Lib Tech Orca Snowboard Review

The Lib Tech Orca is a board I have to eat my words on!

Though it was never a board that I loathed and not one I was overly critical of, I just didn't see what all the hype was about with this board when I first rode it. I felt it was quite a slow turning, uninteresting ride that was solid and decent, but not exciting unless it was in powder. 

But after re-testing it, man was this thing fun! 

In this review, I will take a look at the Orca as a mellow freeride snowboard.

As per tradition here at SnowboardingProfiles.com I will give the Orca a score out of 100 (based on several factors) and see how it compares with other mellow freeride snowboards.

Overall Rating

Board: Lib Tech T.Rice Orca

Price: $699

Style: Mellow Freeride

Flex Rating: Medium-Stiff (7/10)

Flex Feel on Snow: Medium (6/10)

Rating Score: 89.9/100

Compared to other Men’s Mellow Freeride Boards

Overview of the Orca’S Specs

Check out the tables for the Orca’s specs and available sizes.

Who is the Orca Most Suited To?

The Orca is best suited for someone looking for a powder and tree board to add to their quiver. 

For most this won't be a one-quiver-board. While it was fun to ride on the groomers and even at times for little spins and side-hits and skewed feeling butters, but its true strengths lie in whipping between trees and floating in pow. 

It can lay a decent carve on the groomer, within limits and can handle a decent amount of speed. If you're someone who seldomly rides unless there's fresh snow around, it could work as a one-board-quiver. But for most, this will compliment a daily-driver and/or more freestyle oriented board. 

Not for beginners, but it's not particularly difficult to ride (so long as you remember to size accordingly), so intermediate riders shouldn't have any troubles with it. 

TEST/REVIEW DetailS FOR THE Orca

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

Demo Info

Board: Lib Tech T Rice Orca, 153cm (267mm waist width)

Date: March 14, 2024

Powder

It felt so good in what we had on the day. And no doubt that would translate well to deeper powder, based on that feel and on the Orca's specs. 

10mm of taper, 2" (50mm) of setback, rocker in the profile, directional camber, directional everything and a nose that was considerably longer than its tail. It was a 153, but the width of the board made it the surface area of a longer board - probably at least a 157. 

Carving

I really enjoyed carving on this board. Particularly for shorter/sharper radius carves. It could do longer ones OK too, but it did have it's limits in terms of how fast you could carve at, without getting some washout. But that you could get some pretty decent speed carves going before it did that. 

Turning

Ease of Turning/Slashing: Nice and easy to initiate turns on and for slashing out turns. Way more so than I remember it. 

Maneuverability at slow speeds: Really nimble feeling board. Changed edges nice and quickly at slow speeds and was easy to do.

Catchiness: I felt a very minimal amount of catch in the tail, when really trying to feel it in there, but it's overall not a catching feeling board.

Speed

I found it way more stable at speed than I was expecting, given how good it is at slower speeds. Still not a speed demon, but stable up to some pretty decent speeds. 

Uneven Terrain

Crud/Chunder: Not ultra damp but handled it well enough. Somewhat prone to getting bucked but super easy to correct. 

Trees/Bumps: So good. That edge-to-edge quickness made this board feel effortless in trees and weaving through any obstacles. And being able to go with that shorter width and having not much tail trailing behind was also nice, to prevent clipping trees when whipping it around in tight spaces.

Jumps

This board was pretty easy to ollie - and in general extract pop any time you need some air or extra air. Decent overall pop too. Not ideal, given it's directional shape, but still fun to jump on. 

Pop: Really easy to extract and decent total pop, without being epic. 

Approach: Good mix of stability and maneuverability.

Landing: Good for smaller landings and forgiving of errors to an extent. But because of the slighter tail, tail-heavy landings weren't great, especially if you need something solid there if you land tail heavy from a bigger jump. 

Side-hits: Really fun for straight air side-hits. Not quite as good for spinning 1s off, as that tail wasn't great for setting up or landing on with it in front of you. 

Small jumps/Big jumps: Best for small to medium jumps. It's got enough stability for bigger jumps, but that tail just feels even smaller when having to try to land bigger jumps.  

Switch

Not ideal for switch, naturally. Leading with that tail feels weird and isn't ideal. But it transitions quite easily and is doable. 

Spins

As with switch, setting up or landing switch isn't great, but it was easy to get it rotating (not too surprising given it was a 153) and easy to get it to pop to give you the height you need. It also doesn't over spin easily after landing, and is easy to finish a spin on the ground if you don't quite complete your rotation. 

Jibbing

Certainly not what this board is made for, but doable. 

Butters

Pretty easy to press both tip and tail. They feel very different to each other, unsurprising, but both can lock in and would be pretty hard to over-flex either tip or tail. 

Score Breakdown and Final Verdict

Check out the breakdown of the score in the table below.

The Orca won me over this time around! It was super fun. Highly maneuverable, great feel of float in powder and all round just an easy feeling ride that still had some stability to it. Could really whip this thing around anything and have a lot of fun doing it.