Raven Snowboards?

fundamental m8, as you're new here - just dig through some of Grill's past posts... He's a wealth of insider info and shoots from the hip in the way most of us would love to. The majority of us tend to avoid anything "exclusive" to eBay and trade channels outside of the UK retailers as it just smells more fishy than a week-old trout (and is probably just as enjoyable when compared to most boards available to the UK market).

There's nothing wrong with new companies, just look at the attention/buzz around Yes, Jones, Lobster etc - but there's a considerable difference between known snowboarders producing/endorsing boards with cutting-edge technology and using recognized trade-channels and other brands claiming they're a force to be reckoned with by using old (discarded) moulds.

come on m8, there's more to a board than just using an old mould... In v simplistic terms, off the top of my head you can almost break it down into 3 areas:
1) shape - comes from the mould
2) materials - type of core, type of base, glues etc
3) tech - carbon stringers, pop sticks, lay of materials etc

and this is ignoring how the final product ends ups regarding torsional-flex, pop, edge-hold, etc.

Just 'cos these guys have the old mould (and therefore the old shape) doesn't mean it'll be the same as an old Burton (or whoever's mould it was) board.

Not to mention buying a past seasons board new from a shop will still have a warranty and someone to go back to if there's a problem...

I'm not saying that "modern" shop-board boards aren't possibly over-priced in many instances, or that a modern board is necessarily better than say a 3 year old one, or that marketing gimmicks don't exist to keep us wanting to buy the newest boards all the time. All I'm suggesting is that you just can't say these are the same as an older established board - and god forbid you might want to sell the board after a while, surely it would be easier (and it retain some value) by being a known brand?

The Raven boards may use wood cores, but there's no indication that they use anything else in their construction. Regardless of the mold, without any sort of carbon or fiberglass stringers or layers I don't see these things have good pop or torsional response. A simple board such as the K2 Anagram is built the same way (albeit in a better fab with a better shape and loads more r&d behind it it) and rides fine. Notice I say "fine". There's nothing special about it. It butters easy, pops ok, and is super-easy to ride. Ride a Parkstar right after it and the difference is night and day. The fact that the Anagram is a solid cheap performer allows K2 to develop boards like the Parkstar. Buying a Raven may sustain them for a few days but they won't dump any of the money into developing their own Parkstar.

Hi, being selling Raven snowboards for two years in my country...in my country their price is 220usd...Myself riding Arbor Draft and this season gonna try one of these Raven boards...but have already sold alot of them and still have no problem or any bad rewievs from my customers.

Have also tested another brand: Sapient(with their STRUK-TURN technology) and was surprised...as it appeared to be very fast. So as a tester will be glad to provide more info as soon as I can.

Well I'm new to the world of snowboarding and have just passed indoor recreational standard. As the rental equipment is so bad I've done a lot of research and taken a punt on a Raven board with a set of their S500 bindings.

It should be turning up soon and once I've had chance to try it and give it the once over I'll post a newbies opinion. Communication from Snowboards24 on Ebay has been excellent and Marcin Pyc has been really helpful.

I went for the Raven Blur Wide 159cm board as to start with it will mostly be used indoors. As I'm new to the sport and I'm only learning I was after a board to learn on that could be used if I should go away on holiday. I was impressed with Marcin Pyc's replies on this forum and the boards sounded like they were worth a try. It's true the website could really do with some specs and info on the kit as the only info available was from the Ebay Auction and this forum (Great forum by the way).

Report back after the first ride!

Be good to hear from someone without 1 post. Was looking at a jib master for the mrs cos she's 5'10 and strong so would mess up some chick sticks I reckon

Dashie, if your missus is after something soft, i picked up an technine enforcer from Andy a few days ago. its soft. very soft. my point of reference being, compaired to last yrs K2 www rocker (well known for softness) the enforcer is much much softer. Bloody brilliant for flinging around the fridge

any news?

we got three the other week and have given one to JP, hes loving it. The one we gave him was a 151 with a three stage rocker/camber profile, its also see through so you can see its been built right, i had a quick lunge test and it felt nice enough. the bindings seem fine as well, we got a set of those too, the ratchets look very sinilar to the forum ones.
if anyone wants to try one out then we will have a couple of demo boards in the next three weeks that people can borrow and try out at a dome for the night.

I need to come on here more often.. bad JP.. BAAAAAD JP.

Hokai. So. Here it Goes. Are we sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin. To start i shall give a bit of background to my riding and you can take what you want from it.

I have been snowboarding for 10 years so far, and doing various comps when i can since 2005. I'm no Terje, but I am always trying to progress and impress . I also have been a snowboard instructor for 7 years to which a lot of other instructors i work with say I am totally anal with technique. So to reflect this, I always want a board which can both test and reflect my riding. I love long walks on the beach, watching the sun rise.....

Oh, and by the way... I dont ride with highbacks.

About 2 weeks ago as Andy said, he chucked a few boards our way. The only problem with the 151 was that in terms of stability on landing at speed and from height, it was too twitchy. This was totally not due to the quality of the board, but the fact that it was just not the size for me doing such things. On rails however, spinning on and off rails, nose and tailpresses were a joy to do on this board, and i felt totally in control.

I then gave the Raven "Core" (156) a try, and found it to be excellent on jumps with a good amount of pop (even easier to do tricks on the board than my Ride Kink which is of the same size.

Riding without highbacks with the board is very easy with the rocker construction, and makes dryslope riding a lot easier. The tortional flex of the board is just right for my needs as both an instructor demonstrating to my students and also when riding freestyle. Going back to using the word DRYSLOPE (shock horror) the base has taken a fair beating.. even with riding on such "high quality" (jk) materials as ye old sheffield ski village. To the veterans who know that slope, your board needs to be made from stone to withstand the beating it takes.

Overall I have had no problems, infact rather the opposite.


Questions on a postcard.

if anyone wants one of these or wants to demo one, pm me as we are about to put in another order.

If you class half a twix and a bottle of 20/20 as dinner....

She's having more lessons today so will know if she really wants to carry on. She'd just be cruising about for now so I might get her a flossy. Am currently stalking eBay for a bargain but it's getting silly season on there.

Braehead unfortunately so a bit of a mare really.

She had a look at some stuff today at the big bang demo and is still pretty much picking alot of graphics rather than tech as she knows no better and is happy on camber. She does like the look of the flossy though.

Hey, I'm interested in these boards too, after googling the only useful info I could find was this thread. I was looking at this http://cgi.ebay.ie/Snowboard-Lucid-Notion-Bird-150cm-Raven-s250-Bindings..., it's not branded as Raven but seems to be from the same people, any thoughts?

Cheers Dyl.