Arbor Swoon 2011-2018 Snowboard Review

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Arbor Swoon 2018 - 2011 Review by The Good Ride

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The Arbor Swoon is more of an all mountain freestyle board than an all-mountain ride. The Swoon is really poppy and that is good when in the park or cruising around the mountain looking for jumps. You can generate a lot of air on your own as well which is always fun.  The rocker between the feet and soft flex feels a little like a car with soft shocks when you pick up speed or hit chopped/rutted out snow.

Ethics Statement: We don’t get paid by the manufacturer to write these reviews.  No one is perfect and we do make money from the “Where To Buy” links below, but this is our best attempt at an honest and objective review from an average rider’s perspective. 

The 2018-2019 Arbor Swoon hasn’t changed too much for the upcoming season, but Arbor does say that they have significantly reduced the weight of the Swoon and changed the flex just enough to make the board turn and pop with more fluidity.

The 2015 Arbor Swoon has upgraded the nose/tail to be like the Men’s Coda which makes it float a little better in powder than before.  This makes it one of the better twins with a centered stance for powder. The 2016 Arbor Swoon is pretty much the same ride.

The Arbor Swoon is a very interesting board.  It has the size of a mostly mountain board but acts like a freestyle board.  We had an almost every condition and were pretty impressed with the all-around freestyle approach you can take to the mountain with the Arbor Swoon.

On Snow Feel: The Swoon didn’t have that ultra-loose feeling that many continuous rocker boards have. It still was missing something that made it even semi-stable.  You can feel that rocker underfoot. If you have big, steep wide open groomers that invite speed you might not like this but if you ride more narrow slower groomers with intersecting runs and cat tracks you might love it.  It’s very fun to take a freestyle approach to the mountain.

Powder: Even though this is a twin with a centered stance the Swoon rides very well in the thick sierra cement that we encountered. It’s very floaty and great for anyone who likes to ride switch allot in the pow. The 2015 has a little bump in float.

Turn Initiation/Carving– The Swoon is super easy to turn as are most continuous rocker boards out there.  When making wide turns the closer you get to a carve the less enjoyable it is. When it came to carving the Swoon was better than many continuous rocker boards but it was still missing something that many hybrid shapes and camber shapes have. Still it was fun to make more mellow wide radius turns and really fun to make short radius turns.

Speed: None of us were impressed with the way it handled higher speeds but none of us were disappointed.  The Swoon has a fast base but it’s not damp.  This is borderline average. It felt a little bouncy like an old Cadillac or car with bad shocks.

Uneven Terrain: What makes this a pretty chattery board at higher speeds, makes this a great board at slow speeds through uneven terrain.  It just bounces through everything like a big ass American SUV with soft shocks. It’s super easy to maneuver if you make a wrong turn into a bumpy run or even if you seek that shit out.  Usually the worst day of the week is Saturday and the runs can get pretty chewed up near day’s end.  If you are one of those that likes to maximize your weekend riding time the Coda will keep you happily popping off bumps down to your last run.

Approximate Weight– This is just an average weight that isn’t too light or too heavy.

Edge Hold: We never felt like the Swoon needed more grip in any situation on the mountain.  It has the edge hold of a mange-traction board but a less grippy feel that is good even in thick sticky snow.  We all were very impressed at how this soft board could hold just about anywhere.

Flex: Arbor says this is a medium flex but to us, it felt pretty soft and playful.  This isn’t a bad thing. It’s a bit of a surprise when you get it on the mountain and it’s very flexy.

Switch: Even though this is a directional twin we didn’t notice any difference riding either direction.

Rails/Jibbing: This was a lot more fun than we expected in the jib park. We had a pretty good time there.  It’s not very hooky and its soft flex could handle almost any terrain out there.

Pipe: The Swoon held an edge very well and was very forgiving.  We spent a lot of time in the pipe with the Swoon.  We had a lot more fun on the Arbor Paparazzi but it’s not bad here at all

Jumps: OK the Arbor Swoon is one springy board.  It’s possibly the most springy board we tried.  You just had way more ollie power with the Swoon. This was by far our favorite part about this flexy/springy board.  Hitting Kickers was really fun as well the Swoon is forgiving and very playful in a spin.  If you are all about hitting natural jumps all over the mountain the Swoon is ideal.  If you like lapping the park roller coasters this is great too. We didn’t really find any flaws when jumping.

All in all the Arbor Swoon is a very fun board. We felt it was more of an all mountain freestyle to freestyle board compared to the all mountain label Arbor gave it.  It could use some work on speed or carving but not at the price of the pop that this board has. This is a fun board for anyone who likes to get air.

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