Gyrate with a Kite

After a couple days at the resort in this years deep Utah powder I was hooked. The snow has been so deep this winter I was stoked I had the 168cm. This board floats so well just 4 inches of pow feels deeper than it should. Because of it's fairly narrow waist it turns surprisingly well in trees, even on hardpack. This board is also awesome for snowkiting, with a little extra length, reverse camber and the softer flex you can pull of any tweaked air you might be thrown into.

The snow is never too deep for this board !

This board is crazy! The rocker/reverse camber is great. Basically under foot the board sits flat against the snow and then begins to "bow" up to the nose and tail. The nose of the board has almost 9cm of rocker and the tail has almost 6cm of rocker. What this does for you is keeps your nose and tail up out of the snow and you don't have to lean back nearly as hard to keep up floating on those deep days and you can ride switch ! The board flex is soft enough to allow you to carve on soft groomers and crud, but it will take some getting used to. If you are one of those lucky riders that ventures in to powder frequently, this is a board that should be in your quiver.

Gyrator rocks

I have been to Japan Niseko , Nagaono and Kagura & tashiro with the whole mountain about a 1.5 hour hike to the summit : 1.5 - 2m of powder. Love it! get on a vertical in the trees it just turns. I love this board! 7 years in Japan powder this rocks . Forget your Fish this board has a tail with a torsion flex that turns hard in the powder. I got the 162 no need to go higher. Mates will buy it next year. The wholw mountian was open this year numerous hikes to the summit , backside off the ridge at kagura! the board was amazing. Any mistake I made the board just said ... what? heavy on the front foot , never dived in 2 meter powder ... great board! All i do is powder and this rocks , the pieste needed a bit of practice due to the camber of the board , but if you cant deal with that you should question why you are out there. The next board I buy will be a Gyrator! Why ? I am a surfer this is the only board.

Great powder stick.

I got the 162 as my powder board this year. This is an awesome board. Effortless ride in the deepest of powder. We got dumped on in Utah this year and I am glad I got to have this board. I normally would get a longer board for powder but with the rocker and the extra width this board was fine at 162. This is a lightweight board and has a low swing weight. As the previous reviewer suggested this is not the best hard pack board and takes some getting used to.

SIQQQQQQQQQQQ

I just got the 162 as my new powder stick and finally got a chance to try it out today. It was only around 6-12" on top of some pretty hard pack, so nothing too crazy, but enough to test it's ability to float... which it does. I think this actually should be called the Zeppelin because it might as well be filled with helium. The good: It floats like nothing I've ever riden, no effort on the back leg required at all with the stance only back ~1.25". Since you can ride a more centered stance you can also ride switch really easily. It pops off of anything, I went off a little mound in the powder that was the begining of a mogul today and popped nearly chest high. Flat out ridiculous. Since you don't have to flex the tail out to get it up you can pop really well off what would normally be a small roller, or off of narrow traversing track bumps. It is LIGHT. I have last years 158 Jibpan for my hardpack board and it feels like a lead brick compared to this board. The jibpan had their lightest core last year, but with this new honeycomb core they came out with, the Gyrator is just ridiculous. If you want to do spins in powder, it has NO swing weight, the thing feels like it's 10cm shorter when you spin. The bad: This is definitely not a quiver killer. You can ride hard pack with it, but it is, ummm..., well kind of interesting. Stability is not a way that I would describe it, since the only part of your base which touches the snow is in between your bindings. It stays that way until you are hard on an edge (which I don't recommend; it wants to turn too sharp to actually carve hard). This also means that it is a little bit sketchy on steep hard (ice) run ins. Just edge hard and you will be fine, but just keep in mind that it may not hold as easily as your old powder (ie large) board did. When it is choppy, warms up, and gets heavy the board is a little bit soft. If it's all been tracked out (like it was this afternoon) I would go back to my normal board after lunch. Basically if you really enjoy powder, want to be able to ride it very easily, and you can afford two boards (or just don't ride hardpack - you lucky bastard) then this is the board to get IMHO. Forget about the tapered boards that just try to sink the tail and ride a board that is actually designed to float. Notes on me if you care; I started riding in 92. I have ridden more boards than I can remember. Before this board I had a K2 Recon Riser 165 for my big mountain / pow board. It really is not a very good board for powder (spring slush is a whole other story). I still have the Recon and will probably ride it once in a while if I want to just haul balls. My normal board is a K2 Jibpan 158, which is not at all a jib board, as the name implies. Think narrow Zeppelin with carbon torsion forks instead of metal. After demo-ing a Lib Tech TRS 159 with magnetraction and banana tech the Jibpan will be getting replaced. Seriously banana tech is flat out amazing for normal all around stuff..., but full rocker still kills it in pow. :)