Endeavor Archetype Snowboard Review

Who is the Archetype Most Suited To?

The Archetype is great for anyone who's looking for a short/wide-ish board that is great in powder - but one that can still carve really well on groomers, and handle speed on harder snow. 

Certainly not for beginners - too much camber and too stiff. 

It's a quiver board for sure - but it could be a daily driver, if your style fit within it's bounds. 

Bindings angles: +15/-15

Stance width: 560mm (22″)

Stance Setback: Setback 25mm (1") - naturally a centered stance (on effective edge, which is still quite a bit of setback on board) but I wanted to be a bit setback on effective edge on this board

Width at Inserts: 278mm (10.95") at front insert and 264mm (10.39")  for me it was 275mm and 264mm with the extra setback, but centered, it's 278mm and 264mm.

Rider Height: 6'0"

Rider Weight: 185lbs

Rider Boot Size: US10 Vans Aura

Bindings Used: Burton Malavita M 

Weight: 3000g

Weight per cm: 18.98 grams/cm

Average Weight per cm: 18.45 grams/cm*

*based on a small sample size of 51 boards that I've weighed in 2019 and 2020 models. The Archetype is a little heavier than average, but not by a lot. And despite having that big swallow cut-out, it still has quite a bit of surface area. And, most importantly, it didn't feel heavy on snow. Quite a lively feel to it. 

Powder

There's never a time that I don't wish for powder, but it's especially so when I have a board like the Archetype for a week - but unfortunately I wasn't blessed with the opportunity to get the Archetype in powder. But based on the feel and on the specs, how this performs in powder is pretty easy to predict. As in, really well at an educated guess.   

Carving & Turning

Carving: For a board with such aggressive taper, in fact I think it's the biggest difference in terms of width at inserts of the front insert vs back insert that I've ridden, I expected the tail to feel a bit more washy - a bit more like it would kick out easy, but on a hard carve wouldn't be that great. But it surprised me - it was actually really decent on a carve. And actually felt semi-locked in on a carve. 

Not as aggressive a carve as the Endeavor Alpha (but not many do!) but still felt nice to carve. 

Maneuverability at slow speeds: Not the most nimble at slow speeds. This board prefers to go fast. Didn't love it in the trees, but if there was powder in there, it would have been a completely different story, I would imagine. 

Skidded Turns: You can get away with it to an extent - but a very small extent. This board is not made to skid. 

Speed

Felt nice and stable at speed - and carving at speed. I expected a little more washiness, but it was way more locked in than I expected. Perhaps something to do with the carbon rods in the tail (see video below for more on that). 

Uneven Terrain

Was good going through crud - could smash through it. But didn't like unduating terrain so much - more suited to even terrain or powder. 

Let’s Break up this text with a Video

Jumps

Better for jumps than I was expecting. 

Pop: Really good pop and quite easy to access as well. There's certainly some in there that needs more of a load up, but there's some that comes easy too. There's 2 levels of pop you can get out of this board, for sure. 

Approach: Nice stable approach, particularly good for larger jumps.

Landing: Nice stable landings. Felt like you could stomp it - and was best when you did stomp it. Not super forgiving if you get the landing too wrong. 

Side-hits: Not as nimble as I would like for trickier approaches, but otherwise OK - I preferred having a nice smooth take off with this board for jumps though. 

Small jumps/Big Jumps: More suited to bigger jumps, but small jumps certainly doable. 

Switch

Felt weird riding switch. I rode it with more setback but even being centered on the effective edge would feel weird with all that taper - and even just psychologically seeing that swallow tail lead, was off putting. 

Spins

Whilst it was fine on jumps, I preferred sticking to straight air. Taking off and landing switch was weird for 180s. And wasn't the easiest to get the spin around on. Perhaps quite torsionally stiff, and perhaps being a little heacvier contributed to that. But it's not really designed for that, IMO. 

Butters

You can actually butter on this board. It feels a bit weird on the tail, but there's some butterability there. But still not great. Probably 2.5/5. But I was expecting it to be worse. 

Overall, the Archetype is a fun board that I would have loved to have tested in more powder, as it's almost certainly a good time there. 

But it surprised me with it's edge hold, carving and speed - and a feel that is semi-locked in. It does have plenty of camber, so that certainly aids it there. Plenty of pop too and a better jumper than I was expecting. Overall a fun ride that would make a good quiver board, or potentially even a daily driver depending on your style of riding. 

And beauty is, no doubt, in the eye of the beholder, but I really like the look of this board.