Summer is a wrap, and I know because the first issues of the 08/09 snowboard mags have started to find me. If you read snowboard magazines or are under the age of 20, you probably think that Lib Tech's Magne-Traction and Banana Technology are the pinnacle of product design in the wintery white world of shred. But you'd be wrong. Those aren't technologies—they're sales gimmicks to make new products seem, uh... new. But they are not even new, because Banana Technology (also known as 'rocker') already existed in 1979 when Tom Sims built oversized skateboards with swallowtails and rode them on snow, and because Magne-Traction (also known as 'serrated edge') has existed for hundreds of years, on steak knives.
And while a serrated edge is indeed superior for cutting things (such as wood and French bread) it is NOT superior to a smooth blade (or in the case of a snowboard, a smooth, sharp edge combined with camber) for carving a precise arc across the surface of snow at high speed. So then, what is Magne-Banana good for? It's good for making non-precise sliding turns and for not catching an edge when wood-box-boarding and metal-rail-riding... which are a big deal in snowboarding, still, and beg the question "Why not simply rename snowboarding pretend-skateboarding?" Cuz that's what you kids are doing, and by the by, that's cool with me. Keeps ya in the jib park.
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