What's inside an Endeavor board.

• Base: sintered or extruded polyethylene, the part that slides on snow.
• Bottom fibreglass: biaxial or triaxial.
• Core: poplar, or poplar and paulownia, with carbon on most models.
• Top fibreglass: biaxial or triaxial. On the Pro boards, Phonon, with carbon stringers woven in, is the top fibreglass and the topsheet in one.
• Topsheet: digitally printed PU with a UV-stable matte or gloss lacquer, or Phonon on the Pro boards, with no plastic layer at all.
• Around the edge: steel edges and award-winning SmoothRide 95A urethane sidewalls.

Isosport explains why: ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene has such a thick melt that it "cannot be processed by extrusion", so it is "compressed in a sintering press using heat and pressure" and the block is skived to thickness.

What base numbers mean. The number in a base name is the supplier's product code, not a speed rating. In Isosport's code table, a sintered base coded 75 is the 9 million molecular weight class and 72 is the 5 million class. P-Tex 3000 and ISO Speed 7500 sit in the same class, so we don't call either one the better base. A higher number from one maker says nothing about a base from another.

Every Endeavor base is die-cut, belt-sanded and hot-waxed at the factory, so it rides right out of the bag.

Phonon is our name for it, and you will only find it on an Endeavor board. Armtex was founded in 1979 and makes laminates "for reinforcement in skis, snowboards, hockey sticks, and skateboards". Weight for weight, Armtex says, composites are "as strong if not stronger than aluminum and steel… but far lighter."

The ISPO jury's statement: "Unlike many technological advances, Endeavor's seamless sidewall technology remains relatively well hidden from sight. But, just because you can't see it doesn't make it any less radical or game changing. This advanced construction technique replaces the standard multi part sidewall with a seamless sidewall along the whole outside edge of the board; this not only increases durability but also helps to create a better riding snowboard." (Jeremy Sladen, ISPO Award jury.)

Urethane absorbs more vibration than the hard ABS used in many sidewalls, so the board stays quieter on rough, hard snow. ISPO's citation adds that it increases impact resistance compared with traditional plastic sidewalls. 95A is a Shore A hardness: firm enough to protect the core, soft enough to damp. We have refined the process since 2014, as Smoothwall in 2016 and now SmoothRide.

Rockwell C is measured by pressing a diamond cone into the steel under a 150 kgf load. The shallower it goes, the harder the steel (ISO 6508).

Factory CAD for each board at one size: the finished board in plan with its inserts and sidecut radius, the core outline, and the side profile with camber, rise and kick. All dimensions are in millimetres, and the tip is on the left. Tap a drawing to open it full size.