This was the first year I attended the Sun Peaks demo days. And my first time at Sun Peaks.
Was awesome to get out on a new mountain and to try some 2020 models from various brands. The vibe was awesome out there and looking forward to getting back out there next winter.
The Details
The demo days were held March 9 and March 10 from 8:30 to 3:30.
After doing a few laps on my own board to familiarize myself with the laps that I had planned out for demoing the boards, I hit the tents and the day got moving.
Conditions: Both days had great visibility, with day 1 being mostly cloudy and day 2 being mostly sunny. Both days were quite cold, especially first thing on Sunday morning (which was an hour earlier, due to daylight savings). The conditions were great for testing – nice mid-firm conditions on groomers, with some harder patches. And some good fresh snow patches in places off groomer. Nice conditions in the trees. Things got a little chundery on groomer towards the end of each day but nothing too bad.
Method
As always, I tried to make the testing as accurate as possible by
a. Only changing the thing that I was testing (when possible) – e.g. using the same boots and bindings
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:
- Burton
- Salomon
- K2
- Ride
- Capita
- Jones
- YES
- Never Summer
- Flux
- Union
- Arbor
- NOW
- DC
- Niche
- Dinosaurs Will Die
- Slash
Plus some ski brands and the likes of Oakley, Smith, Spy, Giro Nikwax
Day 1
Day 1 I focused on Burton and Salomon boards, and got myself on the following:
- Burton Custom
- Burton Skeleton Key
- Burton Paramount
- Burton Family Tree Hometown
- Salomon Assassin
- Salomon Assassin Pro
- Salomon Super 8
- Salomon Ultimate Ride
Day 2
On day 2 I tried some bindings as well as boards
- Salomon Highlander Bindings
- Salomon Quantum Bindings
- K2 Manifest
- K2 Medium
- Ride Machete
- K2 Formula bindings
- K2 Line Up bindings
- Ride LTD bindings
Unfortunately K2/Ride don’t allow you to use other brand’s bindings on their boards, so it’s hard to accurately test them, when you aren’t sure whether it’s the board or bindings, and to what extent of each that are giving you the board’s feel.
For everything else, the boards were tested on my Burton Malavitas, and the bindings tested on my Rossignol One LF.
Exploring
Since I’d never been to Sun Peaks, I did some exploring at the end of the Sunday – since I’d just been sessioning the same laps all day for the sake of accurate testing. It was nice to spend an hour at the end of Sunday to explore a little more of the resort (even though I was pretty exhausted by that point!). And still plenty left unexplored for the next time.
See You Next Year
Was great to get out to Sun Peaks this year and a big thanks to Sun Peaks and all the brands there for another great demo day. Awesome to give the public an opportunity to get out there and give next seasons gear a go. Might have to stay an extra day or two next year to do some more exploring of the rest of the mountain.
Leave a Reply