Pathron Legend review: Best value all-mountain snowboard?

In my search for a good quality but low cost snowboards I recently conducted this Pathron legend review. It is not the cheapest on the market, but at £220 it is still half the price of many bigger brands. And for the price you get great specs, so is it the best value snowboard for all-mountain riding?

I am 5’7″ (170cm) and weigh around 12 stone 1 (77 kg). I am an advanced snowboarder and have been riding the 159 Pathron Legend for around 20 days so far this season. That has included trips through the park, playful riding on the piste, some high-speed carving and riding plenty of powder.

Pathron Legend under the bonnet

Lets kick of this Pathron Legend review by talking about the boards specs. It is a directional twin, so the tip and tail are the same, but with a 1 cm setback stance.

The Legend has a hybrid camber profile that is new to Pathron this season. It provides camber under the bindings for pop, but is flat between the feet and outside the bindings for stability and edge hold.

The main ingredient of the Pathron Legend is Tasmanian oak. Which is known as as strong, lightweight and poppy snowboard material. It’s used in many boards from the big brands so can be relied upon to deliver.

The Legend has triaxial lamination that adds pop to create a playful medium flex. It’s IS7200/IS7500 sintered base is fast and strong and to put it in perspective most top brands use a lower quality sintered base of IS6000 or less.

The artwork is pretty cool without being garish. Nice solid colours and pictures of a horseback knight rampaging into battle. How a board looks is not a big deal to me, but I had a few people say they like it – including complete randoms in a gondola – which is always nice.

Pathron Legend review

With some boards you know you will like them from the first turn, and the Pathron Legend was one of them. It just instantly felt right, the edge held, the base was stable and it was solid in the turn.

It also has good pop. Nothing spectacular but for a medium flex board it delivers more than I would expect. I found popping tricks easy and a few times got more air than I bargained for, probably because the board is quite light particularly when combined with the Pathron XT Fastec bindings.

On the piste is initiates turns easily and never felt as if it would catch an edge. It’s relatively easy to carve and loves to follow it’s natural arc. Although not as agile also some of my smaller boards it is also nimble enough to do tight cross-under turns and it’s great fun to ride dynamically.

I am not much of a park snowboarder, but for this Pathron Legend Review I have taken it for a few runs in snowparks. On boxes the flat profile gives stability and also helps you stick landings off kickers.

I love to freeride and have a couple of powder boards. I normally dust them off when there is a powder day, but for various reasons it has not happened yet this season despite riding loads of fresh snow.

So I have ridden the Legend in powder that was thigh deep powder in Patscherkofel, knee deep in the Dolomites and Morzine and ankle deep in Jasna. It has been a lot of fun!

I have found it provides good float and great control in powder, with minimal need to shift weight back. It is not as good as a powder board but for a low cost all-mountain snowboard it does a very good job.

I also took the Legend on some icy and very challenging couloirs in Slovakia. What would have been awesome 40 degree couloirs in good conditions were instead a 500 meter long icy death traps. But the Legend handled it, with the edges holding the rutted, solid ice spectacularly well.

Best value snowboard for all-mountain riding?

To be the best value snowboard for all-mountain riding not only does a board need to be fairly cheap but it needs to do a bit of everything really well. OK the Legend is not as good as a freestyle board in the park, a freeride board in powder or a stiffer board when carving. But it did a very good job whatever the conditions or riding style.

To conclude this Pathron Legend review I will say it is an excellent snowboard. In terms of cost to quality I would say the Legend is the best value snowboard for all-mountain riding that I own. It’s fun however you ride and won’t let you down or set you back a fortune.

I hope you found this review of the Pathron Legend useful. If you’d like to own the best value snowboard for all-mountain riding it costs £220 directly from Pathron on ebay. Or you can find out more at their website: www.pathron.com