Ride DH 2 with Contrabands a closer look

After finishing up on the Swindle I ducked into the Ride booth to hop on the DH 2 since my co worker loves his. Not having the best track record with Ride I figured I’d give it a shot.

Board: Ride DH 2
Size: 155
Bindings: Ride Contrabands size large
Stance: 22.5
Angles: 18 negative 15 goofy
Boots: K2 T1 DB size 10
My Weight: 165
Resort: Loveland
Conditions: Snowing, blustery, and generally pretty craptacular
Mindset: Lets see what all the hype is.
Tunes: Judas Priest

Preconceived Notions: Well supposedly this thing can pop me to the moon and has better edge hold. These bindings though are just some bastardized invention to destroy my feet I know it.

Flex: The board is definitely a bit beefier than the regular DH. Its beefed up over all.

Stability: Real stable between the feet. Actually had solid edge hold which surprised me.

Ollies/Pop: The pop rods in this thing do just what I thought they would. This thing fucking boosts. It has more pope than my Jibpan which is pretty intense. Throwing spins off the edge was super easy.

Butterability: Not a super soft butter stick but wasn’t hard to throw into a butter and press.

Cruising: Edge to edge was fine. I had no problem transitioning or laying it into a hard carve.

Jibbing: Not super easy to jib but it locks in pretty good. The pop factor in this board just makes ollieing on to rails insane.

Rider in Mind: A jumpers dream. This board pops like no other.

Personal Thoughts: Pretty impressed over all with it. Would love to see how the long term durability of it is.

Binding Compatibility: This time around they had the binding set in like 5 minutes. Now that was cool as hell this time around seeing them do a few simple adjustments and boom its locked down.

Binding Adjustability: Its actually fairly simple once you get over the whole there’s only one strap holding me in omg.

Straps: Its a comfy heel strap, the toe thong just isn’t for me. But then again its taken me years to switch to a cap strap.

Highbacks: Little too much give in the highback for me but this is a jibber binding.

Binding Flex: Over all its fairly soft.

Ratchets: Locked, Cocked, and ready to rock.

Rider in Mind: This thing was seriously invented for the kid in the park. Fast in, less ratchets, rail friendly flex, etc. etc.

Personal Thoughts: I could never own this binding with my riding style its just not for me. I did feel that I was getting a tad bit too much play in the heel even for the binding being dialed to my boot. Different strokes for different folks.

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