There are plenty of snowboard manufactures out there, and Gnu is a perfect combination of homemade genius meets a market place with limitless potential. In 1980 Mervin Manufacturing began developing snowboards right out of a horse barn, with barely any engineering background they laid a foundation of a new breed of boards.

Gnu boards are well known to snowboarders around the world and the 2008 season holds some sweet gems for anyone looking to enter into snowboarding, or just considering a new edition.

Carbon High Beam Magne-Traction

The renowned CHB or Carbon High Beam are back once again for the 2008 season, and already are becoming a hard to find item. I really like the superior design and construction of the CHB. The CHB Magne-Traction has already taken the market by storm nabbing a spot on TransWorld Snowboarding top five park boards for 2008.

The Gnu team really made an impact with their latest design again showing that snowboarders can design boards that cater to what a snowboarder needs most in their equipment. The revolutionary geometry increases the overall quality and control of your ride, especially when you're showing off your stuff in the groove of good pipe or grinding it out on the rails. Gnu uses tucked edges that are super lightweight and with the extra attention taken in positioning steel inserts, the Magne-Traction not only flexes perfectly but it also is as tough as nails.

The Danny Kass Dirty Habits MTX

Danny Kass celebrated his Olympic triumph adding two silver medals for his talents on the half-pipe, and his newly released custom board captures the aggression and passion of this young medalist. First the board bares some sweet graphics from the fine artist Tim Karpinski, but it doesn't diminish the solid quality that goes into the board. Again Gnu lays it down with their twin directional shape and revolutionary geometry that just makes this ride hold tight to that hard edge. The Mervin AG2 Core perpetuates the toughness of a wood board but combines aspen and genetically altered wood to make this board ultra-light.

As boarders we demand something that can take some punishment and Gnu listened by adding nine layers of end-grain birch to the inside of the of the sidewalls. Gnu calls this EISS (External Internal Sidewalls System), which to a boarder means you can beat it, grind it, and give it heck, and it will still give you that nice spin or awesome pop in the end. There is whole lot of science that backs this bad boy up, but anyway you put it the "Kass" is definitely one hardcore board just like the boarder who it's named after.

Gnu has been a long-term player in the snowboarding game with tough competition like Burton and Capita the Gnu boards are definitely putting up a good fight. For the overall value and cost the Gnu is a good choice for freestyle boards and the new "Danny Kass" will surely turn more than just a few heads in the park.

Learn more about this author, Douglas Black.
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