Capita Mia Brookes Pro Snowboard 26/27

The CAPiTA Mia Brookes Pro is a women's park-and-freestyle True Twin snowboard, 23.8 cm at the waist on the 148, and Mia Brookes's first pro model. CAPiTA builds it on its podium-proven Birds and lists it, in its own words, as that chassis with two parts upgraded - the base and the core. Outline, camber, sidecut and the Twin 5.5 flex all carry over, so it behaves like that platform: pop first, quick off jumps and features, and even in either direction thanks to the centered twin shape.

The base is the headline: an upgraded HyperDrive ADV, which CAPiTA files in the sintered tier, one step up from the Birds' sintruded Quantum Drive base - fast, and quickest when it is kept waxed. The upgraded ultralight core adds easy, springy pop. What this outline will not do is float; with no taper and a centered stance it settles in deep snow, and because the sidecut is Blended Radial rather than Death Grip, grip loosens once the surface turns to ice. Read it as an advanced-to-expert park deck rather than a beginner or all-conditions board.

At $629.95 it is the priciest board in CAPiTA's women's freestyle range - $30 over the $599.95 Birds it is built on, and that gap buys the faster base and lighter core rather than a new shape. It is sold as a bare deck: CAPiTA makes no bindings, so a medium-to-stiff twin pairs well, and the shop mounts and sizes it to your boots. The run is 144, 146 and 148 standard and 148W and 150W Wide at one price; both are even-numbered and collide at 148, so the style code or the waist - not the length - tells the two apart.