Review

If your idea of a great day on the mountain involves jibbing anything and everything in sight then the 2017 Arbor Draft snowboard is tailor-made for you. Combining a True Twin shape with a Continuous Rocker and a soft flex, the design team at Arbor provided this board with plenty of cool tech. To ride kicker, boxes, rails and pipes. With this deck, you can start expanding your views on what’s possible with a snowboard.

This board’s continuous rocker is also called system rocker and features a parabolic arc that has more rocker between the bindings and less rocker at the tip and tail. This design not only gives a catch-free feeling on hard snow but also provides a fully engaging edge hold when you’re carving. It also eliminates that washy feel other rocker designs have. Additional contact points near the insert make sure this board grips confidently on icy slopes. On snow, it offers a semi-stable ride with a little freestyle touch to it. Just like previous seasons, this board is very quick from edge-to-edge. Turning is fun and because of the board’s steel edges feels less washy. The rockered nose keeps the board afloat and it planes nicely on powder. At speed, it offers a good glide, better than we expected.

This board’s edge hold is pretty good even on the icy snow patches we encountered. However once you start adjusting the edges for the jib park the grip will change. As with most True Twin board’s this one has no problem to ride switch. Overall, the 2017 Arbor Draft is a great stable and fun snowboard. That’s build for those who like to turn their local mountain into their own personal park.