YES Warca Snowboard Review

Board: YES Warca 2024

Price: $599 (USD recommended retail)

Style: Freeride

Flex Rating: Mid-Stiff (7/10)

Flex Feel: Mid-Stiff (7.5/10)

Rating Score: 81.5/100

Compared to other Men’s Freeride Boards

Overview of the Warca’s Specs

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

Specs

Who is the Warca Most Suited To?

The Warca is best suited to someone looking to ride faster, likes the feel of a stiffer board and wants something that can perform well at both carving up groomer and in powder. 

It has great edge hold in hard/icy conditions, so well suited to someone who rides in those conditions a lot, assuming the other attributes of this board suits them. 

Not for beginners, and not even intermediate riders, IMO. More of an advanced to expert board. 

All that said, I rode a size that was bigger than I would have preferred, so would likely change character a little in a smaller size. 

THE Warca IN MORE DETAIL

Bindings angles: +15/-15

Stance width: 22.6″ (575mm)

Stance Setback: Centered

Width at  front insert: 11.2" (285mm).

Width at back insert: 11.1" (282mm).   

Rider Height: 6'0"

Rider Weight: 180lbs

Rider Boot Size: US9.5 Adidas Response ADV

Bindings Used: Burton Malavita, M

Weight: 7lbs 1oz (3200grams) 

Weight per cm: 20.65 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 Warca was considerably heavier than the average on the scales. However, the 155 that I weighed was really the equivalent of more like a 162/163. So when you look at it like that, it's more like 19.75-19.63g/cm, which is still on the heavy side, but not as much above the average as it looks like initially. But, it did still feel heavy on snow to me, but part of that is because I'm not used to riding boards this big, so that was one reason. I think it would still have felt heavier than normal if I was used to it, but less noticeably so. 

Powder

Felt really good in the powder that we had. And has some specs to back it up. 

It's got a longer tail than nose, some taper (4mm) and a longer nose than tail, helping the tail to sink and the nose to float. While it's centered on effective edge, it's setback on the overall length of the board because of that longer nose. 

It's trad camber, so it's not going to be the powder flow king, without any rocker in the nose and without a huge setback or tons of taper, but felt good in the powder we had and would perform above average in deeper powder, IMO.  

Note that while YES describe it as a twin with taper, this isn't accurate, IMO. While it may not be setback on effective edge, it's nose is longer than it's tail. A tapered directional twin might be more accurate, but not a tapered twin, IMO. I measured 49.5cm from the center of the front binding to swallow nose, 46cm from the center of the back binding to the swallow tail (50cm to longest part of nose, 47.5cm to longest part of tail). Even in their specs, they have the nose length at 26.4cm and the tail length at 24.4cm. So, the nose, by their measurements is 2cm longer than the tail.

Carving

I found the Warca could dig in an edge and really lay into a carve well without getting washy, even at higher speeds. It wasn't something that was without limits - there was a point you could push it to where it did start to wash out. 

Turning

Ease of Turns/Slashing: It takes quite a bit of effort to initiate turns at slower speeds and becomes quite fatiguing after a while. But turn initiation gets a lot easier with a bit of speed under it.

Maneuverability at slow speeds (nimbleness): This board preferred speed under it and when it came to quick turns at slower speeds, it was hard work. With a lot of effort I could get it going edge-to-edge relatively quickly, but nothing that agile and just to get it to that point, I had to really throw my weight into it. This would get easier with a smaller size and IMO the 155 was too big for me, because of all that extra width, making it closer to a 163 regular width board. 

Catchiness: I didn't find it was anything ultra catchy. However, there was some catchiness to it and if you were to get too casual/lazy with your technique, it would likely punish you for it. It feels quite stiff torsionally, which I find often contributes to catchiness and also it is a full camber profile.

Speed

It was relatively fast overall. But not lightning fast. However, it was very stable at speed and never felt like it got wobbly at all, even when opening it right out. For a 155, even a wide one, that was pretty impressive. 

Uneven Terrain

Crud/chunder: Smashed through crud really well and had minimal chatter. Was quite damp and stiff, so chop/crud/chunder didn't register too much with this board. 

Trees/Bumps: Really good in a bit of powder. But too hard to get from edge-to-edge quickly at slower speeds to be amazing here. Would be better in a smaller size though. 

Jumps

Not ideal for jumps, better for staying on the snow. But not terrible either. 

Pop: There was a decent amount of overall pop, but not oodles. But it took quite a bit of effort to extract that pop. 

Approach: Nice and stable for faster approaches, but harder to make tight adjustments or quick speed checks, particularly when moving more slowly. 

Landing: Solid on landings and that extra weight and width really helped here. While the tail is smaller, there's still some tail there to help you out if you land a bit tail heavy but not ideal for tail heavy landings.  

Side-hits: Not agile enough for my tastes for side-hits and pop was too hard to access to be ideal. For those that had a wide easy approach, it was fine though. 

Small jumps/Big jumps: In this size, for me, I'd say better for bigger jumps and certainly jumps with a good sized landing area and plenty of time to run off at the end of the jump (i.e. not having to speed check quickly). But in a smaller size might be best for medium jumps. Small jumps would of course be fine too, so long as, again, they had a good wide approach and good amount of space after the landing.  

Switch

Not great but not bad either. Being centered on effective edge makes it better than you'd think. But that little bit of taper and a bit of a catchy feeling in transition to switch made it not ideal. 

Butters

There was some flex in tip and tail to press into. Took a good bit of effort and had to lean weight well into it. But at the same time, certainly not the hardest board I've had to try to press. 

The Warca is the kind of board that likes to stick to the snow - and it sticks really well when you want it to - i.e. when carving and in hard/icy conditions. And when the fresh powder comes, it does well floating in it too. 

It's quite a heavy board and quite stiff, certainly in the size I rode it in. So it's not easy to throw around and didn't like being ridden at slower speeds. So not well suited to short/sharp turns and took effort to extract any pop from it. 

I wasn't the biggest fan of riding this board. However, it should be noted that I would prefer to ride this in the 153 vs the 155 that I rode. And I think I'd even prefer the 150 over the 155. This board would be quite different if I rode it in one of those sizes, and I would predict that I would like it more in one of those sizes.