Posted by
refried
The O-Sin (Original Sin) 3800 is my favorite underrated board, It was one of the first tapered boards made but I think it was ahead of it's time and never became popular. About 3mm of taper and a 9m radius made this the perfect do everything board, the wider nose let the tail sink in powder, the stiff nose let you carve well on groomers, and the small radius made a quick turning board in the trees.They were last made in 2003 under the Dynastar label at the Elan factory. I don't remember what the retail price was when they were new (around $400) but I paid less than $200 for 2 (163 and 169), making them some of the cheapest boards I bought. If you don't know what one looks like look at the '09 Fish, it's very similar.
The Elan factory isn't making many boards anymore, Arbor, Rome, Forum, Flow, F2, Stepchild, and few others mave moved thier manufacturing to a factory in Austria (GST), If you look at the construction of the boards you can tell they all came from the same place (StrucTurn? bases arer a dead give away).
My old Dynastar Karma fucking ROCKS. Still. And that's after a full season of riding my new Never Summer Titan. O'Sin got a rap for being cheap crap, deserved or not. I don't know, I never rode one. My first "real" board was the Dynastar, a 2005 model, supposedly designed by members of their Olympic team (remember, Dynastar was trying to get legit in snowboarding in those years, and sponsored the Olympic snowboard team). The Karma is everything you said -- the taper, it's really stiff, the small sidecut -- it's wicked fast, insane turning ability and transitioning, and the "Auto Drive" thing they were putting on their high-end boards created one of the smoothes rides you'll ever find. My NS Titan, otoh, already looks as old and beat as my Karma. The Karma was a tough-as-nails board that performed like a dream. Then Quicksilver bought 'em, put the whole line out of business and orphaned me the very year I bought my board (which went for about $600 back in 05, although I got it as a close-out when my snowboard shop heard the company was getting sold -- I got it for $275).
