By John Park

Board Model: Abacus

Board Size: 160

Age: 30

Riding Style: Freeride

If you ride east coast ice, hard packed, groomers and never see powder days nor yearn for them. The Abacus will not be your friend, Arbor has many others to fit your needs the Abacus is not it.

However if you are looking to ease out those bad ass pow days with something that will ALWAYS perform on the fresh, be it on the groomers, in the trees, slaying a bowl, dropping into the fresh stashes .. this is your new companion on the mountains no matter how large or small.

Riding Revelstoke during a 30cm snow and accumulating was spectacular. The Abacus slayed the pow, kept me up top and grabbed as much speed as possible. It split the tight trees with ease, sent me off rollers and landed without any nose dive. Carving ?? Who needs that in the pow, just lean back and cruise. However, throw a spin and watch your landing gear ! The Abacus sits you so far back in your stance that rotations soon become corked and off axis. Even BIG AIRS will tend to lean towards the back … grab a mute to correct or else you’ll be rolling down some windows !

Riding the day after and following sessions without fresh snow saw the humidity, cold, groomers, and chop to create a packed surface. And it became clear this board does not like to hold an edge. As well, the edge it does hold is pretty weak. This is not a carving board, if you know you are going to be in more than 4″ of snow this is the board for that day, otherwise leave it at home.

Slay the fresh all day long and love it with this board, keep it at home if there is no snow in sight. There is an old adage of “No friends on pow day”, on pow days the Abacus is your only friend.