K2 Medium Snowboard Review

Overview of the Medium’s Specs

* the 141, 144, 147 are all new for the 2024 model. The 2024 model looses the 160W that the 2023 model had. 

Who is the Medium Most Suited To?

The Medium is best suited to those looking for a freestyle oriented board that can ride the whole mountain too. 

Not for beginners, but intermediate rider's should be fine with it. 

The Medium in More Detail

Bindings angles: +15/-15

Stance width: 550mm (21.7″)

Stance Setback: Centered

Width at Inserts: 257mm (10.12") 

Rider Height: 6'0"

Rider Weight: 185lbs

Rider Boot Size: US10 Vans Aura

Bindings Used: K2 Line Up, Large*

* Important Note: for all other brands I use my test bindings to test boards. Unfortunately with K2 and Ride they don't allow other bindings to test with. This makes it difficult to really tell what is giving the feel. Whilst the snowboard is typically the bigger difference maker, bindings can certainly alter the feel of a board. Please take this into consideration for this review, as some of the feel may have come from or at least been influenced from the bindings. I try each year to see if they can let me test on my own bindings, but haven't worn them down yet! I am exploring other avenues for testing K2/Ride in the future, so that I can test them more accurately.

Powder

Not a great feel in powder. And the specs don't suggest it either. 

Carving & Turning

Carving: Not amazing but OK. 

Maneuverability at slow speeds: Didn't like riding this board in tight spaces or at slow speeds. Whatever the opposite of turning on a dime is, that's what this was. 

Overall edge-to-edge speeds: Just didn't like how it transitioned from edge to edge. Felt slow and grabby - whether riding fast or slow.

Skids: Had a bit of a catchy grabby feel which made skidding turns quite difficult. I also found the same thing with the other K2 board and the Ride Machete I rode that day, so I don't know what was up with all those boards. 

Speed

Felt pretty stable at speed and this is when this board felt at it's best. 

Uneven Terrain

The lack of maneuverability made it difficult and not fun to ride when tyring to weave through bumpy terrain. Really disliked riding it in the trees. 

Let’s Break up this text with a Video

Jumps

Pop:  Some pop there, but took a bit to extract it. I didn't find it an easy popping board. 

Approach: Stable for faster approaches but not nimble enough for trickier approaches or setting up for spins.    

Landing: Pretty solid for landing straight air. 

Side-hits: Not nimble enough and easy access pop would have been nice too. 

Small jumps/Big Jumps: Probably medium is it's sweet spot. 

Switch

Apart from the fact it had the same grabby/catchy feeling riding switch, it's otherwise the same riding switch. Just in this case, it wasn't a positive thing that it was the same riding switch! 

Spins

Didn't feel that comfortable setting up for or landing spins on this board. The spin itself was pretty easy to get around, but the overall spinning experience wasn't great. 

Jibbing

Just didn't feel comfortable approaching jibs on this board. Otherwise I think it could be OK. 

Butters

An OK amount of butterability, without being super buttery. 

Score Breakdown and Final Verdict

Overall the Medium isn't a board I enjoyed riding. It had a grabby/catchy feeling and felt like it was trying to return to flat basing and that you had to kind of fight it to keep it on edge. 

That, plus the fact that I was riding it without my control bindings, makes this review potentially an inaccurate portrayal of this board, but it's the feeling I got from the board, and I just describe it how it feels. 

Not sure what was up with it (and the other K2 and Ride boards I rode that day). Conditions were good and other boards I rode that day felt good to ride. Whether it was something to do with how they were tuned or something? Not sure.