Adam let me demo an Oz Alpenglow 162 a few weeks ago and I decided I’d throw an extra set of Prowder Saddles and Cowboy Clips on it. I’d bet this is one of the lightest soft boot setups, for sure the lightest I’ve ever felt.

The board is very light weight, directional shape with about 10mm of taper and smooth flex with micro-camber and subtle nose rocker. It toured great! We experienced just about everything you run into: rock & water crossing, sun baked wind slab side hilling, steep worn skin track and trail breaking w/ switchbacks, it never dived the nose and felt solid and confident. Coming down was even better. Change over was simple and uneventful and our run started out as a mellow meadow, about 22-25 degrees of couple days old virgin snow. The board floated and surfed across the meadow effortlessly, felt like ride a longboard on a long ankle biter wave. We then dropped onto a steeper gladed section, where the board picked up speed and it showed that it likes that. Handling was much more responsive, still surfy, cruising down through the trees at speed. We didn’t get into anything up high so no steeps, but from what I’ve seen so far I’d say this board is pretty much perfect all around.

I am really liking Prowder’s stuff so far. I took the Saddles off a solid fish that I ride in certain conditions with my Sparks. I love that I can mount them on a solid board, on a DIY split with 4x inserts and on a factory split. Like all pucks they take a little bit of adjustment trial/error to fit just right. But the adjustability is something that I’ve always been a little frustrated with traditional pucks and the Prowder Saddles offer tons of adjustment. They took a little bit or sanding/grinding down to get my Sparks on. Kevin is very accommodating in knowing that different bindings fit slightly, well, different and so he doesn’t fully “finish” the Saddles, so you (or he will do it for you) need to take just a little material off to get that perfect slide on your bindings. Now that I’ve got them dialed in the fit is perfect, in the BC I noticed no issues with ice build up, riding they felt solid, in fact I didn’t notice I was on Prowder Saddles and not some other pucks.

The Prowder Cowboy Clips are really awesome! I’m coming from 1st (maybe 2nd) gen Karakoram clips, which I have liked the solid latch but there are many things to be desired. I have found the Cowboy Clips have fulfilled these desires. They slide back and “lock” in tour mode, which means nothing protruding over the edge of your ski and NO SLAPPING AROUND OF THE LATCH! I can’t tell you how crazy it drives me that the Karakoram clips slap around for 2-3 hours while touring. Small things like the tether on the latch also come in very handy when changing over with gloves on, and it’s just the right size to not extend over the edge of the board in tour mode. There’s also a lot of adjustability with the installation of the Cowboy Clips, so you can get the fit just right and not have to worry about holes being drilled poorly or things not quite overlapping. Putting the board back together is also easier with the Cowboy Clips larger “bracket” coverage area, I wound find aligning the inner edge of the Karakoram a bit tricky (esp. in wind) with the smaller “bracket”. But Prowder’s slide into place and have a larger area in which to align, much closer to traditional hooks.

In the end I would say that this is one of my “dream” setups. The Oz board stood out with it’s weight, flex and overall shape. Prowder hardware really stands out for it’s thoughtful design and adjustability.