Camber vs Rocker vs Triple Base Technology

This simple snowboard profile remained the standard until the advent of camber. A cambered snowboard is pre-bent so that – when you look at it from the side – the middle of the board sits above the ground. The edge curves down on either side like a shallow rainbow before touching the snow and rising steeply at the tips.

The advantages of cambered snowboards are threefold:

  • Pop

    A cambered snowboard acts like a pre-coiled spring, so you can pop bigger ollies and launch spins off jumps.

  • Turning

    A cambered snowboard improves turning performance since it increases edge hold and enables you to snap out of carves.

  • Speed

    A cambered snowboard is more stable at high speeds.

The main drawback of traditional camber snowboards is that it can be easy to catch an edge, especially for beginners, because it encourages the widest part of the board (the ‘contact points’) to touch the snow. A second issue is that this downward curve between your front foot and the nose is optimised for hardpack rather than floating in powder. 

Nonetheless, camber snowboards provide a hands-down more lively ride than a simple flat base, so it became the standard snowboard profile for many years.

Rocker snowboards - A design dead end

You’ve probably heard of rocker (aka reverse camber) snowboards, and even rocker-camber or flat-to-rocker hybrids. This whole trend exploded about a decade ago, but it’s not actually a new idea. For instance, Tom Sims advertised rockered boards back in the 80s – taking his inspiration from surfboards. 

A pure rockered snowboard is the opposite of classic camber: the middle of the board sits on the snow, and the base curves gradually up towards the nose and tail. If you placed a rockered snowboard on a hard floor and kicked one end, it would spin around easily. This gives you an idea of how boards like this ride – they are LOOSE!

Sure, it’s harder for a beginner to catch their edge on a reverse camber snowboard, but it’s also harder for them to carve properly. On a rocker snowboard you can’t really engage the full edge so your turns feel skiddy, like you’re sliding around on a tray. To be honest, it kinda sucks for anything except powder. I mean, there’s a reason people swapped their rockered boards for cambered ones after the 80s, right? 

A lot of brands have tried to limit this downside with rocker-camber hybrid designs that claim to offer the best of both worlds. They might have camber between the feet and rocker either end; they might have rocker between the feet and camber towards the contact points; or they might just be totally flat, like the good old Snurfer.

All these snowboard profiles might be useful marketing gimmicks, but they are a design compromise that cannot offer the same pure performance as traditional camber. 

The problem is that they are thinking in two dimensions.

The next dimenson - Triple Base Technology (3BT)

Triple Base Technology (3BT) was the brainchild of a Norwegian biophsysicist named Jorgen Karlson. He was fascinated by the way boards naturally flexed and changed shape when in motion. His thinking led him to the idea of altering the profile of a snowboard not just from the nose to the tail, but from one edge to the other. In short: 3D shaping. 

He took his concept to various snowboard companies who weren’t interested, so he teamed up with a few people who shared his enthusiasm and, in 2003, Bataleon was born.

To understand Triple Base Technology, you need to look at a Bataleon snowboard in a cross section. A flat strip in the centre of the base is combined with uplifted sides, which get more pronounced towards the widest points at the nose and tail. In these areas there are essentially three bases at work, hence the name Triple Base.

When you jam your board into a powder bank, drive it through a transition or just crank out a turn, it’s always going to want to adapt its shape to the terrain. 3BT embraces this phenomenon, optimising a snowboard to the forces at work. Just as the curved hull of a boat ploughs through the waves, or the wings of a plane are designed to slice through the air, Triple Base Technology moves through its chosen environment with maximum efficiency. 

Crucially, 3BT finally solves the puzzle of how to improve camber. All our snowboards feature positive camber from tip to tail, meaning they enjoy all the natural pop and lively carving performance of a traditional board, but thanks to the uplifted sections there are several extra benefits:

Advantages

  • Stomp More

    3BT™ is like a get-out-of-jail-free card for landing sketchy jumps.

  • Smooth Turns

    3BT™ enables ultra-fast turn initiation, effortless edge transitions, and the smoothest turns imaginable.

  • Freaky Float

    The 3BT™ hull-like shape generates increased uplift, providing unparalleled float on snow.

  • Enjoy More

    A forgiving shape with enhanced performance that reduces edge-catch, boosts confidence, and accelerates progression at any level.

Unlike rocker or hybrid camber profiles, Triple Base Technology actually works. And over two decades, we’ve carefully refined it to develop five variations, depending on your preferred riding style: Jib, Twin, Freestyle, Freeride and Pow. You can read all about these different 3BT flavors here.

Shapes

  • Jib

  • Twin Freestyle

  • Freeride

  • Pow

In the last couple of years, we’ve also added SideKick to the recipe in most of our snowboards, including the best-selling FunKink and Whatever. SideKick dramatically increases the uplift at the widest points of the nose and tail. This makes turn initiation even smoother, increases float in powder and handling of the board in rough terrain. It has to be ridden to be believed!

3BT camber profile variations

Depending on the model, Bataleon snowboards also blend 3BT with one of three versions of traditional camber to further fine-tune the performance:

Camber profiles are defined from low to high. Higher camber make for more dynamic boards that need to be ridden more aggressively to get maximum performance. Lower camber boards are smoother on lower speeds and in powder. All camber profiles run from nose to tail. Higher is not always better

  • Low

    e.g. Surfer, Disaster

  • Medium

    e.g. Goliath, Whatever

  • High

    e.g. Turbo

Jump to

  • What kind of snowboard do I need?

    We’ve all been there. You walk into a snowboard store and are confronted with a huge rack of boards in all shapes, colours and sizes. Then the cool guy in...

    What kind of snowboard do I need?

    We’ve all been there. You walk into a snowboard store and are confronted with a huge rack of boards in all shapes, colours and sizes. Then the cool guy in...

  • Camber vs Rocker vs Triple Base Technology

    This simple snowboard profile remained the standard until the advent of camber. A cambered snowboard is pre-bent so that – when you look at it from the side – the...

    Camber vs Rocker vs Triple Base Technology

    This simple snowboard profile remained the standard until the advent of camber. A cambered snowboard is pre-bent so that – when you look at it from the side – the...

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