My purpose for writing this bit is to prevent the beginning female snowboard purchaser from being talked into purchasing a snowboard just because it is a 'women's specific snowboard.' My purpose is not to offend someone or criticize their taste in snowboards; this is only my opinion. It is, however, an opinion of someone with many years experience riding and building snowboards, and someone who has even more years of experience being a woman.
Get this: The snowboard does not know the gender of the rider! How does the snowboard know where your center of gravity is (or isn't)?...it doesn't! The only dimensions of a snowboard that (really) matter are length, sidecut, and waist width - this last might be gender-specific since women generally have smaller feet but the average shoe size for women (in the US) is an 8(26cm), and for men is a 10(28cm) - that's only a 2 cm difference! I just wanted to write a short blurb to point out that some companies will just leave out a layer of fiberglass, put some cutesy graphic on the board, charge $150 MORE than another (exactly the same + 1 layer fiberglass) board - and call it 'women specific.' [Save your money!] This doesn't mean that if you buy a board listed as 'women specific' that you will be unhappy with it. This simply means that you don't have to buy a 'women's specific' board to be happy, and tear it up. I could expand on other board properties but, here I am just introducing the subject. If you want additional info, just drop a line....and happy riding, male or female!
