Snowboard Review: 09-10 Forum Youngblood Chillydog

Location: Loveland, CO

Snow Conditions: Hardpacked to icy conditions on the mountain.

Setup: I rode the Forum Youngblood with Forum Shaka bindings and Bonfire Geo boots.

Size: 156cm.

First Impression: Woah, softer and really feeling the connection between bindings to board…a bit too connected.

Weight: average

Flex: The Youngblood is a softer flexing park board throughout the board and the combination of the shaka’s was a bit too much flexing for me in how the board handled the mountain.  In the park it excelled for flex, easy to press, butter, ollie, pop and slide without any worries.  The chillydog rocker is a continuous rocker from tip to tail and on the youngblood it made for a very soft, playful park board.

Turning: One of the first turns I did with the youngblood was carve uphill with it to see how it flexed and carved into the snow, immediately it bucked me out when I held the edge which I think was the softer flex and something else.  On the carves it didn’t hold the edge, skidded turns were much better but carved turns it wasn’t as good holding in them.  I ended up being a bit more careful with turns on it, it was easy to engage the edge and go edge to edge on runs but I stopped trying to really carve the board.

Stable: The Youngblood reminded me of those park boards that you just want to ride in the park, outside of park it wasn’t as stable on edgehold and carving.  At faster speeds it got unstable and chattered when riding which caused me to slow down with it on the groomers.

Pop: On both of the chillydog’s that I rode, I didn’t find the sweet spot on them and sometimes that just takes longer to ride with them to get it.  I found the swing weight great for tree bonking and fun to play around on when it came to the flex but didn’t get a good judge on the pop factor unfortunately.

Switch: Youngblood is a true twin which made it easy to roll into switch riding and it felt the same riding switch as it did regular.

Overall Impression: The youngblood is meant for the park rider who treats the mountain as jibbing from feature to feature who won’t spend much time outside of the park.  Super easy to engage and ride overall but won’t progress you into carving, just playful park riding at it’s finest.

Shay’s Honesty Box: Of the two forum boards that I rode, the Youngblood wasn’t my style of board to ride and the destroyer fit me a lot better because it handled the mountain better.  Definitely if you plan to ride park or see the mountain as one park feature after another, this board suits you better than it does me.

Ready to buy? Head over to evo for the 2011 version of the Forum Youngblood Chillydog or shop their full line of Forum snowboards

On Snow Photo

[singlepic id=7459 w=400 h=300 float=]

Forum Youngblood description

Review Disclosure: I rode this board at a demo day.