Gear Review | Konvoi Nevado Splitboard

First impression

Awesome. Black. No print. I liked it and I still like it today.

Oh, really long.

Oh, the channels. Looks funny.

Hm, the 3D Nose. That will certainly be good.

Plus plum hooks and Karakoram clips. Super clean cut Kohla skins in a convoy bag. Everything looked solid. The material of the sidewalls and the topsheet speak a clear language: built to work and to last. And they do. Technically and visually, because where there is no design, a scratch cannot destroy the former. On the contrary, it becomes a kind of functional design in itself.

The board

The Nevado was designed as a splitboard. It is not a cut-up solid board. You notice that immediately. The fishtail, the super long nose and the moderate camber only want one thing: to go forwards. Up and down. The board halves stay on track faithfully and purposefully or prefer to track themselves anyway. The nose floats super. With a centre width of 254 mm, the whole thing is also not excessively wide, which I really appreciate on the ascent.

The channels next to the outer edges - an invention by Ben, about which he reveals some details on the next page -  compress the snow and form a kind of platform, so that you feel like you have more edge hold and slide sideways less.

The 3D moulded nose swings open slightly to the side so that you don't have to deal with jamming or pushing snow either on the ascent or descent. In my opinion, the flex of the Nevado is perfect. The board is not too soft and not too hard. Coupled with the 7m radius, it can do everything. It is stable on the edge in hard conditions, but turns extremely quickly in steep and technical passages. In powder snow, everything comes together and I always end up in the valley with a big grin on my face.

The Wow! effect

The Konvoi Nevado rides so well that you have to ride it to believe it. In the first winter, it was tested from a standing start into the Top4 Selection of www.splitboarding.eu (page unfortunately no longer exists), right next to Amplid Milligramm and co. It was there again last season.

But what makes the wow effect? Why am I still so satisfied, now in my fourth season? Why am I no longer interested in riding or testing another board (which I definitely had all the time before)?

Well, two points. Firstly, it simply rides so well that I can't imagine finding a better board at the moment. Secondly, and this is the point, the thing doesn't break. Ben has developed a board that simply takes it all in its stride.

The Nevado is manufactured in the Czech Republic. Careful work is carried out there and, above all, the laminating process is particularly slow, which means that the individual layers of the structure are more firmly bonded together. A very thick rubber strip is then fitted to the sidewalls, which provides cushioning but also makes scratches on the sensitive areas next to the edge more tolerable. The rubber as such is also thicker than on off-the-peg boards.

The best thing is that the board weighs just over 3 kg total weight at 169 cm, making a very light setup possible.

PG: Okay, so short distances to the workshop are the key to development. But let's get specific: how exactly do the channels work? And how does it work with growth? Should the channels grow with you?

It's not that difficult to understand. You simply have to look at the cross-section of the edge section with the channels. The actual edge is given a different pressure angle by the geometry of the channels, which increases the edge hold. This is a decisive bonus and a real confidence boost, especially in difficult, very rough or windy terrain.

A snowboard base always comes with a polished structure, as this is crucial for the gliding properties. Such structures are all channels in the macro range, so all three-dimensional features help with speed, including the channels.

Sounds good, is good! And with a hairdryer and a brush instead of an iron and scraper, waxing also works.

PG: That sounds promising and, according to the testers, it is. Do these channels work equally well in all snow conditions?

To be honest, there are two scenarios in which the channels play no role. In powder, they are a distant second, where they need to be much more pronounced to really make a difference. But as we know, you don't need edge hold in powder.

The other scenario is the exact opposite. If it's so icy that the channels don't even touch the snow, they can't play along and support the edge hold. In all other scenarios, they support the edge hold. And yes, they also do this on the ascent with the splitboard and no, there are no problems with the skins.

PG: Thank you very much for your detailed comments, Ben! We're already looking forward to your next developments.