Capita The Equalizer Review

Who is the Equalizer Most Suited To?

The Equalizer is a well rounded freeride board. It's bordering on all-mountain (do-it-all) - and you could definitely treat it as such.

If you ride a lot of freestyle and don't have a dedicated park board, then it's probably not for you, but if you like to do a bit of everything, but lean more towards the freeride end of the spectrum, than the freestyle end, then it should be a good match. 

Not for beginners, but it's still a pretty easy going ride, so anything from intermediate and up should be good on this board. 

Bindings angles: +15/-12

Stance width: 520mm (20.5″)

Stance Setback: Setback 12.5mm (0.5")

Width at Inserts: 250mm (9.84") at front insert and 251mm (9.88") at back insert

Weight: 2510g (5lbs, 8oz)

Weight per cm: 16.73g/cm

Average Weight per cm: 18.12 grams/cm*

*based on a small sample size of around 20 women's boards that I've weighed in 2020, 2021 and 2022 models. The Equalizer is one of the lighter women's boards I've weighed. And on snow Jade found that it felt light too. 

Tester: Jade

Rider Height:  5'7" (170cm)

Rider Weight: 145lbs (66kg)

Rider Boot Size: Women's US6.5 Thirty Two Exit

Bindings Used: Burton Lexa, Medium 

Damp or Chattery?

It's somewhere in the middle. It's definitely not ultra chattery, but it's also not super damp. 

Smooth or Snappy?

It's got a little snap to it. Just on the snappy side of the middle of the scale. 

Powder

Really fun riding in powder. Maneuvered easily and no effort keeping the nose above the snow. We weren't in waist deep powder or anything, but felt like it rode powder really well. 

It's not like powder specialist or anything and there's no taper and it's not like ultra setback or ultra directional, but there's enough there to make it decent in powder (like a longer nose than tail and a rockered nose) and it certainly felt that way in the shallow-ish powder we had. 

Carving & Turning

Carving: Can lay down a good carve. It's not a carving monster, but you could definitely get it carving and felt good. 

Turning: It handled regular S turns really well - nice easy turn initiation.

Maneuverability at slow speeds: Nice and easy to maneuver at slow speeds. Not ultra maneuverable, but pretty good nonetheless.  

Skidded Turns: Not much consequence for skidding turns. Not a catchy board. 

Speed

Handled speed really well. Felt fast and felt stable when opening it out. It's never going to be a bomber to the extent of some stiffer boards, but it's right up there for it's flex. 

Uneven Terrain

Crud: It's not a board that smashes through everything in it's path, but it's not one that gets bucked around super easy either. When you do get a bit thrown off, it is pretty easy to correct and adjust. 

Bumps: Does a good job of maneuvering between bumps and trees. It's pretty quick edge-to-edge and doesn't take a lot of muscle to initiate turns. It hugs bumps well too, when going over them.

Jumps

For a freeride board (though you could definitely argue it's an all-mountain board too), it's really good for jumps. 

Pop: Good pop - not like oodles of it but still good, and it was easy to access. Because of how light it is, you really get value for your pop too. 

Approach:   A good stable approach for when you need more speed, but also forgiving enough and easy to speed check and adjust your approach when you need to as well. Strikes a great balance between between being stable and maneuverable.  

Landing: Not an out and out stomper, but definitely solid enough on landings - and when you get it slightly wrong it's forgiving of errors. So again, strikes a nice balance there too. 

Side-hits: Really good on side-hits. That maneuverability, lightness and easy access pop really makes it fun and confidence inspiring when seeking out side-hits.  

Small jumps/Big jumps: Medium jumps is the sweet spot, but can take on small and large jumps well too.

Switch

Given it's directional shape, it's not perfectly suited to riding switch, but it's not too bed either. It's pretty easy to control and not catchy or anything, so particularly when you're just learning switch it's decent.

Spins

With that lightness and easy access pop, it's pretty good for getting the air you need and for swinging it around. As it's not ideally suited to switch, setting up and landing 180s isn't perfect, but you can definitely still spin with this board. 

Jibbing

It's not something that's designed for jibs, but actually performs pretty decently. Never going to be a jib master, but it's pretty easy on the setup - and that quick easy pop helps too. 

Butters

Pretty easy to butter too - another thing that you don't get from a lot of stiffer freeride boards. It's not ultra-buttery or anything, but it's not ultra-hard to butter either. 

Overall, the Equalizer is a really versatile board, that can do a bit of everything. It's leaning on the freeride side of things though for sure, but if you're predominantly a freerider who likes to still hit the park from time to time, then it can do that for you. 

You could definitely call this an all-mountain board - and probably would be most accurate to say it's all-mountain-freeride.