How To Get Your Snowboard Gear Ready For The Upcoming Season.

If you’re like me, you’ve been getting more and more excited. The summer is over and the leaves have fallen. It’s almost snowboarding season and it can’t come soon enough. However with the awesomeness of winter around the corner, I tend to forget about checking my snowboard gear.

It isn’t the most glamours thing to do, in fact most snowboarders I know would rather gear up and hit the slopes. However if you don’t check out your gear, you might be giving yourself a headache later on.

Nobody likes the feeling of missing out on a powder day. What if your bindings are falling apart? What if your boots are jacked up?

While they’ve been sitting over the summer, a multitude of things could’ve happened to them, and this post will help you identify some of the more basic issues.

Also; I promise this’ll be pretty brief (mostly because I gotta wax a couple of snowboards)

Snowboard Gear: Check Your Board

I can’t tell you how many people I meet who’ve never waxed or sharpened their snowboard. Granted many of these people barely ride over 10 times a year. I do around 5 times that.

After every ride, I do a visual check of my snowboard. Especially if it’s springtime or I’ve been riding in trees, shallow snow, etc. Basically you wanna see if there’s any damage to the base.

If there’s no damage, (mostly there isn’t) then I put it away (after drying it) and thinking nothing of it until I go out to ride again.

Wax Your SnowBoard

However, every 7-10 times I ride, in addition to the visual check, I’ll do a snowboard wax. Snowboard gear can be finicky, and you’ll want to make sure the gear is operating at peak efficiency.

To see how to wax a snowboard check out a post I did a few years back called how to wax a snowboard. I’ll be honest, I need to update it, and probably will do that soon.

Sharpen The Edges:

If you’ve been keeping up with waxing that’s great, another step is sharpening your edges. Have you ever had a day where you can’t cut into the snow? It really sucks when that happens.

I sharpen my edges at the start of the season, and usually don’t sharpen again unless I feel the need. You can actually sharpen the edges to much and it causes metal fatigue. So make sure you do it when it’s needed.

Snowboard Gear: Check Your Bindings

This is one of the spots I tend to skip, and a few years back my bindings gave me some issues. I got to the top of a black diamond and my binding strap had fallen off.

If was a sucky walk down the mountain, I tried to heel it all the way down but it hurt pretty bad when I wiped out.

Checking your snowboard bindings is a pretty simple process. You’ll wanna double check all the screws. Make sure it’s tightly connected to the snowboard and the straps aren’t loose.

This is also a great time to double check your stance/general setup. Were you comfortable with it? Or should you make any changes? For example, I just widened my stance, and it’s pretty epic now.

Snowboard Gear: Check Your Boots

Checking your boots isn’t just for snakes (sorry random toy story reference)

I’m a huge fan of DC Scouts (check out my review in the link) These boots always come with Boa laces. Maybe I’m a bit spoiled but can’t ever tie a snowboard boot lace tight. So these are a Godsend for me.

Either way, double check the following things:

• How Do The Boots Fit?
• Is There Any Damages To The Boa Lace/Shoe Lace?
• Examine The BOA Crank(s) (If Applicable And Depending On The Mode).
• Look At Highly Used Areas, Soles Of The Boot And The Top Back Part That Rests On The Binding Backrest.
• Check The Flex Of The Boots. As They Get Used, They Tend To Wear Out.

Snowboard Gear: Check Everything Else.

I might come back and expand on the next few items, but I covered the good stuff. Now we have clothes, helmets, and goggles.

Snowboard Jackets/Gloves/Base Layers ETC.

For clothes you wanna make sure everything fits, it’s comfortable and nothing has happened to your gear over the summer. Double check for holes too. You never wanna get to the mountain only to find you split your snow pants….

…true story…I’ll write about it sometime.

Check especially gloves, socks, and your base layers, and wash them if you hadn’t yet too…that’s just being polite.

Snowboard Helmets And Goggles:

If you had a hit to your head with your current helmet, at the very least get it checked out…I was talking about the helmet, but maybe your head too. I don’t really know you.

If you’ve had a concussion in that helmet, be safe and get a new one. I just bought a new helmet this year and I was excited to use it for the first time the other day.

Don’t play games with your head, if you’re unsure, get something new that hasn’t taken a hit. Otherwise check for dents, tears etc.

For snowboard goggles there isn’t much to check. Look at the strap and check the lens for scratches. It’s a quick process but you never wanna be at the mercy of the resort for gear…it’s really expensive.

I hope you liked my list and my latest post. Don’t forget to subscribe below for more tips and tricks. Also any links to amazon from this website help contribute to its growth. Have a great season and check your snowboard gear.