Ride Helix 2020 Review

One of Ride’s stiffer freestyle boards, it’s asymmetrical shape and good set of features make it a fun board for riding everywhere. I really liked it, it was a very solid board.

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Features of the Ride Helix

Twin Hybrid Camber
This profile is mainly traditional camber, with just a small rocker section on the nose and tail of the board.
Asymmetrical Quadratic Sidecut
There are a few things going on with the sidecut on the Helix, which make it sounds complicated buy hopefully can be explained a bit more simply. The sidecut is made up of a blend of three different circles, which is made to make the start of a turn smooth and easy, the middle grippy and a smooth exit of the turn. If you look at the board specs, you’ll see that there are the three different measurements in the sidecut section. On top of that, the heelside of the board has a tighter radius, or a scaled down size from the toeside, to help balance the board out and get a more natural feel for heelside turns.
Performance Core
A mix of Aspen and Paulownia and Bamboo is made to get a balance of strength to weight.
Sintered Base
The Sintered 4000 base material does a good job at soaking up wax, and is more durable, tougher and quicker than the cheaper extruded bases.
Stone Ground Base
A nice structure in the base gives the board a quicker feel, and better glide.
Slimewalls
Rather than using a regular sidewall material, they are made from Urethane (used in skateboard wheels), so they have much better durability, and can take a beating from park riding.
Roll-In Construction
Built around the Slimewalls, they are made to help increase the strength of the board, stop the topsheet from chipping and save on weight.
Double Impact Plates
Added under the bindings, they add extra strength where the board needs it most.
Carbon Array 3
These are carbon stringers that extend out from under the bindings, out towards the opposite corner at the contact point.
Hybrid Glass
Triax glass on top (3 directions) with biax on the bottom (2 directions) to get a good mix of torsional strength and stiffness.

Sizes Available:

146cm
151cm
153cm
155cm
156cm Wide
157cm
159cm Wide
160cm

How it Rides

Board size: 155cm

Boots: Salomon Launch Boa SJ 27.5

Bindings: Salomon District (Medium)

This review is based on me riding the 155cm 2020 model, set up on the recommended stance with +12 degrees on my front foot, and -9 on the back.

Camber Profile

The name Twin Hybrid Camber makes it sound a bit fancier than it really is, which is pretty much just regular camber with a little bit of rocker to tone it down at the contact points. To me it felt just like riding a plain old regular camber board, but that isn’t at all a bad thing. It came with all the positives that you get from regular camber.

Flex and Pop

The Helix has a fairly stiff flex, which combined with the regular camber give it a very solid feel, with plenty of pop. It took me a decent amount of effort to be able to flex and press it, which makes sense from the overall stiffer feel. One of the boards strengths would definitely be the amount of pop you can get out of it, it doesn’t take much to get a solid feeling ollie from it.

Edge Hold

Being pretty much a full traditional camber board, with the solid and damp “feel” you get from Ride boards, the edge hold is great. It has a very solid feel the whole way through a turn, and cuts in even on very hardpacked and icy snow.

The balance between the smaller heelside sidecut and the toeside feels nice, it isn’t super noticeable that it is an asym board, but swapping edges just feels smooth, natural and quick.

Speed

It has a sintered base, that I had freshly waxed before riding, and a nice structure. Speed was never a problem, even on slushy, almost flat cat tracks at the end of the day. With the stiffer flex, I felt comfortable and stable riding as fast as I could on my Ultimate Ride.

Pros:

Solid feel
Great edge hold
Nice asym shape

Cons

Not cheap

Overall

Overall, the Helix would be a really good option to replace the Ultimate Ride with. I am not sure whether it is the Slimewalls or a combination of the carbon stringers, but it has the very nice damp feel that you get from Ride boards, so you get hardly any chatter and a solid ride even on a flat base.

The base is nice and quick, and the flex isn’t too stiff. Enough that you can ride pretty fast through rough snow, and count on the tail to hold up without wanting to flex out of the way or wash out. If you were looking at the Helix as a park board, I think that it would be better as a jump board more than rails, mainly just because of its stiffness.

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Size (cm)	Effective Edge (mm)	Waist Width (mm)	Sidecut (m)	Tip & Tail Width (mm)	Setback (mm)	Ref Stance (mm)	Rider Weight (lbs)	Rider Weight (kg)
146	1114	248	7.80 / 6.80 6.80 / 5.80 7.80 / 6.80	294	0	483	80-130	36-59
151	1177	250	8.60 / 7.35 7.60 / 6.35 8.60 / 7.35	267	0	533	100-150	45-69
153	1190	251	8.70 / 7.45 7.70 / 6.45 8.70 / 7.45	298	0	559	125-175	57-80
155	1203	252	8.80 / 7.55 7.80 / 6.55 8.80 / 7.55	299	0	559	130-180	59-82
157	1228	253	8.93 / 7.67 7.93 / 6.67 8.93 / 7.67	301	0	559	130-180	59-82
160	1254	254	9.05 / 7.80 8.05 / 6.80 9.05 / 7.80	304	0	559	140-190	64-86
156 Wide	1216	260	8.90 / 7.65 7.90 / 6.65 8.90 / 7.65	307	0	559	130-180	59-82
159 Wide	1241	261	9.05 / 7.80 8.05 / 6.80 9.05 / 7.80	310	0	559	140-190	64-86