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OK… I have never been accused of being a weight weenie :):
My main concern has always been downhill performance. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice weight to gain a climbing advantage if there was any perceptible impact on my downhill fun quotient. And I don’t baby my board… and it gets abused a lot with late spring/early summer missions. So, when Buell and Henning were raving about the Amplid board, I was skeptical. But Buell convinced me to give it a shot.
I have to say… I am amazed. The Milligram is hands down the best split I’ve ever had, and I’ve had a lot of em. I didn’t think the weight reduction would have that dramatic of an effect, but it is insane touring with this thing. I’m on a 163, and it’s almost 2 pounds lighter than a Burton Spliff 148, yes One Forty Eight, that I was using most recently. That’s nuts. It really makes an obvious difference in how fast/how long I can tour. Touring now feels like a nice hike in the woods as opposed to kind of a slog in the woods. The board has also proven to be as durable as any other regular split I’ve owned, and I’ve bashed it into a few rocks. And most importantly to me, it rides great. And THAT I attribute to not only having a great shape and flex, but yes, also the weight. It just feels like a normal solid board, easy to swing around etc, not a heavy plank.
But getting back to the most recent posts. On one of my recent tours there was a short maybe 500′ vert face right above the parking lot. At the end of my tour for the day, I saw this face next to my uptrack, and it was excellent pow, so I did a quick skin back up my track and rode it. It was so good I decided to do one more lap, but for this lap I went back to the car and swapped out boards, in this case for a 164w XV. This board has very similar dimensions to my Milligram 163, it’s really only slightly wider, not like a typical wide board, and the length is almost identical (and also a fairly similar rocker/camber profile). So similar in fact that I can use the same pre-cut skins on both boards. So, I went and climbed and rode the exact same 500′ foot shot, in the same skin track, with the same skins, with the same snow conditions, with the same pack weight, and guess what… it was WAY easier climbing up with the Milligram. I mean clearly, obviously WAY easier. So I dunno what to make of that earlier claim of actually preferring heavier gear. The only thing I can think of is that there may have been other factors at play there, for example the rocker/camber profile of the heavier board was more suited to the skinning on that particular approach. But for this all-things-being-pretty-much-equal comparison I did… there was just no comparison.
I own a lot of splitboards that I like, and now the only one I want to take out is the Milligram.
Off course. All things being equel, a lighter board is much better than a heavy one. But that’s not what I was saying. The heavier board I was talking about is shaped to have less drag in the skintrack, and it makes a huge difference. More than the weight of the board.
Besides, more of the weightsavings can be done by selecting boots and bindings so the weight of the board is only a small factor.
You can save half a kilo of weight on boots without spending more when replacing your boots. So boardweight is not a factor for me when I recommend people gear anymore. ( that said, I’m getting the Millisurf next year 🙂 )Here’s my current “light” setup with skins and crampons on a very accurate scale.
It could be lighter as my Spark pucks are on my other boards, and the shoes are a bit wet at the moment. 3.85KG is not bad though.
http://flatlandsplitfest.com/
Forgot to follow up on this. Here’s the Milligram 163 (with Spark pucks, T1 hardware, and heel locks):
Here’s the Spliff, with the same hardware, only difference is the Mg has Karakoram Ultra Clips, Spliff has regular Voile clips:
So, the Mg is about 1.5 lbs lighter. Their specs are here, they seem pretty accurate:
https://www.amplid.com/snowboards/295/milligram-splitRegarding the Spliff weight, I didn’t weigh the Spark hardware but according to the Spark specs that should account for about 1.26 lbs. So that would bring the bare Spliff weight down to around to 7.18 lbs. So, it seems like a 2.9 kg (6.39 lb) Spliff must have holes drilled in it… 🙂 Is yours the channel version? I have one of those too, I’ll have to weigh it. But I can’t imagine the channel would drop 3/4 lb.
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