Snowboard Review: 08-09 Capita Black Death Inc

Location: Keystone, Colorado

Snow Conditions: Bluebird with mixture of groomers to powder runs.

Setup: I rode the Capita Black Death Inc with Union Trilogy bindings and my Vans Omni Focus boots size 8.

First Impression: My god…the BSOD is back and better! Honestly it was like coming home.

Size: 159cm

Weight: Average weight

Flex: Torsionally the flex reminded me of the old bsod. I could twist the board to take in shorter turns but also the longitudinal flex gave a really stable ride. In the powder had no problem keeping the nose afloat (but I was only in 4-6 inches of powder at the time).

Turning: I found every turn really smooth in transitioning between turns and allowing the rider to power out of a turn into the next turn. The turn initiation was easy and once on edge, you felt stable. I took the boards from wide long radius turns to short radius turns, each time looking back to see a solid line in the snow where the edge hold held a good arc and let the rider control the turn.

Stable: I never doubted the board handling speed, never felt chatter and felt like it charged in the conditions. Riding the 159cm I took it fast to pass a group of skiers on the mountain, it held fine.

Pop: I didn’t have a chance to pop ollies with the board, there was powder and it was a charging morning.

Switch: The Black Death is directional with a .5 setback stance but I had no problems riding it switch, noticed very little difference in how it handled. I’m used to riding directional boards switch as well.

Pipe: One wall in the halfpipe was powder, the other was ice. The Black Death rode fine in the pipe, holding an edge on the ice and was really fun slashing the powder on the other wall.

Overall Impression: The black death reminded me of my bsod in a couple ways, mostly the flex and effective edge. It is a different constructed board (the original bsod was cap construction, the black death is sidewall construction which does ride differently plus slightly different core among other slight differences) but it definitely goes back to the old bsod feeling. I enjoyed making turns on the board, felt really confident on the board when riding and was stoked Capita is putting out a board that really can handle the whole mountain.

I would like to ride the board again when conditions are more brutal on the mountain to really test how it rides overall. I didn’t ride the board through much crud/choppy conditions because it was the first runs of the morning with hardpacked groomers.

Shay’s Honesty Box: I was able to ride this board again at Hood and it honestly is like coming home. If I didn’t ride Never Summer’s as my all mountain board, I’d pick up this board in a heartbeat and I should have…but I slacked and didn’t wanna spend the money. The board handles everything, it’s a good decent ride.

Capita Black Death Inc Catalog Description
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