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- With a great snowboard strapped to your feet, you'll be ready to charge down the mountain, carve through powder, or ollie, gorilla grab, and front flip your way through the terrain park.
- The Burton Ripcord Snowboard is our top choice because it's a progression-friendly board that's suitable for use by novice boarders but still plenty of fun for advanced riders.
It's difficult to trace the exact origins of many of the world's most popular sports. Versions of soccer, golf, lacrosse, and other recreational activities go back many thousands of years and have gone through countless variations over the generations. Snowboarding, however, is a markedly different story. We can mark the creation of this now global sport almost to the day, and certainly to the place and the person.
In the winter of 1965, a man named Sherman Poppen created what would be the first functional snowboard when he attached a pair of skis together side by side, creating a wide monoski style platform with a rope handle affixed to the front of the board.
Named the Snurfer by Poppen's wife, the new device was designed expressly for use by the Poppen's children. But upon seeing how much his girls and their friends loved the new Snurfer, Poppen realized his one-off invention had big potential. The Snurfer was licensed and went into manufacture within a matter of months, and a million of these rudimentary snowboards would be sold within the next ten years.
About a decade later, the world saw the first effectively modern snowboard. It was developed by Jake Burton — who remains at the forefront of snowboard innovation and sales — and consisted of polyurethane-coated wooden boards using waterski foot traps. During the 1980s, snowboarding grew from a fringe sport oft-derided by skiers into a more popular activity, though it was still banned or at least limited at most American and European ski resorts.
In the 1990s, snowboarding finally went mainstream, with riders permitted on almost all slopes on almost all mountains. And at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, snowboarding made its first official debut on the grandest stage in the sporting world.
While mastering all the tricks, flips, and top speed sprints an experienced snowboarder can enjoy takes years of dedication and practice, with the right attitude and the right equipment, you can begin enjoying the sport this very season.
We've included several different types of boards on our list, including those suitable for beginners, one for kids, and some that are geared toward varied types of riding, from downhill speed to tricks and jumps. It's up to you to learn how to fall safely (keep your hands in and use your rump — it's tougher than your wrist bones), stop on a dime (all about the edge control), or pull off the perfect double wildcat (that's a backflip off a straight jump with two full rotations, and it's called the supercat by some, just FYI).
But here are a few great snowboards and a few tips that just might help you channel your inner Shaun White when you're out there on the snowy slopes.
Here are our picks for the best snowboards you can buy:
- Best overall: Burton Ripcord Snowboard
- Best freestyle: Salomon Ultimate Ride
- Best versatile: System MTN Snowboard
- Best for kids: Lucky Bums Kids Plastic Snowboard
- Best low-cost: Camp Seven Roots CRC Snowboard
- Best for powder: Rossignol XV Sushi
- Best splitboard: Voile Revelator Splitboard
Updated by Owen Burke on 12/12/18: Added a new freestyle pick, a powder pick, a splitboard pick, and updated prices and formatting.
Read on in the slides below to learn more about our top picks.
SEE ALSO: The best skis you can buy to hit the slopes
The best snowboard overall
Why you'll love it: The Burton Ripcord Snowboard is an all-mountain directional board perfect for beginner to intermediate riders.
Burton is arguably the biggest name in snowboard manufacturing, at least in the United States. That's certainly the case when viewed by the metrics of sales, as the brand accounts for the largest share of units sold in any recent year. But the Burton name is also associated with quality and reliability. Simply put, the brand makes good gear. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that founder Jake Burton is essentially the founder of snowboard design as we know it?
The Burton Ripcord Snowboard has a soft flex design that's ideal for beginners just getting to know the feel of a snowboard. It makes carving easy, turning responsively with minimal input and helping keep you upright and moving in varied snow conditions, from fresh powder to groomed trails to springtime melt/freeze chop.
The Ripcord is a directional board, meaning it is intended to be ridden only with the front end leading the way, but most beginner to intermediate snowboarders won't be doing a lot of switch riding anyway, so that's hardly a drawback.
And though the Burton Ripcord was designed for amateur to intermediate users, the durability of the board makes it more than suitable for more active, aggressive use by more advanced riders.
Most people who take the time to write a review about the Burton Ripcord Snowboard accompany said review with a five-star rating. One customer named Max speaks for many when he says: "For learning to snowboard [the Ripcord] was perfect." Max added that he is "looking forward to the second [season]" using his Burton board.
A reviewer with The Good Ride called the Burton Ripcord "one of the best powder boards you can get for the price," though he does say that it's hardly a high-speed board. A write up from Snowboard Critic noted its flexible core that allows for "good control" in just about "any condition."
Pros: Great choice for novice riders, easy turns, soft and flexible feel, good for powder
Cons: Slower than many options
Buy the Burton Ripcord Snowboard from Backcountry for $379.95 (price may vary by size)
The best snowboard for freestyle riding
Why you’ll love it: The Salomon Ultimate Ride is a highly technical board primarily designed for the terrain park and the halfpipe, but it’ll still hold up on the steep stuff if you’re a comfortable enough snowboarder.
This is an advanced snowboard for terrain parks. No snowboard is ever quite going to do it all perfectly, and certainly not in the terrain park, but the Salomon Ultimate Ride comes pretty damn close.
Whether you’re hitting powder or groomed snow, the park or the glades, this is a board best suited for the advanced rider. The hybrid camber (which results in a shape like a camel’s back lengthwise) lets you float over powder better than a flat or full-rocker board (both of those shapes would be better for more strictly downhill riders).
The best thing about this snowboard might be its “Popster” technology, which not only helps you lean into sharp, fast turns, but gives you a ton of snap and pop going into airs, too.
Australian halfpipe rider Scotty James found it to be his favorite of the nine boards he blind-tested for Snowboarder Magazine, finding that it held a firm edge, but also allowed for a pretty smooth transition between edges as well.
Despite having a long edge — which does give this board a relatively good downhill ride — the board’s “Quadrilizer” sidecuts (quad-angled cuts at either end) give you a ton of stability in turns, so it’s much more maneuverable than it might look.
All in all, this is a highly maneuverable board, and while it’s designed for tricks, will hold up in just about anything under an advanced rider. — Owen Burke
Pros: Stable, long edge, stiff flex for boosting airs
Cons: A little stiff for hitting rails in the park
Buy the Salomon Ultimate Ride from Backcountry for $599.95
The best versatile snowboard
Why you'll love it: The System MTN Snowboard can float over powder, charge down graded slopes, and help you pop over jumps, boxes, pipes, and more.
First, let's talk about the fact that you can get a complete System snowboard package for less than $320, not counting the tax. That means you will get not only a snowboard, but also bindings and boots.
And to stay on said bindings and boots for another moment, the former are the System APX Bindings, which are lightweight and can be used over the toe cap or over the top of the foot, while the latter are System APX boots, which are prized for being durable, supportive, and warm. Just one note: the bindings are of moderate quality at best, and will probably be the first thing you'll need to repair or replace.
Now, on to the MTN snowboard itself. The board has a camber-rocker-camber profile that helps it stay atop even the fluffiest freshly fallen powder and elevates the contact points, helping minimize the chance you catch an edge on any snow type. In other words, the design reduces the frequency of you ending up end down, or face down, in the snow.
Thanks to the MTN's core design, this board is also suitable for freestyle riding. Its core consists of durable but flexible poplar wood and a heartwood stringer down the center of the board. A pair of high-density stringers flanks this central heartwood, supporting the board and adding a snappy, responsive pop.
The System MTN is suitable for regular or switch riding, and it is comfortable carving a path through the woods or barreling down a back bowl. And all that in a package most boarders can afford.
The System MTN Snowboard scores a four out of five-star score when its many ratings are averaged together. A customer named Nolan said that for "the price point there's nothing better." An owner called Casper said the board is "suited to be used basically anywhere on a mountain."
A product write up from Wired Sport called the System MTN Snowboard a "rocker dominant [board]" with excellent "float in powder." And in a review from Our Great Products, a writer called the board ready for "shredding the harshest terrain and parks."
Pros: Highly versatile board, floats over powder, design prevents edges from catching
Cons: Included bindings of middling durability
Buy the System MTN Snowboard Package on Amazon for $320
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