Choosing your Snowboard and Suitable Places for Buying

Let us see what types of snowboards are there; they vary according to the 3type of snowboarding in which they are to be used:

Freeride: longer in length, and semi-directional. Moderate to stiff in flex. Suited for long, fast turns in various types of snow from groomed hard-pack to soft powder.

Racing/Alpine: long, narrow, rigid, and directional shape. Most suitable in machine groomed slopes. Most often ridden with a "hard" boot; occasionally with soft boots also, particularly by European riders.

Freestyle: Generally shorter in length with a Semi-directional or twin-tip shape. Moderate to soft in flex. Incorporates a deep sidecut for quick/tight turning. Used in the pipe and in the park and boxes, rails, and tables.

All-Mountain: A hybrid between freeride and freestyle boards. Normally directional in shape with either a twin or directional flex. Moderate in flex for various types of terrain.

Park/Jib (rails): flexible and short, twin shaped with a twin flex to allow easy switch riding, wider stance, with the edges filed dull. Suitable for snowboard parks.

Split: Don't confuse with the swallow-tail, the split board consists of a stable powder board that can be broken down into two touring skis, used when hiking in deep backcountry conditions.

Your board should be appropriately long suiting the type of snowboarding you will be doing and the experience you have. Beginners must use shorter boards that allow easier maneuvers.

Board should be wide enough to hold your feet when put across but not greater than that.

The stiffness of the board has not hard and fast limitations. Depends on the terrain you are in and the tricks you want to perform.

Well! all this understood and done another question that still remains is where to buy your snowboard from.

Buying a snowboard involves few important things availability, knowledge of the shop staff availability of demo rides and cost.
Lets see in short what are the places you can go to.

Local outlets: Creates friendship between shop staff and you so they expect you again and would be eager to provide service. Knowledgeable staff. But may have less variety available and they don't offer demo rides.

Resort shops: Offer demo rides at a reasonable charge. May have grater collection but staff not knowledgeable.
Branded stores: You may find a huge collection and chances are that you will find exactly what you need. But again no knowledgeable staff and collection is at times outdated and also warranty issues may be hard to resolve.

Online stores: By far the biggest variety in cheapest prices available. You are getting what you need at the click of a mouse. But the biggest problem is trust because you don't get to see or feel the product unless it arrives home.