory and worked reasonable well with the only draw back being that when one disconnects the two parts of the binding to skate, your boot has strapped to it a hard metal plate with very sharp edges. After a couple of runs on a lift served run the general stomping and interaction between my boot (with metal cage) and my brand new wood covered board shredded the wood veneer in the area between my bindings. Glue and varnish and a lot of stuffing around fixed most of it but my beautiful “old school” board ended up simply looking old.
I’ve ditched the crap bindings but haven’t really modified by riding at all and didn’t have anything like the problems with the replacement board – maybe it was a dodgy batch or maybe I was just unlucky. It’s a judgment call – I like having a wood topsheet even if it means I have to be a little more careful with the board than I otherwise would be.
. Imagine your fancy new bindings destroying your fancy new board first day out. That sharp metal cage on the skating foot hacking at the top sheet sounds like a nightmare.
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