Wakeboarding VS. Snowboarding

i live in connecticut so i wakeboard in the summer and snowboard in the winter. i saw something today that showed how wakeboarding has influenced snowboarding. they have a new snowboard out that has a rocker in it. i was wondering your guys thaughts on the similaritys and differences on snowboarding and wakeboarding. (i still like wakeboarding more)

As I understand it, the path is that Shane McConkey developed some super fat powder skis with rocker based on water skis. In the right conditions, namely deep untracked powder, the skis rip. Snowboarders are now trying the same idea. One pro I know, Kevin Sansalone, built some prototypes and had a similar revelation.

the snowboard with the rocker was created by libtech called the banana. I think k2 had made a board with a rocker before but dont remember which one it is.

I think the only thing wakeboard and snowboard have in common is knowing your edge and being use to traveling sidewayz.

I think the closest thing to snowboarding to me is wakeskating with no fins because you have to know how to keep an edge and work your whole body to get the board to do what you want it to do. Both have that loose feeling.

The new 2008 K2 board with rocker is the Gyrator Snowboard. The Lib has a continuous rocker and the K2 has a 3-stage. The rocker keeps you centered and floaty in the powder. I can see how some of the invert spin variations have come from wakeboarding. I also see how wakeboarding is taking some of the steezy grabbing while in mid spin from snowboarding.

i started wakeboarding a year ago and snowboarding arround the same time and i hit some 40 foot kickers this year and it really helped me with wakeboarding with my balence an everything it is almost the same when you are in the air (accept for the handle)

The Libtech banana design is a reverse camber(rocker) all snowboards have a rocker in them but it goes the other way. so if you lay a board on the ground with no weight pushed through it, the center of the board will be lifted off the ground a couple cm's. the banana basicall has the center on the ground and the tip and tail off the ground. Libtech is the only company that can do this because they are the only company that has magna-traction. magna traction is basically little waves in the sidecut that create more entry radiuses on the board's sidecut. on a normal snowboard with a single sidecut the entry and exit radius' are only at the tip and tail of the board but what libtech(and GNU) have done is create additional raduius that make 7 times the turning points and it moves the points that create the turn from the tip and tail into the center of the board. basically with magna-traction libtech figured out that there is no real need for the tip and tail to be in direct contact. because the tip/tail naturally like to initiate turns, libteck went and put a reverse camber on the board that decreases the pressure the tip/tail have on the snow and so there wont be any catching of edges unexpectantly and just an overall smoother ride. this was kind of a long winded explanation but basically it's origin really has little or nothing to do with wakeboarding.

Slightly off topic, but one of my favorite vids of a friend of mine.

You can use some wakeboards in both places.
Why just use your wakeboard on water, when there is snow nearby.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=82908 90

mike, 40 ft kickers after 1+ seasons snowboarding. that's pretty good.

Spin 1080 on a snowboard much easy than on a wakeboard...

Flower, nice vid, Eddie has always been multi talented, I saw him at a comp a couple of years ago & he water skied, wake-skated, did the slider comp & wakeboard in the Expert class & hit the podium in all four.

A rocker on a snowboard on anything but a foot of powder would suck. You would have a very small contact surface when you're not carving.

Oh yeah, a 40' kicker? Obviously we're measuring them differently because they typically only build something that big for pro events. Maybe you're thinking of a 40' table top? A 40' table top isn't that big.

Last year i went up to straton right after the masters and some friends and i went in the turrain park that the pros did two days before.