Board: Burton Hometown Hero

Size: 156

Camber Option: Directional camber. Set back camber under the back foot with rocker in the nose.

Bindings: Rome Black Labels

Stance: 21.5 Wide 15 Negative 12 Goofy

Boots: K2 Thraxis Size 10

My Weight: 200lbs

Resort: Copper Mountain

Conditions: Heavy wet snow falling, a few inches of fresh on top of frozen chunder of death, cooler temps, and low visibility.

Flex: While this board does have a twin flex the camber under the back foot and rocker in the nose drastically manipulate it into feeling very directional. Squeezebox does give the board areas where it’s more playful and less stiff. What I noticed was that it’s definitely a freeride board in terms of flex. What you get is some very minimal amounts of give in the tips and just inside the channel with stiffer sections between them. Overall the flex is past the middle of the road freeride spectrum.

Stability: This board has specific areas where you feel more chatter. In rutted out terrain you’ll notice that the nose gets bounced around and that resonates back under the front foot, then it stiffens up through the middle and rear binding. At high speeds in variable terrain you’ll notice this board doesn’t bend and flex with every contour it wants to skip over them which causes your ankles and knees to take a hit. The board is very lively.

Ollies/Pop: That rear foot camber takes a bit to engage and even when you do it’s not the snappiest deck out there. The load is there and sometimes it pops aggressively and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s not consistent and forces you to bring your A game to load it all the time.

Butterability: It’s less buttering and more doing high speed tail wheelies than anything else. Sure the nose can be pressed if you really push into it and I mean really push into it. The amount of work it takes to get this thing to butter is astounding.

Carving: This board transitions smoothly from edge to edge. It is driven hard off the back foot where that camber is and you’ll notice that when you’re laying trenches. It’s a deck that you have to push into aggressively but when you do it will slingshot out of turns. It gripped well on the icy spots I hit and didn’t seem to want to wash out. I will say that it tended to be a bit hooky under the front foot at times.

Rider in Mind: Someone that wants to charge hard and lay a turn.

Personal Thoughts: It’s nimble where it counts but aggressive everywhere else. Some people might not like how aggressive it is, but if you’re a guy that likes to bring your A game when you ride a board well then here you go. I wasn’t blown away by it but I also didn’t find it completely lacking. At the end of the day it was a snowboard that didn’t stand out above anything else in the came category.