www.snowboard-women.com

This begins a regular installment we’ll be featuring on this blog on the various snowboard gear and snowboard clothing shops we visit.

Location: Val Surf, 169 W. Colorado Blvd, Pasadena

(image courtesy of Yelp.com)

Right on the outskirts of Old Pasadena sits Val Surf. It’s only about 3 blocks down from a PacSun and a Vans store on the same stretch of Colorado Bl. So their clothing selection tends to run along those same lines… more of the same Roxy/Volcom/Element/etc. clothing you see pretty much the same from store to store.

I always find these chain “surf/snow/skate” stores to be kind of depressing. On the one hand, I like that these sports are now somewhat mainstream and more people enjoy doing them because I’m a populist at heart and really I just want people to be happy doing whatever they’re doing. On the other hand, it takes away a lot of the authenticity and the fact it’s mainstream means it’s now been co-opted by a lot of lame-ohs. Not to mention it makes the mountain resorts and the best surf breaks very crowded!

My philosophical rant aside, in this Val Surf you’ll find a huge selection of hoodies and jeans for both men and women. Hoodie heaven! For the ladies, lots of thermal tops and snug fitting tees. They have a wide selection of jeans by Hurley, Roxy and other top brands. In addition, I was pleased to see they carry Frye boots and had some for 50% off! They also featured quite a few styles of Ugg boots (ugg is right, I was thinking!) and a HUGE selection of wetsuits.

Now about their snowboard section. I was somewhat disappointed to see a very limited selection of women’s snowboarding jackets and snowboarding pants - only about two racks of each. Size selection was decent, but prices were high for my tastes. Maybe I am too used to the deals at Ski Dazzles and the end-of-season sales in the mountain shops. But I thought $199 for a pair of mediocre-looking pants was kinda high. The usual suspect brands were in full force - Burton, Roxy, 686, Grenade.

They carry about 20 different types of bindings (weirdly, I don’t think I saw any Flows in this store but I saw them at ValSurf.com), and a moderate selection of boards though sizes on display were limited. I saw mostly 147s and then it went up to 157s and above. Did they have more in the back? I didn’t ask. Further, only about 1/4 of the boards were women-specific (lots of Never Summers.)

Not a lot of beanies but lots of gloves and mittens.

Rating breakdown (scale of 1-5, 5 is excellent)

• Snowboard outerwear selection: 3
• Board & gear selection: 2
• Prices: 2
• Staff knowledge and helpfulness: n/a - I didn’t talk to anyone

Overall, I’d give this store a 2.5 out of 5 for snowboarding stuff… it’s kind of too generalized and tries to be a lot to many audiences. To be fair, I didn’t talk to anyone about the boards and bindings to gauge their experience and helpfulness, but it really seemed like most of the store was more focused on fashion, surf, and skate with snowboarding falling 4th in priority.

Web site: http://www.valsurf.com