For all the ladies looking for the best womens snowboards guide on the internet, this is the spot! It’s important to understand that womens snowboards are different from mens snowboards. They are constructed and engineered differently to suit the physique of women. With different styles, flex patterns, profile shapes and construction materials, it can be overwhelming at times. This is the ultimate womens snowboards guide and after you finish reading it you’ll know how to choose a snowboard for purchase.
The Ultimate Womens Snowboards Guide
Differences Between Womens & Mens Snowboards
Can Women Use Mens Snowboarding Gear?
Flex Patterns
Snowboard Profile Shapes
Choosing the Right Snowboard Length
Construction and Materials
Do Women’s Snowboards Come in Wide Sizes?
Where to Buy Womens Snowboards
The Main Differences Between Womens and Mens Snowboards
As everyone is probably aware of, in general, women tend to be smaller in height, weigh less and have less muscle mass than men. As a result, womens snowboards are manufactured differently.
The most obvious differences is that womens snowboards are less stiff and more narrow. Again, the reason for this is women generally have lower centres of gravity and smaller foot sizes compared to men.
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Can Women Use Mens Snowboarding Gear?
In regards to womens snowboards and even womens snowboarding accessories in general, you want to ensure that you’re purchasing a product that is intended for the right gender.
As a snowboard instructor, I would have female students who were riding with their older brother’s gear. Or sometimes I would see someone borrowing their boyfriend’s old equipment. My advice would be to avoid this. Especially if you’re a female using mens boots. Snowboarding boots are the most important piece of equipment in all of your snowboard gear. Women generally have shorter calf muscles than men, so if you’re a woman wearing mens snowboarding boots you’ll find your feet and calf muscles getting more sore than they ever should. The liner inside a mens snowboard boot is not sculpted for women.
The same principles apply to snowboards. Mens snowboards are designed to be stiffer and wider than womens. So if a woman were to ride a mens snowboard they would probably find it heavier to steer and would take longer to get on edge to make turns .
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Flex Patterns of Womens Snowboards
Now that we’ve discussed the primary differences between womens and mens snowboards, this guide is going to outline all the aspects you’ll need to consider when buying a womens snowboard.
And the most important criteria in choosing a snowboard is its flex.
The flexibility of a snowboard is rated on a spectrum from soft to stiff.
Soft Flex
Different flex patterns suit different riders. Typically, if you’re a beginner, you’ll want to ride a board with a soft flex. Softer flexing boards are more forgiving and therefore considered easier to ride.
Stiff Flex
Stiffer boards are more responsive and people generally consider them harder to ride, yet more powerful and faster.
How Flex Affects Your Snowboard Riding
When it comes to choosing a snowboard you’ll want to match the board’s flexibility with the type of riding you plan on doing.
For example, if you’re renting a cabin near Blue Mountain with your friends for a weekend, a soft to medium flexing snowboard will ensure you can enjoyably get out with your crew and have fun making turns. But if you’re looking to snowboard more often than on just the weekends throughout the season, you might want a medium to stiff board that gives you more control in varying snow conditions.
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Snowboard Edge Profiles and Shapes
Quick History
When I first started snowboarding, pretty much all the boards came in camber shape. But times have changed. Now there’s camber, reverse camber (usually called rocker) and a bunch of different hybrid shapes with all the brands calling it something different.
So I’ll keep things simple and start from the basics.
Camber Snowboard
A board with a camber profile, or camber shape, is the traditional shape they’ve been making snowboards since day one. You have contact points that run across the nose and tail of the board. If you place a camber board flat on the ground, you’ll notice the center of the board is curved upwards. When you step on the center of the board it will flex.
When you flex and flatten a camber board while riding, say during a carve turn, you’ll build up pressure and energy into the board. As you exit from a carve, the board will naturally want to snap or pop back into its curved shape. This snap, or pop, is what makes a stiffer board more responsive. Camber boards are great if you want to go fast, carve hard and get a lot of pop out of your ollies.
Rocker Snowboard
Rocker boards are pretty much the exact opposite. With the contact point in the very center of the board, the nose and tail curve up away from the ground. This gives the board a looser, more skateboard like feel under your feet. Because of the shape of a rocker board, when you get the board on it’s edge during a carve, the board will naturally drive the rider through the carve. For this reason rocker boards are described as being more mellow and easier to ride. A rocker board is usually recommended for beginner riders because with the nose and tail of the board lifted upward, it is less likely to catch an edge and bail.
However, rocker boards are also great when riding in deep pow conditions. Again, because the nose and tail are lifted upward, the board will naturally want to float in deeper snow.
Hybrid Shapes
Besides camber and rocker, snowboards come in many different hybrids. Some boards are flat, or have zero camber, while others have some kind of combination between camber and rocker at different areas along a board’s profile.
Each brand names their hybrid snowboards differently. For example, Burton has Flying V, which is a rocker shape in the center of the board between your feet. Then camber underneath your feet. Then back to rocker towards the nose and tail outside your feet. Nitro Snowboards have what’s called GullWing and LibTech/ GNU have Banana Traction. They’re different names but they are all essentially the same shape.
Check out these brand diagrams and see for yourself. (Just click on the images if you need to see a larger version)
A hybrid shape snowboard is meant to combine the benefits of both camber and rocker into a single board. You’ll get the pop and responsiveness of a camber board while you’re on edge during a carve turn, but you’ll also get the looser, more forgiving riding experience of rocker.
I’ve been noticing that snowboard brands have been consistently adding more hybrid board options to their product lines every year, over the last several years.
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Choosing the Right Womens Snowboard Length
Your weight is the most important factor in determining board length. Pairing a snowboard’s length to your weight range will allow you to ride your best and have the most fun.
Most womens snowboards come in sizes ranging from 138cm to 155cm in length. If a heavier rider uses a board that’s too short, the board tends to feel loose and less controllable at higher speeds. It can go the other way as well, a lighter rider who gets too long of a snowboard will have a harder time turning and flexing the board. Here is a womens sizing chart to help you find what womans snowboard length you should get.
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How Womens Snowboards Are Constructed and Their Materials
Many different materials go into the construction of womens snowboards.
All of which determine the quality of the product. Here is a diagram and a list of the most common components you’ll find across all womens snowboards.
- Base
- Edges
- Wooden Core
- Sidewall
- Fibreglass Layer
- Top Sheet
Below, I’m going to discuss each part of a snowboard in further detail and how the materials affect your riding experience.
Snowboard Bases
Snowboard bases are a key part of the overall snowboard. Similar to snowboard edges, bases are always in contact with the snow and so the base plays a major role in how the board performs in varying conditions and types of terrain.
There are basically two major types of snowboard bases- extruded and sintered. Both bases are made from high-density polyethylene and it’s better known by its brand name, P-tex.
This P-tex material allows the snowboard base to channel air, snow and water, which gives the snowboard the ability to glide smoothly. Here are some differences between extruded and sintered bases.
Extruded Base
This type of base is denser which makes it more durable. It also doesn’t have to be waxed or maintained as frequently. However, extruded bases do not allow you to ride as fast as sintered bases. Extruded bases are often constructed in medium to low priced snowboards.
Sintered Base
These bases are much faster. You’ll really be able to rip on a sintered base! That’s because they are more porous than extruded bases. But they require much more waxing and maintenance to get their full performance. Sintered base are used in the construction of medium to high priced snowboards.
Edges
Snowboard edges are made of stainless steel, and are held into the board with T-shaped inserts which are built into them.
There are 2 types of edges, full wrap and partial wrap.
Full wrap edges go all the way around the snowboard.
Partial wrap edges are where the edges just run along the sides of the board where they will make contact with the snow. There is no metal edge around the tip and tail of the snowboard.
There has been a long standing debate in snowboarding about which edge construction is better. Most snowboard companies have wrapped edges meaning they go continuously along the edge of the snowboard and tips and tails.
But the brands Lib-Tech and Gnu (both made in the same factory) don’t put metal edges on the tip and tails of their boards.
The argument for full wrap edges is that it creates a uniform strength around the entire board.
The argument for partial wrap edges is that they are lighter and easier to repair if your edges ever do get damaged.
Wooden Core
A snowboard’s core is usually made of two of more different species of wood. The species range from soft to hard woods and by combining them in the core creates snowboards with different riding characteristics. The most popular specie of wood is poplar, but there is also beech, aspen, bamboo and birch.
Below is a diagram to show different examples of various species of wood used in the construction of a snowboard’s core. In the diagram, the darker stripes are meant to be harder woods. You can see how the dark woods are used in areas where your feet would be located on the board and along the edges. Adding stiffness to these areas of a snowboard will make it more responsive and better at holding an edge.
Each of these types of wood vary in stiffness but they are all relatively easy to genetically modify and grow sustainably to keep up with production demands.
While wood is the most popular choice, that doesn’t mean that it’s the only core material to work with. Here are some other core materials:
- Carbon-stiff and responsive
- Kevlar-even stiff and more durable
- Aluminum Honeycomb-super lightweight and high end
- Foam-cheap and low end
Sidewall
When it comes to the sidewall of your womens snowboard, there are a few different types that you may come across. The sidewall is going to run alongside the edge of your board, keeping everything sealed and good to go. The three different types of Sidewall would be:
Cap – Both the fiberglass and top sheet layers are wrapped over the core to seal the edge. The board will be a bit lighter as there are less materials being used. Also this will give your snowboard a little more “pop”. With that being said, this sidewall construction has become rare see.
Half-Cap – This is considered to be a mix of the first two options. The fiberglass layer comes down to wrap around the core of your snowboard, but the top sheet will always come down a bit and join with the sidewall. It offers the perfect balance of light and snappy, which is found on more expensive snowboard.
ABS Sidewall (Sandwich) – In this construction, every layer of your mens snowboards will be laid flat. An ABS sidewall will be inserted into the side to ensure that the core is protected. This is a very common sidewall construction.
Fibreglass Layer
This layer is crucial for womens snowboards, as it’s going to keep things as light as possible. When you only use wood it’s going to be a stiff experience, and modern snowboards have gone way above and beyond that. The board needs a fibreglass layer to ensure flexibility and prevent it from deforming.
Bi-Axial Wraps – The fibreglass strands are woven together at a 90-degree angle with this option, giving you a lightweight and secure layer to ride with.
Tri-Axial Wraps – The strands of fibreglass are woven at 45 and 0 degrees in this manner, as well as another time at the -45 degree mark. This is arguably the most lightweight option that you could work with that still gives you a reasonable level of stiffness.
Resin, which is a gooey-like adhesive, is used to glue the fibreglass layers to the top and bottom of the snowboard’s core.
The Top Sheet
This is the layer with the graphics on it. The top sheet can be made of many different materials, including the likes of nylon, wood, plastic, fibreglass, as well as composites, which is a fancy way of saying ‘multiple types of plastic in one’. Graphics are applied to your snowboard in one of two different ways:
Sublimation – In this process, the graphic design is first printed on special paper using special inks. Then a ton of heat and pressure are applied to the print to infused the graphics into the plastics materials that will make up the top sheet. The graphics will be a portion of the top sheet and blend in seamlessly.
Encapsulation – This process has the graphics being printed onto a piece of paper or cloth (or anything that can be used to transfer it, essentially) and then put under a clear top sheet or lacquer finish. The graphic will be underneath a protective layer, but a few scratches are all it takes for your graphics to become damaged. When a top sheet starts to crack and peel, it’s called delamination.
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Do Women’s Snowboards Come in Wide Sizes?
Generally, no, none of the brands manufacture or sell a wide size snowboard for women. In general, female riders will not need a wide board, which is why they are not offered. If you are an extreme outlier (a women with size 11+ boots) you may need to consider riding a men’s board.
Where to Buy Womens Snowboards
Hands down the best way to buy a snowboard is to go to your local snowboard shop. And I’ll tell you why.
Obviously, almost all the snowboard gear you could ever want can be purchased online. There are already plenty of reputable and reliable e-commerce stores to order from. But the in-person buying experience you get when you go to a snowboard shop can’t be beat.
One of my favourite snowboard shops in the Greater Toronto Area is Corbett’s in Oakville. The selection of products there is plentiful. I recommend investing the time to develop a relationship with the staff and shop owners.
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- The Ultimate Womens Snowboard Goggles Guide
- The Ultimate Womens Snowboard Helmet Guide
- The Ultimate Women Snowboard Gloves Guide
- The Ultimate Womens Snowboard Jackets Guide
- The Ultimate Womens Snowboard Pants Guide
- The Ultimate Womens Snowboard Socks Guide
- The Ultimate Womens Snowboard Base Layer Guide