boardwidth boot1 Board Width, whats it to ya?

I think most people would consider board width to be a matter of personal preference. There are the obvious cases when the sub is very thin and the top deck is very wide, or vice versa when the sub is very wide but the top deck is narrow, that problems can arise. With the first case of the sub being dwarfed by the top deck you can have problems with the deck dragging on the snow when carving. This takes away leverage from the sub edge plus limits it from digging in any deeper. The other case of a narrow top deck mounted on a wide sub creates a lack of leverage or a diminished amount of force onto the ski. These both are pretty obvious examples of extremes and while they can create problems they wouldn’t necessarily make it impossible to ride, just a bit harder. So far I’ve got two widths in production, a 10. 1/4 POWDER and 9.3/8 ALL MOUNTAIN.

board width compare1 Board Width, whats it to ya?

The benefit of a wide board in powder is that you reduce the drag created by your feet when carving. Also it creates more surface area which helps keep the tail from sinking so much on drops. This is especially helpful when running a short tail like on the Florida powderskate 125. The advantage of a narrow deck on a narrow sub is that you can lay it over more on hardpack carves without bouncing the top deck off the snow.

boardwidth lib ralston Board Width, whats it to ya?

Check out the size difference in the Lib tech 48″ and Ralston 41″. There’s almost 1.3/4” in the tail alone. While that’s not a huge number it does translate into difference in of leverage and float. Running a 10.1/4 wide deck on the Ralston would be an overkill and limiting unless you had a really high truck height. Running a 9.3/8 top deck on the Lib tech would be fine unless you really needed some leverage for carving ice. But if that was the case you probably wouldn’t have your powder skate loaded.

So when choosing a deck width the things to think about are first; personal preference, second what type of terrain will you most likely be riding and third how many subs are you hoping to mount to it. If you want to run both narrow and wide subs then a 9.3/8 top deck is best but if you only want to hit the pow… the bigger is better.