Snowboarding is a form of personal expression. When we ride the way we want, we are able to make a statement about who we are and how we feel. Elevated board design lets us say the things we want to say on a snowboard. Feelings of grace, power, and beauty shine through in our riding when the board is honed by a designer who personally can unify mountain experience, mechanical engineering, craftsmanship, and knowledge of frozen hydrodynamics.
We call this Engineered Craftwork.
It’s what Cabin’s co-founder and board designer Paul Maravetz does.
Rider. On snow 50-to-100 days a year, Paul has ridden Europe, Alaska, New Zealand and all over North America—developing an intimate understanding of different snow texture, snow depth and diverse terrain. A veteran of countless resort days, early mornings on a splitboard, and time in the backcountry at spots like Grand Teton National Park.
Engineer. While riding 30+ days a year as a student, Paul graduated with a degree in engineering. While other companies might sketch a board shape and hand if off to a factory to finalize, Paul combines his knowledge of engineering, physics and hydrodynamics to control 100% of every board he has ever designed.
Craftsman. A craftsman who works in wood for pleasure, he creates furniture, invents storage systems, and builds timberframe structures. As with these projects, when Paul dives into board design, he brings an artistic eye to shaping the nose and tail profiles of boards.
At Cabin, our design process is informed by experience—past personal experience and the future “experience” we intend to create. With the experience in focus, our design work follows. When we hit the nail on the head, the design yields new and improved experience—this is the elevation of life. Then, new levels of experience and sensation are then defined and the process continues. New designs. New experience. New designs. New experience…
In our Sunrise Collection, there are several life-elevating experiences that are common to our two designs.
We want a board to feel alive. Regardless of a board’s flex profile, it needs to reply to the rider with crisp, poppy feedback. Whether slashing curbs at slow speed or burying a rail at Mach 7, we think boards should quickly convey the rider’s thoughts into motion. Through Unified Design—the integration of multiple shape elements and targeted material science—Co-Founder Paul Maravetz creates this distinctly dynamic feel in every board he creates.
We like strong finishes. Powder board or all-mountain board, split or solid, we believe all boards should have responsive power in the ass end. So our tail design features positive camber, sufficient length, and the proper taper-to-width ratio. Simple reason: you can’t slash a wall of snow, finish a carve or land a bigger drop on a rockered or under-sized tail.
We optimize The Carve. From initiation to turn to completion, we unify sidecut technology with board shaping to advance on-edge performance. We believe in boards that engage quickly to rider input, arc smoothly through all phases of the turn, transition rhythmically and build energy from one turn to the next.
We design boards that surf mountains. We fine tune the relationship between width, length, forebody shape, camberline, total surface area and rider positioning to create boards that effortlessly rise into the top layers of the snow pack. And once elevated, at high speeds and low speeds, they etch round, explosive arcs in the white canvas.
Board shaping isn’t just drawing a shape on a piece of paper. It starts with years of riding in all snow conditions throughout the varied mountain ranges of the world. To convert and interpret this experience into product, mechanical engineering and hydrodynamics provide the science to create shapes that perform in specific ways to elevate the pleasures of snowboarding. Then the eye of a woodworker brings in the aesthetic element that creates beauty in functional tools.
At Cabin, shaping is a holistic, integrated process. Paul balances, adjusts and revises six key aspects of shaping to work with the material science in order to craft snowboards that make turns feel more rhythmic, powder slashes feel more energized and sidehits feel more poppy.
To control for initiation, float and turn finish, we adjust elements like nose length, nose transition zone and tail transition zone.
When designing boards we focus as much on surface area as we do length. Similar to volume/water displacement in surfboard design, surface area is a primary driver of how a board will rise up in the snow, stay in the upper layers, and let the rider float surfy turns. With some added width up front combined with a wider waist, we create pow-ripping boards that don’t need or want to be super long. Then to optimize float and turnability, we position the rider in precisely the right spot on both the surface area and the sidecut.
For each of our models, we rate the overall flex on a scale of 1-to-10. Then we give a similar rating for the forebody and the tail section of the board to give you a better sense of flex and feel.
While the shaping of a snowboard can be considered the chassis, the material with which it is built is similar to the drive train. To convey, store and release rider energy, we load our boards with advanced material science.
An electric feel is something we design into all our boards. Core composition is one of the ways we do this to control for lightness and responsive rebound. Since different wood species offer different performance benefits, we use three: low-density Paulownia for weight reduction, mid-density Poplar for workhorse flex control, and high-density Beech for strength where bindings are mounted.
Carbon-infused biaxial laminates are perfect for creating boards with maximum feel for the snow, precise finesse and a smooth transmission of rider energy. This is just the kind of vibe we want in our splitboards when we go in search of floaty turns. The 0 and 90-degree glass fibers deliver this personality, and we integrate carbon longitudinally below the core for putting extra punch into our pow slashes.
We integrate 45-degree fibers when we want to optimize energy transmission from rider to snow—where power and precision are the priority. Our triaxial composition functions like the fibers of a nervous system that instantly conveys rider thoughts into kinetic motion. On a foundation of 0, 90 and 45-degree glass fibers, we add carbon on the base side where they function best for increasing dynamic rebound in a board’s lengthwise flex.
Some days we want to ride as fast as possible and feel the rush of just hammering down mountain. And when it snows and blows in deep, we need silky glide to get the board into float mode with zero resistance. Featuring a highly wax-absorbent structure, our premium sintered base delivers the speed that thrills.
Loading a board up with rider energy through a turn and stomping landings puts stress on a snowboard. The conversation between rider, board and snow can get “loud” at times as rider input and force is channeled into the edges of bindings. To protect against core compressions in these areas, we created Energy Dist. Tech—thin layers of carbon integrated into the core for enhanced strength and durability.
We’ve partnered with Entropy to source their Super Sap Bio Resin—a high-performance, pine tree-based epoxy that has a lower carbon footprint than traditional epoxy, and it is healthier for the people who build snowboards. Better for planet and people.
Sign up for access to our latest offers, stories and special product releases.
