Review: K2 Manifest All-Mountain Snowboard

Actually it wasn’t that fair, neither for the board, nor for Dees Hetzenauer, our 65-kilo female reviewer. But I knew that Dees is a power woman with years of experience who could handle this board and could make some good points about it. And I would also ride the board myself. So here’s our shared review.

The board in question is the 159-centimeter long K2 Manifest. For me it could have been a bit longer and maybe even one of the widebody versions. But this directional camber board immediately feels strong, stiff and powerful. All-Mountain oriented but also good for the park.

Conditions

We did not ride park, but Dees did a lot of piste and powder on day 2 of our review session. On the last day of riding and filming, I mainly hit the pistes with it. Dry weather, fresh snow, reasonably prepared slopes and therefore delicious powder runs.


K2 Manifest

As mentioned, it’s a camber board, directional (so meant to ride mainly in one direction although it does ride switch fine as well.) The Manifest is made as an all-mountain board, where the camber shape makes it possible to carve nicely on the slopes, and the big nose give you a lot of float in powdery off-piste runs.

It is a board that you have to work on, it will not do your turns for you. With Dees’ weight and height she really had to lay on the power on the piste to initiate the turns. It was easier for me (being heavier and stronger). And if you get it on it’s edges, the Manifest is great for carving and when you do it is stable and powerful. If you don’t cut the carves sharply, or if you flat-line the descent, the board can feel unstable a little more at speed on choppy slopes.

In the powder it is a much more friendly board, it is much easier to steer into those wonderful wide powder turns, floats on the snow and gave Dees a wonderful surfy feeling. Playful and sensitive off-piste where it is powerful on-piste.


Target Audience

You could say a board with two faces, which is indeed all-mountain, but on which you have to be able to ride differently on-piste (aggressive and very proactive) and off-piste (more relaxed and surfy). If you can do that, if you have just a little more power, a good technique and you can get it to carve, then you have a very good board here. Work hard on the pistes and then relax off-piste and enjoy.

Review overview

Piste
8
Powder
9
Turn initiation piste
7.5
Turn initiation powder
9.5
Carving
8.5
Stability at speed
8.5
Rebound / turn finish
8.5
Mark Stokmans
Mark Stokmans
Since I can remember I have been very active in many different sports: started with baseball, tennis and riding later hockey, football, running and aikido. In addition, since twelve years old I've been into actionports: at first windsurfing, later climbing, inline skating, snowboarding, mountain biking. With the first action cams coming onto the market I've been making action sports videos. Furthermore, I've worked in the sports industry since 1990, sports marketing, media and live TV and until the end of 2016 at the Dutch Olympic Committee. Besides being partner in GearLimits I work as a digital freelancer. Based in the Netherlands, Married with Children (11 and 13 years old)

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Actually it wasn't that fair, neither for the board, nor for Dees Hetzenauer, our 65-kilo female reviewer. But I knew that Dees is a power woman with years of experience who could handle this board and could make some good points about it. And...Review: K2 Manifest All-Mountain Snowboard