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Liquid Force/ DeCosse Alliance: The Ultimate Kite Snowboard
https://www.liquidforcekites.com/snow/

The 2009 Liquid Force: DeCosse Alliance Snowboard has been relentlessly tested and designed for optimum performance riding and edging behind a kite, while maintaining it’s ability to shred the mountain, make gnarly turns, etc.

liquid_force_snowboard

Running Length: 1590mm
Waist Width: 252.7mm
SideCut Radius: 9m
Nose Width: 291mm
Tail Width: 291mm
Bottom shape: Cambered

Whether you are brand new to the sport of snow kiting or a seasoned vet, you need look no further for the best true kite specific snowboard on the market. The new Liquid Force DeCosse is the board that will both help you learn very quickly, while also helping you take your riding to that next elite level.

For the past few years Canadian custom snowboard maker Sheldon DeCosse has used his skills and custom manufacturing facilities to design and produce the ultimate snow kiteboard. Working with top athletes from all over the world, specifically with the top names in Norway, Sheldon has been able to design a board that serves the specific needs of progressive snowkiters, while also making the board fun to ride downhill. Up until this point, a DeCosse custom kite snowboard has only been available via a personal order with Sheldon in Canada. With the Alliance Snowboard program Liquid Force has teamed up our manufacturing facilities and worldwide distribution network with Sheldon’s superior shapes and technology to make the LF/DeCosse Alliance kite snowboards available to anyone worldwide at your local Liquid Force retailer!

What makes a Kite Snowboard Better (for snow kiting)?
In order to answer this, we must look at current mountain snowboards and how they are designed and perform. Most snowboards have a directional sidecut,and a set back- not centered stance to mount the bindings. This is designed so that the board initiates and turns easily downhill. The problem with this design is that for kiting, you are always riding the heel side edge and riding the board equally in either direction, which requires you to have a centered stance, or ”˜true twin’ board.

True twin boards exist in the snowboard market. These are usually park or pipe boards, designed to be ridden equally in both directions. The problem with these boards for snowkiting is that they normally have deep, or increased side cut, as the boards are designed to initiate and make a turn quickly and at low speeds. When riding a board like this with a kite, you find that when you edge your board against the kite, it tries to make a turn upwind, rather than ride across and edge. If you were to look at kiter tracks on a snow covered field, you could easily pick out this type of board, as it would make a line of many small arcs tied together as the rider edges, turns too much and has to bear off before edging and turning again.

A True Snow Kiteboard needs to ride both as a snowboard as well as a kiteboard. The LF Alliance has a true twin shape, binding mounting and side cut. It has less side cut than any park board or other true twin. In fact, the side cut radius is one of the cornerstone features of the board. This board is designed to allow a kiter to dive their kite, set their edge and ride off as if on a kiteboard, drawing a straight line across the snow. This feature also significantly aids in loading and popping much more like a kiteboard than any snowboard, allowing not only comfortable cruising for hours but as well allowing kite style moves and progression.

Aside from the shape, stance and side cut, the LF Alliance has a unique profile to its core shape and integration with composites for the right flex and performance needed for riding behind a kite. These boards are torsionally stiffer than a mountain board would be, in order to provide solid edging performance when riding for hours powered behind a kite and riding on edge. A special ”˜Deflex’ core technology developed by DeCosse means the boards are thicker under your feet than between them. This gives more stability and dampening underfoot while allowing the core to flex when initiating a hard turn, which actually increases the side cut in the process to allow a tighter radius turn. Solid and stable when riding on edge, yet makes a tight turn when initiated and called for.

Decosse Tech Promo from Nathen Berry on Vimeo.

We couldn’t make the best kite snowboard in the world without using the best materials and construction techniques of a world class snowboard. These features include tip to tail Canadian Hardrock Maple and Poplar cores, built with maple stringers to define the ultimate flex and feel of the board while keeping weight and vibration to a minimum. Full wrapped Rockwell 48 steel edges provide superior edge hold while protecting the tip and laminates while cutting through the snow on edge, as we do while kiting.

We cannot convince you with words alone, and really we don’t want to. Get out on the snow this winter to demo the new LF Alliance 159cm snowboard and you will see the difference within the first 100 meters, and it only gets better from there. There has never been a product in it’s category that performs so much better than everything else that has been used up to this point. Get out on an Alliance and see for yourself!!

https://www.liquidforcekites.com/snow/