At first, I wanted to hate this jacket. I really liked the placement of the pockets on my old coat. It took me a while to adjust to everything being out of place. Once I got over the shock of something new and different, I learned to love this jacket.

First of all, it’s a “shell”. This means it’s designed to be your outter most layer. With the vents open, the Jacket allows for a fair amount of fresh air. With just a t-shirt on underneath, it’s good for those days that aren’t too terribly cold. Close the vents and put a hoodie underneath and you’re ready for some frigid days.

The jacket has an attached hood which I rarely use. However, when I need it, I love it. The sleeves include those snazzy cuffs that wrap around your thumb and go inside your gloves – keeping snow off your wrists. There are tons of pockets including an MP3 pocket (and a special collar that allows you to insert headphones into the jacket), a tucked away pocket inside the zipper flap, a variety of exterior pockets (both button and zipper), and a pocket with a goggle wipe velcro’d inside. There’s also a removable powder skirt with buttons that will latch to your pants… but not my pants, as they buttons don’t fit right with my belt loops.

The jacket is light weight and water proof. It looks snazzy enough to wear as an every day jacket. In fact, I recently wore my jacket camping in Alaska. It not only kept me warm and dry, but kept the mosquitoes from eating me alive.

The quality of the jacket it top notch. I’ve caught a fair amount of tree limbs and have never torn or scratched the shell. After stinking it up with fish and campfire in AK, a quick run through the washing machine (and hung to dry) left the jacket looking and smelling like new.

I don’t think this jacket is perfect. I personally would prefer a removable hood (which Session offers in other models) and I would still adjust the placement of some of the pockets. I’ve found that larger items (such as a radio, phone, or flask) can often hang right around the base of your rib cage – which kinda sucks when you fall just right. Still, the jacket is awesome enough that I completely forget I’m wearing it while I’m riding – which is exactly what I want.

Conclusion: Recommended

Before the Mystic, I’d never experienced a true park board. If you’re considering a park board and have never owned one, you might want to demo one first. The first thing you’ll notice is a different edging. Where an all mountain board is sharp around the curves, a park board loses it’s edge near the ends as to not catch the snow while doing rotation tricks. This means you must have your carves on hard park dialed in a little better. You’ll also notice that a park board has a completely different flex pattern. The middle of the board tends to be springier while the ends are more firm.

The Mystic is one of Arbor’s bamboo core boards. Bamboo is lighter than carbon fiber and lasts twice as long. The use of bamboo also makes Arbor one of the most eco friendly boards on the market.

The base of the board uses a technology Arbor calls Struc Turn. From the website, “It prevents a vacuum from forming between the board and snow.” I quickly became aware of the effectiveness of Struc Turn on my very first ride. I thought a smaller board (I usually ride a 162) would be a bit slower. The Mystic accelerated much faster than any board I’ve ridden.

The mystic is a true twin tip. This is rather funny, as I set my bindings on the board backwards initially and never bothered to fix it. I spent a lot of time this season focused on improving my ability to ride switch. The twin nature of this board made it much easier. With my directional boards, it was difficult to tell what was different while riding switch – something I was doing versus how the board felt. With the twin, I could easily identify what I needed to focus on while riding switch.

Overall, the board is fairly light. It’s not as light as some of the new honeycomb boards coming out; however, you definitely won’t have to worry about a knee popping out of joint while riding the lift up.

Finally, the board just looks sexy. Traditionally, the Arbor boards have been mostly black with very classy and mostly green artwork. While the 04 artwork is, by far, my favorite – I still love my 07.

Conclusion Highly Recommended

The first thing you might notice about Cartel bindings is the wide variety of adjustments available. I honestly thought I was going to have to return my bindings after my first few rides. Once I realized just how much the bindings can be adjusted, I was good to go. While the 05s are highly adjustable, the 07s are even more so.

The Cartels are listed as a mid-grade binding on Burton’s website. However, they are also listed as the most responsive binding in their class. Personally, I found both the 05 and 07 bindings to be extremely responsive. The toe strap runs across the front of the boot, pushing your heel deep into the base of the binding. Your feet are connect to the board for a solid ride.

I only have one complaint with my 05 Cartels. The forward lean adjustment on the back of the 05 binding has a flip latch to lock them into an upright position. This seemed both superfluous and annoying. I have to unlatch the back of the binding before I could flip it down when jumping on a lift. Apparently, I’m not the only one who thought this was a bad design decision as it was removed in the 07 model! The new design, instead, uses a nifty wing nut that allows you the adjust the lean of the binding’s back quickly and easily.

There are a few other minor improvements on the 07. The straps now have a bit of jell inside, making for a snug and comfy fit. Overall, the binding is also lighter than the previous model while still being just as solid. The straps themselves are attached using a new style of nut with a flip up cover. When flipped open, the nut can be taken out by hand – with no tools. This allows you to adjust the length of your binding straps on the mountain at any time you wish. It’s particularly handy when you want to let someone else – with a different shoe size – ride your board.

Simply put, the 2007 Burton Cartel bindings are the best bindings I’ve ever had the pleasure to ride.

Conclusion: Recommended

Last season, I decided to try a new product. Based on the recommendation of my parents, I picked up a bottle of Flex-a-min from Wal-mart. I started taking the supplements a little while before heading off on my longest snowboard trip to date. After six days of riding and reaching a point of total physical exhaustion – all while making sure to take the supplements regularly – I had absolutely no knee pain.

I know I sound a bit like a commercial, but the difference was more than noticeable. A little knee pain was just something I had previously accepted as part of the fatigue of snowboarding. If the product is working as it claims, then the reduction in pain comes from helping the knees stay healthy and not from somehow numbing the pain. I plan to take these supplements before and during all of my snowboard adventures in hopes of extending the useful life of my precious knees. I highly recommend this product to anyone.

If you’re considering getting an Athalon bag, allow me to help you make your decision. You should probably go with a different brand. My experience with this ‘Made in Srilanka’ product suggested that the bag is of very poor quality.

As mentioned in this previous post (where I incorrectly referred to the brand as “Athlon“), I bought an Athalon bag on Craig’s List at the last minute before leaving on a trip. I actually bought two of them, one for myself and one for a friend. Both were the basic bags, the 357 model. I picked up a tan and a green bag.

If all you want is a bag to store your board in, the bag I have would be fine. However, we took ours on a bus trip; thus we packed padding around our boards for protection and filled the bag with gear. We did not over pack our bags such that we put stress on the seams when closing it – we just used the extra space. At first, the bags seemed great. In fact, my bag held tight for the entire trip.

It was my friends bag that failed. The bag tore along seams in three different places. As far as the bag’s contents, I’ll quote my friend, “All that was in it was 1 board, 1 set of bindings, and 2 pairs of boots. A few light items, like goggles, but nothing else of any notable weight.”

We bought the bags second hand, but never used. Perhaps they were stored poorly and suffered dry rot or some other reasonable explanation I’m overlooking… but it seems very much that these bags are simply made of lower grade materials and are not designed for a long life. This, actually, surprises me consider that the Athalon website boasts a 5 year warranty on the bag. I’ll encourage my friend to try to get it replaced; however, neither of us have receipts to prove the date of purchase and have no idea how old the bags actually are.

Ultimately, I’m going to purchase a higher quality bag. If you’re in the market for a bag, I hear good things about Dakine. I’m also gonna check out Burton‘s lineup. I’ve talked to a few people who own Burton Lockers, and they say it can’t be beat for trips as you can fit everything you need for the entire trip for two into a single bag. When I say everything, I don’t just mean your gear – but everything you’d bring with you on a trip from clothes to bathroom supplies.

For airports, I think wheels would be awesome. At the very least, I wouldn’t purchase another bag without some good padding. Otherwise, I’ll be wrapping my boards every time I pack my gear.

On a 1 to 10 scale, I give the Athalon 357 Snowboard Bag a 3.

this is a really good board! i bought it about a year ago and i only had to get it refinished once. the flex is increditable and its strong! i was doing stupid things with my friends and i saw a little jump so i tryed a frontflip over it and got my tail stuck in the ground. i thought that was the end of the good old kemper but when i can down on it, it flung the snow and dirt up! its very strong! and this board carves great and handles even better in the air! i can spin my 540s alot my clean. they use to be all skechy. its not the lights board but i like that. i would tell anyone thats a pretty good boarder to buy this board.

No award for grammar there… but I agree. It’s a fairly light board considering the age. It’s also very strong. And, oddly enough, I didn’t have to get this board waxed for years. I sorta left it outside for a winter and the edges started to rust so I finally did get it waxed and edged. Afterwards, it was slower than ever before. Maybe it was just a bad wax job, but I had to get several coats of wax put on to get it back to the same performance level it was at after years of riding without waxing. Strange.

It was cheap – boots, board and bindings were around $250. It’s a crap board compared to my 05 Burton Custom, but I don’t think I would have known the difference when I was first learning to ride… and besides, 4 years is a huge gap in snowboard technology. The Storm has taken a lot of abuse and I still loan it out for friends to ride – usually to learn on. Since it’s a bit shorter than my Custom (156 vs 162) and considerably more worn – I’m probably going to use it mostly as a park board from now on.