Sticky Icky Icky (SII) First Impressions

[macrophotog]

It is a medium stiffness board, easy to flex in the hand, and the tips are also medium flex, not soft like the Rockered Condor.

Thanks for review.

How would you compare the overall stiffness/flex to the Revolt, DLP, or any other boards that some of us might have ridden for comparison?

[Wookie]

To Greco:

[valmorel]

I have not ridden them set back yet, but here are a few further thoughts.
Back in the day, when the Revolt was the only readily available option, we used to set them up for all mountain use in a very particular way. We would dull the tips/tails for about an inch, and mount the bindings set back about 30-40 mm. This needed some engineering, but the results were worth the effort. The tip dulling reduced hooking and over rotating at the end of hard carves, and the set back improved powder performance immeasurably.
With the SIIs, this is all done for us, and in a much better way. The rocker does the same thing as dulling, but NOT at the cost of some edge grip, and the set back inserts saves the engineering.
With Revolts set up this way, they could certainly handle powder. Not like a Rockered Condor of course, but not bad either. I wrote a trip report on here about a powder day on Revolts, not the two inches of fresh that so many call powder, but the real waist deep stuff, that for so many of us only happens a few times in a lifetime. The Revolts did great. But I used to like riding them best after a fall of about six inches of snow had been chopped up by the skiers. Really exciting stuff.
But I was a bit younger and stronger then[emoji4]

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[valmorel]

I arrived early, just after opening, as I wanted to get a shot at the snow with some fresh on the top. The slope had been groomed and then treated with about 1 cm of fresh.
First thing I found, wow these boards are fast. Wide boards can suffer some from such a wide frontal area, but the SIIs just flew. Secondly, they are so so easy to turn. At first I was over rotating, the input required was so much less than the xls. Once I figured them out, I had a blast.
They don't sideslip as easily as XLs, in fact, the edge grip is just amazing, but the rocker makes them really easy to rotate. This is a really great combination for someone making the transition from skidding their turns to learning to carve. Boards like this make it so easy as they go up on edge in the blink of an eye.
They prefer tight carves rather than huge open sweeps, and flat ground spins are simple.
They also have loads of bite for stopping. Skating is also much easier than the wide boards because the edges hook up straight away.

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[valmorel]

Lengthwise, it is at that 105 sweet spot, a little more of everything without being too much of anything, but less wide than the All Mountain boards. The tip and tail are gently rockered, but the running area of the base is cambered. It is a medium stiffness board, easy to flex in the hand, and the tips are also medium flex, not soft like the Rockered Condor.
There is a built in set back position, but for safety, this is only compatible with the Spruce Riser release binding system. I rode them with a traditional fixed binding mounted centre.
As with all SBOL boards they came lightly waxed, ready to go. As I was using them at Xscape i gave them a coat of Zardoz, which seems to work so well on the aggressive man made snow.

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[valmorel]

In recent seasons, the thrust of skiboard development has been mostly about the search for All Mountain performance and the adopting of new technology, specifically, rocker.
It started with the Rockered Condor, a specialist powder board, then the Blunt, surely the most fun one could ever get in a sub 99, then the Blunt XL, in my view the most versatile board ever, and finally last season with the Spliff, a real powerhouse of a board.
These boards have given us performance and versatility that we could only dream of a few years ago, but possibly because the legendary Revolt does such a great job, the more conventionally shaped Resort Boards have taken a back seat.
Well, not any more! Enter the Sticky Icky Icky.
Probably the simplest way to describe this board is as a Revolt makeover with all the things learned from the Gen 3 boards applied to this timeless format.

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