JACK Snowboards – Board Test

Last winter the guys over at JACK snowboards sent us some of their kit to test here at our base in the French Alps. Here’s a little write up of how we got on…

JACK snowboards are a British snowboard brand that produce made to order boards, hand crafted in the UK by the team at DOUK snowboards. They are also, primarily, a kids specific brand – so naturally here at Kids Can Ride we were keen to know more about their products.

As a result, when we were given the opportunity to give their boards a test last winter, we were stoked. And we were even more stoked when they arrived as they were super rad looking!

We wanted to make sure the boards were tested by a fair few kids, from beginners to intermediate and advanced riders.

But we also specifically took Poppy(9), Scarlett (just turned 7) and Henry (5) out for an afternoon shred on our local mountain so we could document some of their time on the boards and get their reactions.

When kids test equipment it’s often hard to get relevant feedback or specific information.

Kids generally just want to go and ride and not talk to you about how the camber or reverse camber feels or how fast the edge to edge speed is etc etc.

So we let the kids do just that and we watched how they all rode, looked for any differences and listened when they did have feedback.

Consequently this is not a super technical review but an honest overview of watching kids we know well riding different boards. Although if you want all the tech details on JACK boards, and they are packed with loads of high spec features, then check out their info here.

All the kids were riding Burton boards at the time; Poppy a 130cm Feelgood smalls, Scarlett a 115cm Chicklet and Henry a 100cm Burton LTR (learn to ride) board.

Poppy was testing out the Velocity 120cm, Scarlett the Park Ripper 110cm and Henry the Didified 100cm. All the kids really liked the board graphics – especially the Didified and the Park Ripper.

“I really, really love this board. It is really fun to jump with. It’s like a stunt board. I love doing 180’s on it and it goes really fast.” Poppy

We had wondered if Scarlett might not be too keen on the skeleton especially as her current board is covered in pink cupcakes. But no, she was a big fan! As was Henry, who especially liked the skeleton.

Poppy was less keen on the Velocity graphics (possibly because she was envious of the other boards graphics!) but we all really liked it’s striking base and the Velocity graphics probably got the most admiring looks from older riders.

However, Poppy’s indifference to the Velocity’s graphics was soon overcome by how much she loved the board and how fun it was to ride. She is not easily impressed but this was an exception. She declared it to be the ‘best fun’ board she had ever ridden! And as a 9 year old with 6 seasons and many different boards under her belt that is a pretty big statement!

Both Scarlett and Henry enjoyed riding the JACK boards too – interestingly Scarlett was mostly impressed by how fast the Park Ripper went, we were more impressed by how playful the board seemed for her and how willing she was to try all sorts of tricks and butters.

“I like this board, it’s like my old board but different and I like to go fast. And I like the skeleton” Henry

Henry, who hasn’t ridden nearly as much as the girls, did amazingly well with no problems jumping onto a different board (he’d only ever rode one other before) and he followed the girls pretty much everywhere around the mountain!

If we’re honest we thought the kids would enjoy riding the boards but they and us probably wouldn’t notice a huge difference to their normal boards.

But this was not the case – all the kids seemed to find the JACK boards light, quick, responsive and very easily manoeuvrable.

We noticed a difference too as they threw themselves and the boards around the mountain with no worries and big smiles on their faces.

We genuinely felt that the boards had that top spec feel that Jack promise  – they looked and felt hand crafted, were really light and we could tell the kids found them incredibly responsive. The only downside was that this did leave them feeling not as robust as some other kids boards we have seen but this may be a small price to pay for such responsive boards.

So if you are looking for a new board for your groms, we can definitely recommend JACK snowboards. Often parents will look at the bigger brands when searching for boards for their kids and although the majority of these boards are excellent, it is well worth adding JACK to your list of go-to brands and checking out their extensive range.

JACK have revamped their website recently and added a whole load of new boards and graphics. As well as being great boards we also think they have some of best kids board graphics out there. Full marks to JACK top man Shaun for getting the designs spot on. Do go and take a look here.

We are stoked that kids snowboarding is really beginning to be an exciting and forward moving area of snowboarding and companies like JACK are really leading the way – it is, of course, a double bonus that JACK happen to make very rad boards too!