
It was another epic weekend at Sun Peaks for the snowboard demo days there.
Again, the weather turned it on and the conditions were great and there was some awesome 2021 gear to test.
The Details
The demo days were held March 7 and March 8 from 8:30 to 3:30.
Conditions Day 1: Day one was cloudy but high cloud and visibility was good. There was a decent layer of fresh snow, which made riding the trees fun and there was a nice layer of soft on top of hard packed groomers.
It was quite cold. -8°C (18°F) and -11°C (12°F) with wind. Wind was around 10-15KPH (6-9MPH), so not too much wind.
Conditions Day 2: No new fresh snow for day 2, but still some pockets of fresh remained, but certainly not to the same extent of the day before. All round off-groomer and on groomer were firmer. With on groomer, being quite hard, but still not icy.
Was even colder, especially to start with (made even colder by the fact it was daylight savings change, which meant we started an hour earlier). -11°C (12°F) and -14°C (7°F) with wind (but felt even colder than that first thing). Wind was similar. It warmed up as the day went on. Was cloudy to start but the sun came out (which helped warmed things up, and is always nice!).
Method
I used the method I always used for testing, which includes
a. Taking the same test laps on my test board (with test bindings and boots)
a. Keeping gear consistent. i.e. if I’m testing a board, I always use the same test boots and bindings – as I did with my control laps and with every other board that I test that day
b. Tightening my boots for each new board/binding tested
c. Completing the testing using the same laps each time
d. Completing the testing doing the same things on those laps each time (including doing the same with all my control gear at the start of each day)
What Brands Were There?
The following brands were present (plus some ski brands, but the following snowboard brands were there either one of the days or both):
- Burton
- Nitro
- Dinosaurs Will Die
- Flux bindings
- Lib Tech
- GNU
- Never Summer
- Niche
- Slash
- Capita
- Union bindings
- Bent Metal Bindings
- K2
- Ride
- DC
Plus some ski brands and the likes of Oakley, Smith, Spy, Giro Nikwax
Day 1
On day 1 I focused mostly on Burton, as I knew they were going to only be there for day 1:
- Burton Deep Thinker
- Burton Kilroy Pow
- Burton Process
- Burton Straight Chuter
- Burton Kilroy Twin
- Nitro Team (camber version)
- Nitro Santoku
Day 2

On day 2, I tested the following:
- Dinosaurs Will Die Kwon
- Dinosaurs Will Die Wizard Stick
- Lib Tech Rasman
- Flux XF bindings
- Flux DSL bindings
Was cool to get on some DWD decks, as I hadn’t ridden any before. Was a bit disappointed not to get on any Salomon decks this year. They weren’t at this years demos unfortunately.
A shortened day 2 schedule gave me a little time at the end of the day to explore some of the rest of the mountain. When you’re doing the same laps every time for each of the test boards, it’s nice to get out and check out other parts of the mountain.
Until Next Year
Big thanks again to Sun Peaks and all the brands that attended. Was an awesome weekend, and can’t wait until next year’s event, to get on some 2022s!
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