Salomon HPS Wolle Nyvelt Fish Review

Board: Salomon HPS Wolle Nyvelt Fish 2024

Price: $649 (USD recommended retail)

Style: Freeride

Flex Rating: Medium-Stiff

Flex Feel: Mid-Stiff (6.5/10)

Rating Score: 85.3/100

Compared to other Men’s Freeride Boards

Out of the 40 Men’s Freeride snowboards that I rated:

Overview of the Wolle Nyvelt Fish’s Specs

Check out the tables for the Wolle Nyvelt Fish’s specs and available sizes.

Specs

Who is the Wolle Nyvelt Fish Most Suited To?

The Wolle Nyvelt Fish is best suited to being the powder board in your quiver. And it would make a really good powder board for your quiver, IMO. 

But it's not just a powder board. It's actually quite fun to ride on groomers too. Not something I would get as my daily driver personally, but would definitely be happy with it as the powder board in my quiver - and when the powder is tracked or while you're on your way to powder spots, it's all good and not a chore to get there at all. 

If you're someone who wants that extra surface area to increase powder float, but don't want it to be too detrimental as to how easy it is to turn when not in powder, then this is definitely worth looking at. 

While it's quite a bit easier going than I expected, it's not for beginners, IMO, but a higher end intermediate rider shouldn't have any problems with this. 

THE Wolle Nyvelt Fish IN MORE DETAIL

Bindings angles: +15/-15

Stance width: 22.8″ (580mm)

Stance Setback: Setback 0.6" (15mm)

Width at Front Insert: 11.1" (282mm)

Width at Back Insert: 10.7" (271mm)  

Rider Height: 6'0"

Rider Weight: 180lbs

Rider Boot Size: US9.5 Adidas Response ADV

Bindings Used: Burton Malavita, M

Weight: 7lbs 2oz (3240grams) 

Weight per cm: 20.64 grams/cm

Average Weight per cm: 18.71 grams/cm*

*based on a sample size of around 250 models that I’ve weighed in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 & 2024 models. The Wolle Nyvelt Fish was much heavier on scales than normal. But this board is super wide, so the weight per surface area would likely be normal or maybe even lighter than normal. Still that extra weight is typically noticeable on snow, but in this case it felt surprisingly normal on snow, weight-wise. 

Powder

In what we had (which was pretty decent), the Wolle Nyvelt Fish felt really good. Effortless float - and it's pretty likely that would translate well into deep powder. 

Especially being able to go 157 (with how wide it is, this is a really good amount of surface area for my weight), which is big for me for the width of this board - yet, as you'll learn if you read the turning section below, it was actually really manageable in that size on the groomers. 

So with that surface area, plus a 15mm setback on effective edge and an 85mm setback on overall length of board (which you could interpret as more like a 130mm setback if you measure to the center of the swallow tail), heaps of rocker in the nose and a really healthy 20mm of taper, this board is clearly built to float in the deepest of days. 

Carving

But this board still isn't a one trick pony. With something this setup for powder, I was expecting it to be a bit of a chore on the groomers. It's not an epic carver, and with that much taper it was never going to be, but it can still lay down a carve and be fun on groomers. 

Turning

Ease of Turns/Slashing: But probably the most surprising thing, given all that width (I don't typically get on that well with wide boards) was how easy this thing was to turn and slash, even when not in powder. Now, it's not effortless or the easiest I've ever ridden, but it's still really decent and for it's width, is really good. 

Maneuverability at slow speeds (nimbleness): Following on from that, it was way quicker edge-to-edge than what I was expecting too. Now, it's never going to be lightning in that sense, but it was up there with some much narrower boards and wasn't a chore to ride slow with short/sharp turns. 

Catchiness: Didn't find this board catchy at all. I mean it's not the catchiest board in the world, but I would in no way describe it as catchy. 

Speed

Not ultra fast, but pretty stable at speeds, especially when flat basing it. On a higher speed carve the tail can start to let go, if you get too aggressive with it. The downside of taper, but there's not a massive amount of chatter going on and stays pretty stable when flat basing. 

Uneven Terrain

Crud: Felt fine in crud. Not a lot of hard stuff to test in on the day, but felt like it would handle it pretty well. It's got a reasonable amount of dampness. But it isn't likely to be a crud destroyer or anything. It will have it's limits in terms of being to crash through without being bucked around a little bit. 

Trees/Bumps: Felt good in trees and the moguls I went in. That small tail is easy to whip around objects and because of it's really reasonable edge-to-edge speed it wasn't too hard work to get it weaving in tight spaces. 

Jumps

Not ideal, but an OK amount of pop and straight airs were pretty fun. 

Pop: It was pretty easy to extract the pop and total pop was decent too. Not epic, but not bad, particularly for a board predominantly designed for powder. 

Approach: Quite stable on approach but also easy to adjust and speed check.

Landing: Pretty solid, but was sketchy landing tail heavy! And it felt like it wanted to land towards the tail, with that set back, so you gotta really make sure to keep that weight forward. 

Side-hits: For straight airs off sidehits it was actually pretty fun. It's got pretty easy pop and pretty easy on approach and to speed check when you need to. 

Small jumps/Big jumps: Best for small to medium jumps. Anything bigger and I wouldn't want to be landing tail heavy - would be harder to recover and not bail. 

Switch

Yeah, so.... about that.... it's not great. As you would expect. All that directional-ness (not a word, but if I put the "-" in there spell check doesn't put that red squiggly line underneath and that's good enough for me!) is great in powder, but the opposite when you're trying to ride this thing switch. 

It transitions pretty well and... well that's about actually. It feels weird, as you'd expect. 

Butters

It's not super stiff even in the tail. It is stiffer in the tail and it takes some energy to get it pressing, but it's not mega stiff. The nose is softer, but it's super awkward with how big it is. And suffice to say that the nose and tail don't feel anything like each to press so if you're buttering you don't get a consistent feel at all. Not what it's designed for though. 

Salomon's HPS Wolle Nyvelt Fish is first and foremost a powder board. 

But it's no one trick pony and is very capable riding groomers and carving to a certain extent (just not too fast/aggressive). It's an easier turner than I thought it would be, meaning I would be happy to get this in 157. Most boards this wide I would prefer something shorter. So that has the advantage of getting more surface area for powder float, without having it be a tank outside the powder.