Snowboards Coming Together

Just to add to my hockey OCD, I’ve been on a mission to get the kids outfitted to try snowboarding this season. I can’t seem to embark on these journeys in a simple and easy manner, and until we are ready to hit the snow, I’ll never rest easy. There is logic to my OCD, however.

Being a ski family, we are all set with our skis (my OCD took care of this), but I figure why not try snowboarding, as well? We’ll be on the slopes, and the opportunity is there. I snowboarded for over 15 years and personally prefer skiing, but there’s a coolness factor to snowboarding that you can’t deny, and being cool is important to young people. With this in mind, I decided to at least set them up to learn, and I figure I can slowly teach them the basics, not unlike skiing. Just take it slow.

In order to accomplish this, however, it helps to have your own equipment, because renting a board and boots every time is cumbersome and expensive. Now one might reasonably think that renting is cheaper than buying the stuff, but I’ve found that is not the case. To rent a board and boots for one day would cost you about $30, and that’s just for one day. The advantage is that you probably get flashy, modern, state of the art equipment, but I’m cynical about all that. Skis and snowboards, at least to me, are all the same. A $400 board isn’t going to make you Shaun White.

Anyway, I set out last summer to scour the dump, yard sales and thrift shops for snowboards (not to mention hockey equipment). What I found was that if you’re patient and diligent, for about the price of a one day rental, you can get a complete snowboard setup. Sure, the stuff isn’t shiny and new, but after a few days on the slopes, all that stuff looks the same, and again, expensive equipment isn’t going to make any difference, especially in the early stages.

With this in mind, we are close to being ready. We have everything except boots for N, but in a pinch, he could always wear his snow boots. That’s what they did in the early days of snowboarding. I should know, I was there.

Until the next time, thanks for reading.