K2 Cool Bean Snowboard Review

Hello and welcome to my K2 Cool Bean snowboard review.

In this review I will take a look at the Cool Bean as a Short/Wide Powder snowboard.

As per tradition here at SnowboardingProfiles.com I will give the Cool Bean a score out of 100. 

A couple of Caveats with this particular review: 

1. Usually I would compare this with other similar snowboard types, but since I don’t test a lot in this category, I won’t be
2. K2 only allow you to test with their bindings on their boards, so this wasn’t tested with my usual control bindings. This makes it difficult to give it a fair review, not knowing the extent to which the board or bindings were giving me the feel. So for this reason, the accuracy of this review isn’t as good as most on this site, IMO

Overall Rating

Board: K2 Cool Bean 2019

Price: $469 (USD recommended retail)

Style: Short/Wide Powder

Flex Rating: Medium (3/5 on K2’s flex scale)

Flex Feel: Medium-Stiff (7/10)

Rating Score: 74.5/100

O.k. let’s take a more detailed look at what the Cool Bean is capable of.

Demo Info

Board: K2 Cool Bean 2019, 144cm, 287mm waist width

Date: April 15, 2018

Conditions:

There was a little bit of fresh snow in the morning but just a few centimeters but there was also some left over fresh snow from the previous couple of days.

Quite cold in the morning, especially for April, but warmed up in the afternoon as the sun came out.

There were a couple of harder spots but mostly pretty soft/medium all round.

Bindings angles: +15/-15

Stance width: 540mm (21.3”)

Stance Setback: Not sure what the setback on the effective edge is on this board – but I measured 61.5cm (24.2″) from the center of the front binding to the nose and 28.5cm (11.2″) from the back binding to the tail – and just 14cm (5.5″) from the back binding to the swallow in the tail. So a huge setback on board – not sure how much of that is on the effective edge.

Width at Inserts: 290mm (11.4″) at the back insert and 306mm (12.1″) at the front insert – so seriously wide!

Powder

I didn’t have oodles of fresh powder – most of it tracked, but there were still some pockets – and this is where the Cool Bean certainly felt most at home and most fun.

It’s definitely set up for this with a massively long and wide nose and a short tail that’s tapered a lot from the nose. And plenty of rocker in the profile too. And heaps of surface area, especially given it was a 144! The only downside in powder – was that it wasn’t quite as good when it wasn’t untouched – not as good in tracked powder.

Carving/Turning

Slightly better than I expected to be fair, but overall not great. But this isn’t made for big carves – it’s made to surf powder.

Turning on groomers overall it wasn’t the board for me. But felt better when you lean back on it a bit. 

But my biggest disappointment was edge to edge speed/maneuverability. It was just too slow to turn for my liking – and for a board that I would want to use a lot in the trees. Personally I prefer something more nimble for riding trees – it just took too much effort/time to change direction for my liking. 

Learn more about the Cool Bean in the Video Below

Speed

Felt pretty wobbly going at any kind of real speed. Again, more designed to surf the powder, so not really made for it. 

Uneven Terrain

Did not like it if the snow wasn’t flat. Felt everything on uneven terrain. Whether it was bumps or crud, I really didn’t enjoy it in there. Much prefers soft, smooth snow – whether on or off groomer. 

Jumps

You can jump on it, but it felt pretty unnatural to me. Not heaps of pop either. 

You’d think at 144 that it would be easy to spin, but it was harder to get around than I expected. And of course felt really weird landing and taking off switch. 

Switch

Definitely not made to ride switch and felt really weird attempting it. Like every board, it’s doable, but not the best for it.