Location: Keystone, CO
Snow Conditions: Mostly soft packed snow to hardpacked groomers.
Setup: I rode the Arbor Coda with my Burton Escapade bindings and Ride Cadence boots size 8.
Size: 157cm.
First Impression: The Coda continues to offer that all-mountain style of riding wherever you want to go.
Weight: Average.
Flex: The Coda is Arbor’s all-mountain riding snowboard with a medium flex and the mountain system to handle everything you want to ride. Overall it’s in the middle of the flex scale. The nose is a tad softer with a stiffer tail to allow for powering through turns. Torsionally it’s more responsive, quick edging and longitudinally it’s a bit stiffer to give you more power and stability on the mountain. The Coda features Arbor’s Mountain System Technology designed to ride the mountain with grip-tech, parabolic rocker, directional twin shaping, power ply topsheet, toro tips and rocker flex. The mountain system reverse camber which has parabolic rocker which has more rocker in the center of the board and decreases the rocker to the tip and tail of the board.
Turning: This board offers up a solid all mountain ride. It’s torsional flex gives you quick edge to edge response on the mountain. The board can still carve S turns very well and just lets you play around in each full arc. The Coda has a UN3 Progressive sidecut which gives you a lot of capability and stability on turns.
Stable: I rode the Coda on some night lapping days where the conditions are more hardpacked/icy in spots. It held an edge, gripped the snow and could still feel stable through each turn. There wasn’t as much dampening so the board could be bumped around but not very badly.
Pop: I only played on the Coda in the smaller park where it was fine on handling. I never touch detune a board but ride it out on the mountain as is to see how it does for the contact points. The Mountain system still had good grip but didn’t offer any sort of catch on boxes.
Switch: The Coda is a directional twin so there is some adjustment to switch but it’s still very much possible to ride it both ways.
Overall Impression: The Coda was able to get out on a couple soft days, some light powder and a lot more hardpacked conditions. It handled in all the variety of mountain riding and was easy to ride on the groomers. It was consistent, handled very well on edge and offered a quick responsive ride.
Shay’s Honesty Box:The Coda is a solid all mountain snowboard. I immediately got onto it and felt comfortable from the start. It’s not too soft and it’s not too stiff. It’s the perfect blend for handling and resort riding.
Review Disclosure: I borrowed this snowboard from Arbor Snowboards. It will be returned to them.
Yegg
December 27, 2012 at 7:55 pmShay, great review. Having one season under me on a 2006 K2 fuse (so, coming from a directional twin with camber) I’m looking into an all-mountain board that handles well in the northeastern hardpack at higher rates of speed. Very interested in the Arbors, though have done some “research” on Ride’s Highlife, Nitro’s Rook, Never Summer’s Heritage, and even the Jones Mountain Twin amd Rossi’s equivalent. I’ve seen some people love the Coda and not the Element RX due to it being too plank-like, while others dislike the Coda for being too soft/flexy. While personal preferences make up the difference, I’m looking to grow into a board that won’t restrict bigger, steeper lines at the resort, and fear the Coda is too soft. 6″, 165lbs, so I’m fairly well catered to by either.
Just curious on your take.