Salomon HPS x Asmo 2020 Snowboard Review

HPS Wolle Nyvelt 157 FreeCarving machine

Wolle Nyvelt 157 “flat tail” “Wide or extra Wide”

Tester: 30 years of experience, living in the mountains, 40/60 ½ days per year ; 1m83, 85kg boot size 10.5, stance 58.
Rigid Ions Step on boots which I will not discuss here.
After having ridden several freeride Nitros for a long time in 165, rossignols De Le Rue XV in 164w then recently the T.Rice Orca from Lib Tech in 153 v1 and 156 v2, and well tested 2 swell Panik, the Jones Flagship and the Lib tech T .rice Pro.

At 45 years old, I was looking for a more fluid board, more focused on my fundamentals: powder (a lot in trees) and deep carving (+ a few rare big airs without rotations and almost zero switch) I also wanted it very wide to preserve my knees by aligning them with my feet and to be able to carve even on hard snow with reasonable angles (+18°; -9°) without bootout …
The volume shifftted concept souds fantastic on paper, wide for floating and deep carving and short for agility in trees… Obviously I wanted wide but I didn't want a marshmallow or a van...

I'm very pleased ! this Wolle Nyvelt 157 is the first board that I find to be completely custom-made for me! You are probably wondering at what cost? this super short super wide board must have drawbacks… ??? (of course, there is so little info on this board that I promised my seller to write a review...and voila!) Yes of course there is a drawback, to have a good carver, quick edge to edge, super floaty (wide) but nimble in the trees (short)… well the thing is, it just has to be a bit stiffer than a longer board! (short and flexible would have made it slow and uncomfortable at good speed). So yes, its rigidity makes it totally amorphous at low speed... it reminds me of my favorite board from early 2000, the nitro naturals in 165 (set in +30°; +15° at the time ) … Very similar ride, super stable, anchors very well and fab rebound! but the Nyvelt is much, much less tiring in powder and I can ride it in V duck so it is cooler for my knees.
BUT it is not so stiff, as soon as you reach its “minimum turning speed” it wakes up and becomes really lively and manageable.
In powder, no one will doubt its qualities and there are plenty of videos showing them on the net. But how is she on the resort slopes ??? Well she's doing really well too, she's really stable and healthy. Not quit a big mountain board that only wants to go straight and destroy everything… it can do should you ask nicely but what it really excels in is in smooth deep carving short or long with rebound if you push on it a little bit.
You can't have it all, it's a bit clumsy at low speeds but that's its only flaw, so you can just forget flat and stylish freestyle on the easy slopes... but as soon as there's a little deep slope or you catch a little speed it becomes super agile, and if you push on your legs it becomes very lively and precise and super stable… and fun, you push and it bounces well, you dig its front in the snow and it holds straight through pacs of heavy and wet snow ! Very good super healthy carving machine.

I also chose it because its stance is the same as my preferred stance: 58 so I put my bindings right on the 2 crosses... and even in spring super heavy powder from 30 to 40 cm I didn't have any kind of pain in the back leg, no need to move the bindings right at the back!!! I even managed to ride it sometimes with my front leg without stressing about sinking! And no need to change the settings for the refrozen concrete groomed snow in the early morning!!! Wolle Nyvelt managed the balance of this board really well and placed the bindings spot on! I wonder what weight and what size he is?? can't find this info anywhere...?????

Compared with Lib Tech's Orca. It must be said that it was the Orca that made me rethink my priorities, I loved this board, super fun and reactive and which floats really well in powder for a minimalist length! The Orca isn't really a "difficult" board as some people say, its front just likes to bite the snow, so then the board bends and throw you on the other side...if you like that, that's the easiest board on the market! I love its rebound and its ease of catching an edge when you just push a bit on your legs, and instantly triggering a super fast turn... but its radius of turn being very short: 7 meters, you get tired of it very quickly... 2 or 3 hours of small turns bouncing in all directions it's fun but after a while it gets boring. Having started in 2019 with the only available size of 153 in V1, a little more flexible, I quickly wanted to try the 156 v2 a little more rigid from 2022,… it is a little better... but I was still missing something. Also with my boot size 10.5 to be able to put a lot of angle on hard snow I had to ride the Orca in -15° at the back foot and despite that the Orca is not a super stable and fluid carver in long and medium curves.

So I started to measure and compare the specs of the Orca, and by adding a centimeter under the rear foot (27.5+1=28.5cm) I found the Wolle Nyvelt With a radius of 8.5m which for me is just perfect (at least as soon as you pass the 30 or 40 Km/h…)

NEED TO KNOW: Edges are at 88°:
You should also know that Mr. Nyvelt is a true purist, if it did amuse me to change my edges to 88° 20 years ago, today I am less enthusiastic… in fact that means more wear, so more maintenance… and especially after getting used to the magne traction of lib tec which slides a little less but requires much less filing... AND moreover when you understand that Wolle pushed the tuning further and only put 88° in the part between the feet and the rest in 89° or 90° ??? This for easier entry into turns (good idea to get familiar with the board for the first 2 or 3 hours but super difficult to tune yourself at home!!!)… BE CAREFUL your skiman must be warned!!! So well, I personnaly digged out my old tuning tools but hell with the different angles, I quickly put everything to 88° and also slightly rounding the beginning of the nose edge, the old-fashioned way.

BOOTS: Even though Wolle Nyvelt seems to ride with flip flops… Knowing it's a fairly stiff and wide board, if you want to bend it and keep it planted and stable in rough terrains… I recommend some fairly stiff boots too.

The icing on the cake, the piano varnish bamboo finish is clearly too good looking for what we do with it.