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  5 of 5, "Hard to believe, but the hype is true." 31/01/2011 @ 23:41 |
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| Revision #2 (Last edited: 31/01/2011 @ 23:49) |
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| Price Paid |
| £400 |
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| Bought From |
| TSA Covent Garden |
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| Times Ridden |
| 6-15 Times |
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| Review Detail |
Short version: MTX works, BTX works, the hype is all true. :)
Longer version: I've been riding an 04/05 Burton Custom for 6 years. Traditional camber, quite stiff, love it. But it's hard work in powder. So in 08/09 I read up on reverse camber and triple base tech to see which would be a better powder board. In the end I went for a Bataleon Riot. Tried it out on my next trip... and didn't like it. It certainly didn't float in powder, so the hype was untrue. I think it's more of a jib stick, so will try it out again later this year when I start doing spins. So, fast forward to 09/10 and I was still looking for a powder board so I bought a Lib Tech Skate Banana. The classic reverse camber board. (At the time it was the only one, pretty much. Apart from Never Summer. Now you can't move without tripping over some manufacturer's reverse camber board...) So, I was all set... then fell ill and had to cancel all my ski trips. :( So, fast forward to 10/11 and I now had a Bataleon Riot that I'd used once, and a Lib Tech Skate Banana that I'd never used... and I'm thinking maybe I should get a Jones Flagship. But in the end I didn't, because I find it hard to believe that the topsheet is going to last without lacquer on it. So I headed off to Steamboat with a Custom, a Riot, and my Skate Banana. Started out on the Custom, which was as great as ever, but when we got 18" of fresh powder it sank like a lead balloon. After two hours my rear leg was burning from keeping the thing up. So, next time there was a big dump I switched to the Skate Banana... and WOW, what a difference. It floats beautifully. Almost effortless. You do have to lean back a bit, but at the end of the day I had no leg burn at all. So BTX (banana tech, i.e. reverse camber) worked great. And I never once felt like I was in danger of catching an edge. Cat tracks and packed powder were effortless, and on those occasions where I did something stupid and the Custom would have had me on the floor, the 'nana let me off without even a warning. Awesome. That would have been enough for me to love this board, but I haven't even mentioned MTX (magnetraction) yet. Steamboat gets tracked out pretty quick, so the powder didn't last long especially on busy runs down to the base. They were pretty icy and on my Custom I was losing traction alot of the time. But not on the 'nana. It carved through those icy patches like a knife through butter. Amazing.
It's extremely rare that a product lives up to the hype. And, to be honest, the reason I got the Riot instead of the 'nana was because I didn't think the hype about the 'nana could be true. But it is. It's a great board. Loads of fun, very forgiving, floats like air, carves like it's on rails. I can't recommend it enough. It may not be the best board at speed (though it was fine at my top speed) but as single-quiver boards go it has got to be one of the best. There's a reason every manufacturer has adopted reverse camber and some form of magnetraction - it's because they work. |
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| Strengths |
Loads of fun because there's almost no risk of catching an edge.
Floats easily on powder.
Carves ice really well. |
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| Weaknesses |
| For ultra-high speed it's probably not the best, but at normal high speeds it's still great. |
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| Similar Snowboards Ridden |
| Nothing similar, but I've ridden 02/03 Burton Cruzer, 04/05 Burton Custom and 08/09 Bataleon Riot. |
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 4 of 5, "Power Steering" 28/03/2010 @ 20:38 |
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| Price Paid |
| £360 |
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| Bought From |
| FleeBay |
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| Times Ridden |
| 15 Times + |
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| Review Detail |
I've been riding this board from 9am to 4pm for the past 2 weeks so I guess I'm qualified to review it now.
The 1st thing I noticed about the board was how eager it was to turn, I ride quite aggressively and like to push hard out of turns. This board does not require that sort of riding to get it to shift, as a consequence I found that it over-steered for the 1st few days until I got used to it.
I've been lucky enough to use it in a foot or more of fresh powder each day for the last 4 days due to the amazing conditions in France at the moment and I have to say that for such a short (156) board is handles itself very well. Whilst I've seen reviews harp on about you not having to lean back at all I found I still had to put a fair amount of weight over the back foot to stop the nose from burying down and getting myself into a world of trouble off piste, maybe that's just my riding style. However, once you get it right it will deliver a beautifully smooth ride. I had the best days riding in 10 years of boarding on Friday and I reckon the SB was part of the reason.
One characteristic that stands out is that it will not catch an edge unless you do something truly stupid. I've been practising 360s on flats and time and time again I was getting away with murder when my rotations were short. I was literally closing my eyes and waiting for the edge to catch and for my face to hit the snow but it didn't come. Well actually, I lie, it did come a few times, mainly on the backside on those occasions I'd pushed the laws of physics so far that they could no longer let me go unpunished for my laziness. Overall this part of the board's claims went beyond my expectations.
I didn't really notice MTX technology make much if any difference. The odd run has only been hard here and there during a few mornings. I guess if I had to have an opinion I'd say that I'd rather ride a board with it than one without. A few times I put the breaks on hard and thought the board would come out from underneath me and I got away with it.
The area that let the board down was carving at speed or on a bumpy piste. Obviously because its a flexible board it wont handle as well when you're charging down a red as fast at gravity will let you as say a Burton T6 but I didn't feel that confident in the SB. Its was chattering and bumping around. I didn't really notice how badly until I swapped mine for my friends Burton Clash so he could see what all the fuss regarding BTX was about. Now the Clash isn't exactly an expensive board but it handled itself so much better at speed and I was happy to hammer it down runs without a second thought. This is probably no surprise as this isn't what the SB was designed for. I wont be joining the masses who describe the board as a 'quiver killer'. I'd still like something a lot stiffer for charging down reds and blacks as fast as possible. The SB can do this quite comfortably, just not as well as something specifically designed to do so. I also found the base to be quite slow and was applying 'NotWax' in the mornings and afternoons and still being passed on the flats by people who'd had a wax 3 days earlier.
Its nice in the park. The tip and tail are very light making it easy to spin. My mate said it felt like he had nothing strapped to his feet when he borrowed it. I didn't find it hard to land as some people have suggested. I don't do black kickers or 720's or anything ridiculous like that though. For rails and boxes its not tried to kill me yet. I need to spend a bit more time on these with it. Powder has been too good to miss of late.
Overall I do rate this board. My mate described it pretty well and said its like going from a standard car without power steering to a super car. Its very agile and maneuverable but at high speeds it can run away and kill you if you're not careful. |
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| Strengths |
Very agile and maneuverable
Good swing weight
Catch far less edges |
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| Weaknesses |
Chatters
Unstable at high speed |
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| Similar Snowboards Ridden |
Burton T6
Burton Custom X
Burton Dominant
Burton Clash
Bataleon Goliath
Rome Artifact |
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