Nidecker Escape Plus Snowboard Review

Overview of the Escape Plus’s Specs

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

Specs

Who is the Escape Plus Most Suited To?

The Escape Plus is best suited to those who like to rip. It's at its best with at least moderately fast speed under it and when it's on edge carving. 

It can handle a really good amount of speed and carves really nicely, but it doesn't feel as good at slower speeds. It handles crud well, despite being a lighter board (that said, I didn't have any harder crud, just soft stuff, to test it in - but with it's stability and flex, it's very likely to be good in crud). 

If you want some powder performance, but don't see powder that often and don't want to sacrifice groomer performance, it should be decent in powder. 

If you're already confident and competent with jumps and spins it has pretty decent pop, when you wind it up and does well on medium and larger jumps. 

Definitely not for the beginner. It's too stiff to use proper technique on when you're trying to learn and if you don't use proper technique on this board, it can punish you, particularly at slower speeds. 

The Escape Plus in More Detail

Bindings angles: +15/-15

Stance width: 550mm (21.7″)

Stance Setback: 10mm (0.4")

Width at Front Insert: 263mm (10.4")

Width at Back Insert:  267mm (10.5")

Tester: Nate

Rider Height: 6'0"

Rider Weight: 180lbs

Rider Boot Size: US9.5 Adidas Response ADV

Bindings Used: Burton Malavita: M

Weight: 2800grams (6lbs 6oz)

Weight per cm: 17.95 grams/cm

Average Weight per cm: 18.59 grams/cm*

*based on a sample size of around 200 models that I’ve weighed in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 & 2023 models. So the Escape Plus was a little lighter on the scales vs average. On snow it felt normal weight-wise or perhaps just a touch lighter than normal, but very close to normal. 

Powder

Nothing really to test in, except slush, but based on specs and feel, it's likely to be decent in powder, without being amazing. 

It has a directional shape, with a nose a good bit longer than it's tail, a small setback and some very subtle taper. However, there's also no rocker in the profile and the taper and setback are small, so not likely to be a powder king, but should be decent enough. 

Carving

Felt really nice on a carve. It felt most at home carving, rather than slashing or regular turns. 

Turning 

Ease of Turning/Slashes: It takes some effort to initiate turns and can feel a bit catchy when slashing, particularly at slower speeds. When getting up to more moderately fast speeds it starts to feel easier to turn and less catchy. 

Maneuverability at slow speeds: You could get relatively quick edge-to-edge at slower speeds, but it took quite  a bit of effort to do so. 

Skidded turns: As well as being harder to turn at slower speeds, it also felt quite catchy at slower speeds. As you added speed, it lost that catchy feeling though. Definitely a board that prefers a little speed under it.  

Speed

Felt at it's best with speed under it as mentioned above and overall felt nice and fast. And was stable at speed too. There's still some chatter there and not the most stable I've felt when really getting it going, but still really good and could handle all that I could throw at it. 

Uneven Terrain

Crud: It smashed through the messy snow we had with ease. But that said, it was pretty soft, so didn't get a feel for how it would handle harder stuff. But it felt fairly damp overall and was a solid feeling board, so all round it would be really good for handling all types of messy snow, IMO. 

Bumps: If there was powder, especially if it wasn't super deep, in the trees, the Escape Plus would likely handle it pretty well. Without powder it doesn't quite have that effortless quick edge-to-edge speed that I like to have for weaving between bumps and trees. But very doable when really focused and throwing the weight around. 

Jumps

Decent enough without being amazing for jumps. 

Pop: There's a decent amount of pop when you put the effort in to wind it up. But it did take a fair bit of effort to extract it's pop. Not the hardest board in the world to extract pop from, but harder than the average board. 

Approach: Nice and stable for faster approaches or where you find your line and don't need to make any adjustments or speed checks on the approach. But when you do need to speed check and make adjustments it's not ideal, particularly when approaching at slower speeds, where it feels catchier and takes more effort to maneuver it. 

Landing: Solid on landings. But where you need to make adjustments or quick speed checks after landings it doesn't do as well. There's enough tail there that tail heavy landings are fine. 

Side-hits: Not ideal. I like a board with easy pop, easy maneuverability for trickier/tighter approaches and for making adjustments after landings, when things might be a little tight. And those weren't it's fortes. Fine for easier to approach and exit side-hits. 

Small jumps/Big Jumps: Not great for smaller jumps because it's lack of maneuverability/speed checking on approach. But good for medium and large jumps, where you need a faster approach and want to try to get your approach right without making adjustments anyway. 

Switch

Harder to ride switch than average due to more technical nature of the board, but still doable for sure. And with a strong switch game it rides well switch. It's directional but it's not ultra directional or anything, so doesn't feel too weird riding switch. Transitions can feel a little catchy, when transitioning at slower speeds. 

Spins

Being lighter helped and for those already competent and confident with spins, it's fine. But not something I'd want to learn spinning on. Setting up and landing switch, particularly for slower spins felt a little sketchy with the catchy nature when riding at slower speeds. Again, if you have good switch technique and you're already a competent spinner, then you should be fine. 

But a combination of catchier when slow and having to wind up the pop makes it tricky to setup smaller spins that require you to generate your own pop. When you're having to concentrate on both extracting the pop and on making sure you don't catch an edge. 

Butters

Takes a good bit of effort/weight shift to get it to press, but it does get there and can lock it in. But not easy. If you're a stronger or bigger person and/or very competent with butters already, it's doable. But otherwise, it's not great for buttering. 

Score Breakdown and Final Verdict

The Escape Plus is a board that can handle speed - and its at speed when this board feels at its best. Doesn't feel as good at slower speeds, gets a bit catchy then. Though, if you really lean into your turns and ride it quite aggressively, even when riding slow, its manageable for quick slower speed turns. 

For the likes of jumps, side-hits, spins, butters etc, it's the board I'd want to learn those things on, but it's doable if you're already capable in those things - and pretty decent for medium and larger jumps. 

It should be good in powder and handled whatever messy snow we had well. For an advanced to expert rider, it could be a pretty versatile board.