Arbor Rain Review

The Arbor Rain is no doubt one of our testers' favorites for a sturdy, all-mountain freestyle board for massive cliffs and kickers. It's not the best for buttering or playful carves, but it more than makes up for what some would consider shortcomings in power, pop, and responsiveness when it matters most—cranking tricks off jumps and landing in powder.

Edging

This metric was a tough one to score for the Arbor Rain. With a smaller, aggressive sidecut of 8 meters on a 159 cm deck, it practically wants to carve in a circle. However, this comparatively small radius paired with a stiffer flex means it's much harder to lay into deep, playful carves at medium speeds.

Suppose you'd rather have us cut the technical jargon and get to the point. In that case, the Rain is perfect for the quick turns you'd make while initiating a spin off a jump, especially kickers or natural jumps where you don't have the room for the setup turns and long, drawn-out carves you would utilize on a park jump. But, because most all-mountain snowboarders will also do some more casual turns, we gave this board a lower score. It's not a board designed with the fresh corduroy harvesters and weekend pow shredders in mind.

Float in Powder

While the Rain might be a bit difficult for some riders to wrangle on groomers, this does not hold true at all for powder. We found the 8-meter sidecut to be ideal in deep terrain, where there is a wider sweet spot in terms of toe-to-heel balance, allowing you to lay into quick, short powder turns with ease. However, with its super stiff construction, our testers found themselves charging hard on this board whenever they encountered an open field of deep, fresh, fluffy snow during our season-long testing period. It floats, it slashes, and it slices through chopped-up runouts like nobody's business.

The hole pattern is set back 1.5 cm, and with plenty of mounting options and no taper from nose to tail, you can set the Rain up in a practically true-twin stance if you desire. This brings us to one of our favorite elements of this beast of a snowboard – it is phenomenal for riding powder switch. Whether you're taking off jumps unnatural foot forward, or landing a front five off a cornice, this board is designed for forward and backward riding, making it the ultimate freestyler's choice.

Stability at Speed

Another strong suit that the Arbor Rain keeps holstered in its arsenal is its ability —no, its need —to go fast. Its technological combination of the wood Powerply, the Highland III core, and carbon stringers means you'll hardly notice chatter and chop with this all-mountain bandit on your feet.

When we got the chance to point the Rain down untouched groomers, the only thing slowing us down was the natural limitation of the slope. When we took it into the backcountry, far away from ski patrollers and flatlanders hiding below rollers, we were grinning from ear to ear after pointing every chute, bowl, and powder field in sight. But a word of warning – go easy on the high-speed carves because the deep sidecut can take you from barreling downhill to barreling sideways across the fall line in the blink of an eye.

Playfulness

We define a snowboard's playfulness by how well it performs at low speeds, on smaller features, in shallow powder, and on mellow open groomers. If you're looking to dial in your funbox tricks, try your hand at tail-blocks, or mimic the wild butter combinations you saw on the X-Games knuckle huck, the Arbor Rain isn't going to be of much help.

The primary factor that determines a snowboard's amount of playfulness is its flex. Arbor gives the Rain a 7 out of 10 on their flex meter, 10 being the stiffest. In our experience, that score is slightly underrated, and it feels more rigid. Unless your definition of playfulness is hitting the biggest jump in the park, you're better off going with a softer board for goofing around on sunny, soft days.

Pop and Jumping

When it comes to touching some sky, it's hard to top the capabilities of the Candle Rain. All of the elements of this board come together as you're speeding into a jump. The stiff flex absorbs small bumps like dirtbike suspension, the deep sidecut is perfect for making micro-adjustments on the approach, and the near-true-twin shape is excellent for taking off both regular and switch.

All of these elements play into the most paramount part of any maneuver – landing and riding away. We've found that reverse camber or camber combinations can often lead to looping out or going over the bars during intense, impactful landings. Still, the aggressive positive camber of the Rain likes to put a death grip on the snow the second it touches down. In those first few moments of not knowing whether you're going to be touching down securely or experiencing the tomahawk of a lifetime is where this thing really earns its stripes. The stiff flex and sidecut radius are both components that you'll want on your side as you regain balance and control on your way to the base for a high five and a cold one.

Should You Buy the Arbor Rain?

The Arbor Rain is not for everyone. This snowboard is a hard-charging freestyle destroyer, built for all gas, no brakes. It's at home on sketchy in-runs, do-or-die chutes, and landing switch in the powder. This board is not for beginners or those searching for a playful deck. In fact, if a beginner tried to learn on the Rain, they would find it very unforgiving, leading to hot chocolate by the fire instead of going back out after lunch.

What Other Snowboard Should You Consider?