Sims Vanish
At the end of last Winter season I snatched a Sims Vanish on sale. The appeal of was its small sidecut radius of 6.1m, much smaller than any other board I had on my radar. It looked like an ideal board for those tight tree runs around here on the East Coast.
I was riding the Sims RT 2 Terry Kidwell as my Freeride/All Mountain board for the last couple of years, and totally loved it. A playfull board, and also fast and stable when I needed it to be. The Vanish has slightly more aggressive freeride specs compared to the RT 2 - more taper, bigger nose, more sidecut, harder flex.
We don't really have much snow yet on the East Coast, lots of rain events over the last weeks, but I couldn't wait any longer to try out the new board.
Man made snow had to do for now, and it did, I had a blast on that small mountain.
The Vanish did not disapoint: it's snappy, it feels super light, moves quickly edge to edge, initiates tight turns easily and keeps calm when we go a little faster. It's a perfect board to take around the mountain.
The one other thing I changed in my setup was the binding angles: I have now +27 on the front and +6 on the back. Previously I had -3 on the back, and the +6 feels so much better I have to say. The RT 2 I could take switch, the Vanish probably also if I really have to, but do I want to? I'm just going to keep it as my freeride setup. Switch I do on the other slow and wobly butter board I've setup (a Never Summer Funslinger, also good for it's purpose).