You Don't Need That New Snowboard

Well, you might, but you probably don't

Today I got an email from Burton, encouraging me to take advantage of their pre-Black Friday sale, complete with the legally convenient “up to” language. They still want me to pay over $600 for last year’s pants, though, likely still an 85% margin. Despite being a longtime Burton fanboy, I’ve found their innovation (or lack thereof) stunning lately. This year, they have over 44 different snowboards on offer. What, exactly, is the difference between them?

Their outerwear is even worse—new designs? Forget it. The only difference between this year’s “new” jacket and last year’s 50% off one is colour—if even that. If I’m not interested in a different shade of pastel and prefer the timeless black, there’s no innovation. I buy new hoodies more often than new outerwear—I’m practically begging to give Burton my money. Yet each year, all they can come up with is a different shade of the “BRTN” crew neck. I already have that one. Try again.

Don’t even get me started on Step Ons—the innovation no one asked for. They are a solution in desperate search of a problem. Yet another march toward a mandatory proprietary setup. Laurent Potdevin would be proud. The only thing I want less than strapless bindings is to buy a special set of $600 boots that aren’t compatible with my other setups. If the core value proposition of their big new product is “Hey, it doesn’t spontaneously release,” I’m not interested. My 2006 CO2s have been up to that challenge for close to two decades.

In the past, whenever there was an issue with a board, bindings, or outerwear, Burton made good on it. After I snapped my original UnInc on a jump, Burton had the current year’s model in my hands by the following weekend. When the highback on my CO2s fractured—even though the model was out of production—they sent me a mismatched replacement in 48 hours. That kind of commitment built trust.

But lately, I’ve been burned. My last pair of pants lasted me nine years. When I finally needed a new pair, I treated myself to the 3L Carbonate bib pants in Jake Blue. On the first day I wore them, two issues emerged. The hard plastic “Burton” logo sewn onto the leg was in a high-traffic area; chairlift bars and even carrying my board caused it to chafe and the stitches to come undone. Worse, keeping my phone in my pocket caused the Gore-Tex to split on the right side pocket. Burton made it clear these were not warranty issues—they were wear-and-tear. If pockets can’t withstand the stress of having stuff in them, what are we doing here?

Despite all that, I’m still tempted by the sale. I’m always waiting for the snap moment to justify the impulse. Novelty is exciting. And while my quiver has expanded beyond the Burton brand to include Bataleon, Rome, Gnu, and Lib Tech, I have trust issues, yet I’ll likely let Burton hurt me a couple more times before I search elsewhere for my next pair of snow pants. The devil you know, and all that…

I recognize the irony here, especially coming from a guy who wrote a 15,000-word love letter to his five snowboards. Even after that, I still got a new one—a Burton Custom X, as tribute to the first “nice” snowboard I ever had, an ‘05 Custom X. But I’ll backfill the justification for the purchase by saying I had access to employee pricing. Turning down a younger version of my high school sweetheart at that price point was tough.

But now, with my quiver six boards deep, I find Burton’s advances less tempting. I’m still happy to try out some frivolous shapes on demo days for a run or two, but after a couple of hours, I find myself longing to return to my old familiar. The truth is, it’s been a while since any “technological advances” have gotten me excited. The reverse camber of the Skate Banana and all the strange variations it birthed in the mid-2000s were the last time I felt anything close to “I need to try that.”

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t browse the offerings every November. It’s not fair to say that once you’ve done one carve with a board you’ve done them all. Novel terrain and challenging park features allow for new frontiers with familiar tools. But I’m getting older. There are only so many things an old board can show me in the park. The IKON pass makes it a little easier to bolt on new terrain excitement, but it’s still expensive.

It’s a lot more tempting to spend a couple hundred bucks on a young Custom X or to see what the new camber bend of this year’s Never Summers or Mervin boards looks like. With those, I can feel like a new man on an old run. But if I gave in to those temptations, I’d find myself constantly searching for balance points or effective edges. I probably wouldn’t feel confident impressing those boards with my best tricks or fastest carves anyway.

I have friends who churn through a new board every year. I don’t know how they do it. Either I overthink my commitment to my boards, or they don’t think enough about theirs. Maybe I’m a sucker for sentimentality. My old boards decorate my walls, for God’s sake; I could never leave them behind. Meanwhile, every time I ride with these friends, they’ve got a new companion slung under their arm. It’s so frequent they barely mention it, but I always notice. I guess I’m supposed to act like an equipment swap is no big deal.

While I’m confident they can ride their new board and have fun, I can’t help but feel I’m more connected to mine. The best risks are taken with trust. Standing atop a new cliff drop or a three-pack of jumps, I’d rather not be dealing with a wildcard. There’s still a lingering sense of jealousy, though. Maybe if I were a better rider, or my boards had a couple more bends…

Yet Burton is the only newsletter I’ll allow into my inbox. I’ve completed the arc from unrelenting fanboy, to experimenting with other brands, to reluctantly accepting that their boards have stood the test of time. Every Mervin board I’ve had—as fun as they were to ride—has snapped within a couple of seasons. I could probably still ride my UnInc, but I retired it after over 400 days on snow for fear of an imminent edge blow-out. The Park Pickle barely lasted a season. My Hot Knife, love it as I may, started delaminating after two seasons.

I used to tease my friends about their brand choices. When something was an obvious defect but the company’s response was “it’s your fault,” it seemed like a perfect opportunity to jump ship. But loyalties run deep, rational or otherwise. It can be intimidating to get back out in the world instead of retreating to the comfortably familiar. Trying out new brands can be expensive and lead to just as much disappointment. Their web presence can make them seem like rational choices, and even a couple of demo days may make the novelty seem appealing. But after the honeymoon period is over, and you’ve spent a full season with the new brand, the warts begin to appear. Everything seemed so good on those demo days.

We live in a world where this year’s model is promised to be better than last year’s. Yet the differences between a 2022 Subaru Outback and a 2023 are nominal, the iPhone 16 gets a slightly better camera than the 15, and last year’s $900 golf clubs don’t appear to be any different from this year’s. Sure, there have been true innovations here and there; Magna-traction and camber profiles come to mind. After a certain point, though, it becomes disrespectful to the consumer. The only thing more insulting than trying to convince us there’s a meaningful improvement from last year’s Burton Process to this year’s is when we fall for it—and then the board goes on sale for 40% off a week later. I don’t even like tigers.

Innovation is just a clever disguise for the same old thing. Allure is produced less from the new and more from what one simply doesn’t have at that moment. Novelty is fleeting. The notion of us wanting choice, of wanting a product lineup of 44 snowboards of every shape and colour, is a fallacy. Study after study has shown that humans don’t want more choice; they want to be more sure of the few options they have. It’s why Steve Jobs cut Apple’s product offering from fifteen desktops to one.

We live in a world where we’ve been conditioned to believe that new is better, and if it’s not, there’s always another option around the corner. We just need to scroll down, add filters, or swipe left. Despite the buffet of “improvements” available to me every year, I still find myself longing for the old familiar. Even getting the Custom X was like a baby boomer buying the 2023 Dodge Charger, hoping it would be like the one he had in the ‘70s. It isn’t, though, and it never will be. Replacement due to catastrophic failure is one thing, but allowing a company’s marketing to throw you into a mid-life crisis is another.

You probably don’t need that new board. Just go home and love the one you have.