Overall Rating
Board: Niche Story
Price: $574
Style: All-Mountain
Flex Rating: Medium-Stiff (7/10)
Flex Feel: Medium-Stiff (7/10)
Rating Score: 88.4/100
Who is the Story Most Suited to?
The Story is perfect for anyone who wants a snowboard that they can do it all on – and go anywhere on the mountain. About the only weakness is in jibbing. So basically if you’re not that worried about jibbing but want to be able to do a bit of everything else, then this board should be high on your list.
It’s also great for anyone that places importance on eco-friendly snowboard building. Niche is one of, if not the, most eco-friendly snowboard companies out there.
Not for the beginner. It’s too stiff for a beginner rider. You’d have trouble controlling this thing as a beginner. But for intermediate & up it’s great if you want just one board to do everything on.
How the Niche Story Performed
Powder
When we tested the Story out on slush, it floated well and felt good. For us, this was a teaser into how the board would float over some deep powder.
The specs definitely suggest that it will be a good floater. The Story has a hybrid rocker shape – the rocker between the feet helps the Story float. It also has a 20mm setback stance – this also helps with float in powder.
Carving & Turns
This board was fun to carve on, even in the icy conditions we had in spots. The edge-hold is great and it didn’t feel washy even with wide carves at speed.
The hybrid rocker shape also features camber sections under the foot and out towards the tip and tail. These camber sections help with the Story’s edge-hold which improves the board’s carving abilities and gives some good spring out of turns.
The edge-hold in those hard and icy conditions is also helped by the Story’s magne-traction edges which helps it to grip – this makes it especially appealing for anyone who regularly faces icy conditions.
The Story’s medium-stiff flex also helps with its edge-hold.
Speed
There’s going to be a running theme here – and that’s that the Story is good at pretty much everything. And speed is no exception. This board was fast and glided well on flats.
And most importantly, it felt stable when riding at speed – We did not get any washy feeling when letting it rip.
The medium-stiff flex, the camber sections in the profile and the sintered base (when waxed, which it was), are mostly responsible for the speed and stability at speed for this board.
Uneven Terrain
For a medium-stiff flexing board it was surprisingly easy to negotiate bumpy terrain. We don’t know exactly why, but it definitely felt better than expected. It won’t ride the bumps like a soft flexing board but it was pretty good and better than expected.
Jumps
It was really fun going over jumps – and lips and rollers – on this deck. The landing was probably the best part. It had a really stable feeling on landings.
But it’s also got plenty of pop – thanks largely to those camber sections but also probably the Basalt Stringers (eco-friendly carbon fibre) have something to do with that too.
Also this board is pretty maneuverable but you can also hold your line well – so it will leave you feeling confident during approaches to jumps. If you have a good line you could stick with it but if you need to adjust this board responds well.
Switch
With a directional shape and a 20mm setback it was never going to feel perfect riding switch – but in saying that, you could definitely do it and the more you rode it the more you’d get used to how it rides in the other direction.
Jibbing
The biggest weakness of this board. To be honest it was not horrible. You can hit the occasional jib, but jibbing is not its strong suit.
Pipe
The Story feels right at home on the Pipe. It’s got great edge-hold, it’s got speed – a perfect combination for pulling off some tricks in the pipe.
The only thing that stops it from being perfect is that it is not a centered board – but that directional setback setup is what helps it to be good in other areas.
Verdict
Apart from a change in graphic the 2018 Niche Story is the same beast as it was in 2017. This board can do everything everywhere.
It was fun to ride and you can feel confident taking it anywhere on the mountain. And to boot it’s built in possibly the most eco-friendly way of any board out there.
The biggest surprise for me was how this board felt and handled, give that it’s a mid-wide. The 159 has a 262mm waist width but you could mistake it for a regular width board. If you have larger boot size, it feels even better. The 156 has a 258mm waist and the 162 has a 265mm width but – in terms of feel – it rides as if you took off 3-4mm for how wide this board feels.
More Info and Where to Buy Online
If you want to check out some other all-mountain options or compare the Story to other all-mountain decks check out our snowboard lookbook. Check out the button below for more information about the Niche Story and current availability.
