Review by The Kiteboarder: Atmos Carbon
“Lives up to the hype with a fast yet smooth ride that holds an edge and provides great pop. Rips upwind and encourages you to push your limits.” - Tom Moore
“Lives up to the hype with a fast yet smooth ride that holds an edge and provides great pop. Rips upwind and encourages you to push your limits.” - Tom Moore, tester for The Kiteboarder.
The Kiteboarder says;
This is the first year for the Atmos in the freeride test with its fresh take on the performance freeride board that combines a straighter rail outline with slightly boxier tips to deliver the ultimate performance big air freeride board. The bottom shape features a single concave with subtle channeling between the fins and out the tips. The first thing we noticed about the Atmos is its medium-plus tracking while going upwind, which offers riders solid dependable grip when the edge is locked in. The Atmos wants to set a rail with consistent grip, holding as much pressure as you care to apply to the rail and this security gives you a ton of confidence to push boundaries as you load up for massive jumps. The Atmos feels quick through the water — its bottom shape and rocker feel super efficient and testers found that this board flies upwind, with a really efficient low-drag feel through the water. The flex pattern is soft to medium which dampens the edginess of our test site’s aggressive chop, yet the Atmos’ flex is dense enough to deliver solid pop that is clean and powerful for atmospheric caliber jumps and just soft enough to forgive your knees and legs on harder landings. One of the other positive aspects of the Atmos is that the carbon construction makes the board feel really light and responsive on the water and extra light when you launch in the air. The board’s featherweight feel on your feet is a huge feature when launching big airs with aggressive liftoff that is abrupt; the board always stays with you while your feet stay firmly planted in the straps, no matter how many vertical Gs you are experiencing. When you throw multiple rotations into the mix you will feel the Atmos has very little inertia and stays with you. While the Atmos really seems to excel in holding an edge and loading and releasing for big sent airs, we also found it fun for carving, although the fins don’t seem to have quite as much grip when you’re carving rail to rail turns for a playful and free feeling. Overall, the Atmos resonated highly with our big air send-aholics and scored high marks with our test team for its lightweight carbon construction hitting a high-performance home run.
The Atmos comes with three insert options for adjusting the stance width and the Flex twin tip bindings feature three holes on each side of the strap for adjusting stance duck. Since the entire North product line is comprised of ground-up designs, their features list represents a wish list of functions without any compromises to legacy decisions. In that sense, the North product line represents a state-of-the-art collection. The footpad has a nice rubbery grip with medium-plus density, featuring slight contours under your heel and arch and a subtle toe bump to keep your foot planted. The strap is a dual Velcro adjustable strap with an overarching cover and the strap mounting points can move forward or aft to shift the strap more over your toes or deeper over your arch. The underside of the strap feels noticeably soft with no seams and a knitflex material. Overall, the Flex offers a solid balance between clean design and a good amount of adjustability while keeping the system clean and functional. Testers gave the Flex bindings high marks for optimizing comfort while maintaining a precise connection to the board and easy, intuitive adjustment.
“Super slick great looking carbon board that is one of the lightest boards in the test. Smooth chop handling, excellent tracking and allows you to boost higher and expand your repertoire.” - Dan Lerer, tester for The Kiteboarder.
Check out the review here.
Learn more about the Atmos Carbon here.