Snowboard Engineering 101
How do camber and rocker affect my snowboard?
If you’re asking yourself this question you’ve clearly graduated to the righteous School of Snowboard Engineering, so welcome to class.
There are numerous rocker and camber profiles available in today’s snowboards and each has a unique influence on how your board connects with the mountain and how it helps you “manipulate” terrain; and while other boards force you to choose one profile, Proteus Snowboards allow you to adjust your rocker and camber in real-time.
Let’s take a deeper look.
Camber Snowboards
Camber engineering is that “arch” shape you see in your snowboard when you lay it flat and it affects the way your board rides in 2 significant ways.
- Edge Control – Camber is your friend when it comes to carving up resort groomers and slaying slopes. That arch makes sure your edges stay engaged and effectively locked in so you can lay down clean, precise turns.
- Board “Pop” – Like having a built-in trampoline, camber gives your ollies a little extra spring with all its preloaded potential energy. Making it an ideal profile for boosting kickers, tagging sit-hits, and nuking knuckles.
Camber can also be effective in powder and trees, often placed towards the back binding for a more directional profile, this allows for enhanced control through the tail of the board.
Rocker Snowboards
Rocker is the yang to the camber yin, reversing the arch in your snowboard so that it rocks from tip to tip when you lay it flat. Aggressive rocker profiles are often referred to as bananas and like its tropical namesake, various rocker profile can help give your board a more surfy feel. Let’s break down some of the benefits of rocker in a snowboard.
- Powder Prowess – The lifted nose in a rocker profile makes it ideal for surfing through deep powder. Rocker lifts up the nose of your board so you can really lean into deep powdery turns and take fatigue off your back leg –Â making you the powder prince or princess you’ve always dreamed of being.
- Buttery Goodness – For you steezy riders and park rats, rocker helps you easily initiate smooth buttery presses and spins, greatly reducing the risk of catching and edge and allowing you to confidently combo your way through the terrain park.
- Forgiveness – The lifted tips and tails reduce the chance of catching an edge, so you can confidently cruise down the mountain without worrying about face-planting every time you hit a bump or transition.
As we mentioned, a full banana’d out board is great for floating through deep powdery clouds, but when the powder isn’t up to your waist, your Proteus snowboard allows you to adjust accordingly for enhanced control in tricky tree lines and other spicy terrain.
Rocker to Camber with Proteus
Here’s how a Proteus board quickly switches between rocker and camber profiles.
We bake our patented adjustable camber & rocker tech into every board by hand in our exclusive Proteus board shop located in the Colorado foothills. With a Proteus board, you’ll never have to settle for an all-camber, rocker, or even a hybrid board, you literally have it all in one board. As we like to say,
“Don’t adjust your expectations, adjust your camber.”