Rant – Camber vs Rocker

Ah, the hot topic of the last 4 years, beaten to death by both sides of an argument that never need exist. So I thought I'd throw my opinion into that overstuffed toque too.

Snowboarding, our passion, our brotherhood, our mistress. We all want what's best for it. So why, when someone comes along and changes the game for the better, do we split into the worst feud since we were getting kicked off of ski hills? It's not like anyone said you have to pick one, and only one, and then become such a stubborn, opinionated asshole that you'd impress a gaggle of Jehovah's Witnesses. There's only room for one of us.

Here's the facts: Camber was invented when Mike Olson at Mervin Manufacturing (Lib Tech and GNU) invented sidecut. That's right skiers, you have a snowboarder to thank for shaped skis. Anyway, camber makes the board nice and stable and powerful and snappy. It works hand-in-hand with sidecut, transfering all the energy from your boots to the entry and exit points of the radius, outside your feet. This was revolutionary in its own right.

Rocker turns all that on its ass. Mervin came up with Magna-traction, which moved the contact points on the sidecut from outside your feet, to between your feet, and added 5 more of them. Now, you can't flip one fundamental aspect of board engineering and expect things to jive. If you can now ride the middle of your board, what do you need all this camber for anymore? Bend the board the other way instead, and suddenly you've just revolutionized the sport… Again.. A rocker floats way better in powder, it's way more forgiving in the park, and it just makes snowboarding more fun.

At this point, all the guys who wished they'd thought of it first, chose to express their frustrations through their marketing divisions. It took snowboarding's best to come up with, "Rocker boards are fruity." (The first lib rocker to retail being the "skate banana") A few years later, and those brands have seen how much money they're missing out on, sell out their "reverse camber is just a fad" platform, develop rocker boards of their own, and coin such gems as, "Don't bring a banana to a machete fight." To which I should have responded, "Don't show up 3 years late to a design revolution." But, alas, I come up with my best material the next day.

Now comes the part where I sound really biased, but that's only because I like having the most fun. Lib and GNU (and through a bunch of business crap, Roxy and Rossignol and whoever else Quicksilver acquires between now and when this article publishes) are the only boards with Magna-traction and therefore are the only reverse-camber boards that ride right. And before you whine about how your favourite brand has the best rocker shape for whatever stupid bullshit they managed to sell you on, (No-Camber! It's the best of both worlds! No! You're an idiot!) I'm not saying any other boards don't ride well, I'm just saying you're not having as much fun as me.