Snowboard Review: 09-10 Capita Sierrascope FK

Location: Steamboat, CO

Snow Conditions: Hardpacked conditions on the mountain.

Setup: I rode the Capita Sierrascope with Union bastardized bindings and Bonfire Geo boots.

Size: 152cm.

First Impression: The sierrascope is a collaboration between sierra snowboards and capita snowboards, sometimes collabs can make a product that is a great deal and a great ride…this is one of them.

Weight: Average

Flex: Just like the indoor, the sierracope has a softer nose and tail with stiffer flex between the bindings from the carbon X stringers.  It makes it really stable between the feet and a tad playful on the nose and tail with the help of the flat kick.  Stiffer torsional flex which I found doesn’t make it to difficult to go edge to edge but helps with the stability when riding and especially in halfpipe.  It’s not as playful as the horrorscope or ultrafear by any means.  Capita’s Flat Kick technology had zero camber between the bindings and then kicks up towards the nose and tail.

Turning: It’s easy to get on edge and despite the stiffness between foot it doesn’t make you work harder to get it into turns.  Turn initiation is super easy and doesn’t throw any surprises into the mix.  It handles short radius and long radius carves for me with no problems, didn’t feel like one was better than the other but a good mix for both.  The best thing about this board is the size should feel small riding and it doesn’t feel like it’s a small board with how it handles turns.  Good edgehold on steeper terrain and on icy conditions, I can still turn the board no problem without slipping out.

Stable: This is the best board for edgehold on icy conditions that I’ve ridden of the compared boards and that makes it really fun in halfpipe cause I’m not worrying about skidding out when I’m trying to hold an edge up the wall.  On the steeper terrain, it holds a carve with no problems and handles the mountain when you go faster without any speed wobbles.  I haven’t taken it in choppy/cruddy conditions yet so can’t speak on how it handles there but as soon as we get snow on the mountain I’ll let you know.

Pop: I’ve spent the majority of time in the park on this board and this board has more pop than my ultrafear which makes it more fun in the pipe especially from the stiffness/pop factor and I found I had no problems ollie’ing onto rails and ollie’ing off rollers all came easily.  When it comes to pressing/buttering it’s not as easy as the softer boards (ultrafear, horrorscope) so relies more on your skill of pressing, but it’s still possible.

Switch: The sierrascope is a true twin but it didn’t ride as clean to switch as the other boards when maneuvering but when I got into switch turns it felt fine and didn’t have that feeling, just the transition period.

Overall Impression: After riding the Indoor, Green, Horrorscope and Ultrafear, I thought that maybe the sierrascope wouldn’t be to different from those and would be difficult to review.   I soon found that the best features of each of those boards made one board, the sierrascope.  While it shared similiarities with each of those boards, it’s a totally different ride.

To compare, it’s similiar flex as the green machine or indoor survival (It’s been a while since I’ve ridden the indoor/green but the size difference is what gets me on this, the sierrascope feels stiffer at a smaller size than the indoor at the bigger size I rode), it’s stiffer than the ultrafear and definitely stiffer than the horrorscope which puts it right in the middle of the ultrafear and green/indoor combo.  It’s got more pop than the ultrafear but the ultrafer is easier to press/butter because it doesn’t have the carbon stringers and the sierrascope holds an edge better than the ultrafear/indoor.  So if you want a park board, ultrafear/horrorscope are it, if you want all mountain/park mixed equally sierrascope is it and if you want all mountain/some park indoor/green are it.

Shay’s Honesty Box: The sierrascope grew on me after riding it because at first I wasn’t sure how I felt about it but after riding it more, I grew to like it more and more.  I thought the size would be too small but for my park riding and pipe but the more I’ve ridden it the more I like with how it handles pipe to rails…something my ultrafear wasn’t as good at was pipe riding.

Ready to buy? Head over to evo for CAPiTA snowboards or shop their full line of snowboards

On Snow Photo

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Capita Sierrascope FK description

Review Disclosure: This board was given to me by sierra snowboards.