Nitro Cheap Thrills 2027

The Nitro Cheap Thrills is Nitro's affordable park twin, and the honest starting point is what it is and is not built to do. This is a genuine true twin - centered stance, zero setback, identical nose and tail - wrapped around Cam-Out camber: positive camber between the feet for pop, with early rise at each tip so the contact points stay catch-free. Nitro rates its flex 5 out of 10 on their own scale, which puts it soft-to-medium: easy to press, easy to jib, easy to throw sideways. At US$439.95 it sits low in Nitro's park range, and it ships in standard and wide widths so larger boots are covered.

The Cheap Thrills spends its money on ride feel, not the base. Nitro builds it on a Premium Extruded FH base, and that base is what most separates it from the boards above it in the line. Extruded plastic is durable, cheap to fix and happy without regular wax, but it will not glide like a sintered base. Nitro says so itself: the Cheap Thrills x Love, at $479.95, steps up to a sintered base for more speed and a rail-tuned Railkiller edge, and the flagship T1, at $559.95, runs that same sintered base and Railkiller edge. The step up the line is a base and edge decision more than a shape one. Here you ride a Recycled Steel edge, a Powercore II wood core and Bi-Lite fiberglass - no carbon, no metal.

On paper the Cheap Thrills reads as a park and jib board first. Nitro still gives it a solid All-Mountain 8/10, so it will cruise the resort, but the soft flex and extruded base keep its heart on rails and jumps. The soft flex and Radial sidecut should keep it quick and predictable from edge to edge at park speeds, and the Whiplash Core Profile is Nitro's shaping for ollie pop. Push it into chop or onto steep, hard groomers and the same softness that makes it playful on rails is what, on spec, would let it wash out. The limits are exactly where the geometry says they are: a centered twin with no taper and a soft flex has nothing to float in powder and little to settle it once you point it straight. Nitro's own terrain ratings agree - top marks for park, near the bottom for backcountry.

This read is off Nitro's 26/27 catalog, the order book and the board's construction, so treat the ride notes as informed reading rather than a tested verdict. The women's counterpart is the Nitro Mercy at the same price. If you want a forgiving, affordable deck for rails, jibs, side hits and medium jumps, the Cheap Thrills is aimed squarely at you. If you want speed, float or a base that holds a fast wax, spend up the line to the x Love or the T1.