Spark R&D

After the season is before the season. For most splitboarders, the season begins to wind down around Easter. Before everything gets stashed away in the cellar, it’s a good idea to take a moment and check the gear: What’s its overall condition, and is everything set for the next season? Because let’s be honest, we all want to be ready for the first fresh snow of 2025/2026, right?

Splitboarding has definitely come of age in recent years. Even if there are still astonished onlookers at the conversion at the summit, the systems are now all very mature and are also widely represented on the market. With ski boots on your feet, however, you still amaze people. Although splitboarders who use a so-called hardboot or AT setup are also becoming increasingly common, they are still a vanishingly small minority.

Why is the walk mode not for walking, what are the advantages and disadvantages of the different binding systems and how do you find your way around the range of special softboot bindings for splitboards? To find out more about the differences between the systems, we asked someone who has been dealing with splitboards more than anyone else for around 20 years: Simon Graf from Splitboards Europe.

Since the 2016/2017 season, "Mr Splitboards" Simon Graf has been developing his own shapes. He can draw on his wealth of experience from over 20 years as a tour guide and knows the specific needs of splitboarders inside out. Simon Graf has developed various shapes for the respective areas of use and requirements on the mountain:

The PowderGuide crew was out and about for you at ISPO 2014 and took a look at the material for the coming season. Part 4 of our ISPO special is dedicated to developments in what is probably the only growth area in the snowboard world: splitboards and the associated binding systems.