Snowboard Tech – Magnetraction!

A couple years back Lib Tech snowboards (Mervin Manufacturing) put a new patent technology on a few of their boards. It involved an outrageous idea create oscillating edges with the possibility of gaining more edge control, and they dubbed their brainchild ‘magnetraction’. It was a huge success for Lib Tech and plenty of other companies are now chasing the same carrot. You can bet that in the next few seasons every snowboard will have magnetraction or some technology similar.

What is Magnetraction?

Go to your local shop and pull out a regular snowboard and a magnetraction. Take a look at the bottom and you can see that the edges on the magnetraction are wavy like this: ‘~~~~~~~~~~”. That’s magnetraction in a nutshell. Those oscillating edges are what makes the technology do it’s deal.

It works because if you think about turning on a regular snowboard with concave edges: “) (“, you will notice that your edges only hold two real contact points in the snow. Only the four widest points on the board are actually able to dig into the snow when you carve. With magnetraction, where the oscillating edges peak a new contact point is born, so when you carve with a magnetraction board you will have several more solid contacts where the edge meets the snow and thus you will hold a much stronger turn and just look friggen’ awesome!

Hey park rats! File the edges of a magnetraction ALL THE WAY TO THE BONE and this board will still hold a nice edge in the pipe. In other words you can enjoy all the rails and boxes hang-up free (get bucked and you’re gonna have a bad time. haha) and still be able to climb up those pipe walls for some cab 1080s.

If you happen to be in the market for a snowboard right now please consider a board with magnetraction. Like I said, I think soon there won’t be many boards without it, so buying a regular board for next season might end up only setting you back.