K2 Boards

We visit K2 Boards to find out about the season's new products. Bastian Schmude introduces us to the Simple Pleasures snowboard. This makes the heart of our presenter, who is a boarder himself, beat faster. Find out what's so special about it and which bindings are best for riding the board at Messe.TV!

Snowboard novelties at K2

Jürgen Groh: My heart as a snowboarder is jumping higher right now. Show me the board. Bastian Schmude: We have a brand new board in our range for next season, the Simple Pleasures, which is part of our Volume Shift series. The idea behind it is to compress the length of the board. So that you don't lose any surface area, we simply make it a little wider. The contact points slide further into the center of the board. This gives us a board that is super easy to control. A board that is really easy to turn. We have a camber in the board. A camber camber means you have great edge grip on the piste. You have a lot of pop. The snowboard has a complete bamboo core, which is very durable. We offer a 5-year guarantee. The board is basically designed for everything. If you don't want to ride a pipe, you can basically ride it anywhere on the piste. Carve or even go into the powder. In powder snow, you get great support from the tapered shape thanks to the longer, wider nose. In comparison, the nose is slightly wider and the tail slightly narrower.

Snowboard with high-end materials

Jürgen Groh: That's quite pointed. Does it have a certain function? Bastian Schmude: Yes, as I said, we have this tapered shape, which means that the board is wider at the front in the nose. Because it is so long, the board has to come together again at the front. Everything we have in front of our feet gives us more flow and float in powder when we want to go off-piste. Jürgen Groh: Is it easy? I find it easy. Nice! What would I have to spend? Bastian Schmude: We're talking about 600€, but as I said, the materials are high-end. With a bamboo core and a sintered base, it's nice and fast. Jürgen Groh: The board alone is 600€, now we come to the binding.

Snowboard with click binding or ratchet binding?

Bastian Schmude: The binding that would fit perfectly would be the Lien FS. They are available as an AT and an FS version. At stands for All Terrain, which is the slightly harder version with the nylon highback. The FS, the freestyle version, is the one with the urethane highback, a nice flexible highback that you can twist nicely. Especially if you like to get a bit into the turns. If you're a bit more freestyle-oriented, it offers great freedom of movement. We have a very comfortable ankle strap, which is relatively large on the side and well padded so that you don't feel the insert from the screw wobbling at all. Jürgen Groh: Can I get into it easily? Bastian Schmude: Definitely. In principle, it's quite easy to loosen. Jürgen Groh: But I still have to raise the lock, it's not just a click binding? Bastian Schmude: It's a normal ratchet binding, that's what it's designed for. Jürgen Groh: So I'm not spared the move downwards. Bastian Schmude: No, I'm not spared that.

Jürgen Groh: Why did they do it that way? Are the click bindings a bit more unstable? Bastian Schmude: No, not at all. We also offer step-in bindings. They even have a similar chassis, so in principle you would have to switch to a different model. The models are now only available as ratchet bindings. What the binding now also offers is a perfectly adjustable toe strap. This means that I can adjust the toe strap perfectly to every move. If you have a stitched or rounded toe cap, you often have the problem that the strap doesn't hold properly on the boot. What we have here is a small joint under the leader, a screw joint, where I can pull the strap a little wider or a little tighter, depending on how I want the pressure to be distributed. And in addition: to adjust the strap perfectly to each boot, I simply open the fastener on the inside, I can then adjust the width of the strap, but also push the lower part further in. This allows me to make the binding tighter or wider, depending on the shape of the boat. So that the boot is really perfectly clamped in the binding. And the tripod chassis is a very special feature of the binding. This is a bit more special. We have a slightly smaller disc to reduce the dead spot under the binding where the board can't or hardly work.

Snowboard boot and binding

Jürgen Groh: How can I imagine that, how does it sit on the board? Bastian Schmude: The binding is on the board as normal, but compared to a normal binding, we now have a binding that has a bit more air on the side. Whenever I put pressure on the board and move my weight forwards or backwards for a few practices, I initiate an ollie or a turn. Whenever I put pressure on the board and the board has to work or bend, it can flex out much earlier and I don't have so much dead area under the binding, which is eliminated by the bottom surface of the binding. This gives us a super-soft ride, which is simply super comfortable to ride. A natural flex similar to surfing. Jürgen Groh: Now I see an absolutely stylish boot here, it must have some amazing gimmicks. Bastian Schmude: Yes. In principle, as in any sport, the most important part is the shoe. If it doesn't fit, then ultimately you won't have any fun. That's the Ender Boot. What we have is a traditional lacing system and the Boa Conda system. The Boa Conda system basically works like an Anke Strip in the boot. We have a urethane pad that sits on top of the liner. The liner itself has no lacing, but it doesn't need it. The urethane pad, which I can put on with the Boa system, pulls the liner into the back of my heel really nicely. This means that if I put pressure on the front set edge when riding, I no longer have the heel lift that I sometimes have in a boot that didn't fit perfectly. I can eliminate that very well here. I'm super secure in the boot, have directional power transmission and the pressure is of course super well distributed on the foot thanks to the size of the pad. This prevents pressure points and results in a very comfortable ride.

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