About Snowboard Guide
Snowboard Guide is an independent snowboard publication. Here is who writes it, how we choose the gear we recommend, and what we will never claim.
Snowboard Guide started in 2023 with a simple frustration: almost every gear recommendation online was written for riders in Colorado or Utah, and almost none of it was useful if you were standing at the top of a scraped-out piste in the Alps in February with a pair of rental boots that did not fit.
We write for riders in the UK and Europe. That means we care about edge hold on hard, refrozen snow more than we care about waist-deep powder. It means we know that most people ride one or two weeks a year, flying with a single board bag, and cannot afford to get the purchase wrong. It means the honest answer to which board should I buy usually starts with questions about your boots and your weight, not the board.
How we review gear {#how-we-review}
We want to be precise about this, because a lot of gear sites are not.
What we do. We work from published manufacturer specifications, geometry and materials data, established rider consensus from long-running communities, and our own editorial judgement about the rider each product is built for. Every product record on this site carries the date its specifications were last checked and a link to the manufacturer's own page so you can verify anything you read here.
What we do not do. We do not claim to have laboratory-tested products. We do not claim to have ridden every board for a full season. We do not publish numeric star ratings, because a number out of five hides the only thing that matters — whether a board suits you. Where we have not personally ridden something, the article says so, and the assessment is framed as an assessment of the published design.
Why we avoid prices. Retail prices for snowboard gear in Europe swing wildly through the year, with deep discounts from January onward and a premium at the start of the season. Any price we printed would be wrong within weeks. Instead we link to the retailer and say check current price, which is an honest instruction rather than a fake precision.
Editorial standards {#standards}
Every article on this site is expected to meet the following before it is published:
- It names a real scenario. Not "this board is great for intermediate riders" but "this is the board for the rider who spends the morning on groomers and the afternoon hitting side hits under the lift".
- It says who should not buy it. A recommendation without a stated trade-off is an advertisement.
- It separates fact from judgement. Specifications are attributed. Opinions are marked as opinions.
- It discloses commercial relationships. Every commercial article carries a disclosure before the first product link.
- It is corrected when it is wrong. If you find an error, tell us and we will fix it and note the change.
How we make money
Snowboard Guide earns revenue from affiliate commissions: when you follow a link to a retailer and buy something, the retailer pays us a percentage. This is the standard model for independent gear publishing and it is how the site stays free.
Two commitments come with it:
- Commission never changes a recommendation. We do not rank products by payout rate, and we do not recommend something we would not recommend if it paid nothing.
- We disclose it every time. Our affiliate disclosure explains exactly how it works, and every commercial page carries a notice before the first product link.
You can read the full detail on the affiliate disclosure page, and our privacy policy for how we handle data.
Corrections and contact
If something on this site is wrong, out of date, or badly argued, we would rather know. Email editorial@snowboard-guide.com with the page and the problem, or use the contact form.
For commercial and partnership enquiries, write to partners@snowboard-guide.com.