Board: Jones Aviator

Size: 158

Camber Option: Good old fashioned full camber.

Bindings: Rome Black Label

Stance: 21.5 Wide 15 Negative 12 Goofy

Boots: K2 Thraxis Size 10

My Weight: 200lbs

Resort: Copper Mountain

Conditions: Gray into blue skies with clouds, low wind, warmer temps, frozen snow, fresh corduroy, ice, chunder, and heavy hot pow.

Flex: This board is definitely on the stiffer side of the all mountain freestyle category making it one of the stiffer ones out there. Sure there’s some flex in the nose but it stiffens up mid way back to the insert pack and stays that way to the tail where it gets a little stiffer. There’s some torsional flex but nothing major that overpowers the board.

Stability: Now here’s the thing that leads me to believe this board has some kind of sorcery in it because this is one of the dampest boards I’ve ever ridden in regard to how it absorbs chatter and plows through uneven and chundery terrain. You do not feel anything. This can be attributed to the Koroyd infused core. This just kills all chatter but keeps the board lively. This is a deck that is super smooth and charges with ease.

Ollies: Well it’s full camber so you’ll want to load it up to engage it because if you don’t you’re not going to pop at all. The snap is more than there and it lets you know that it can boost. Speed is your friend after you load it up and it will pop.

Pop On Jumps: This board is called the Aviator for a reason and that reason is it wants to get into the air. It sails off lips and fly’s through the air. You do want to load the camber up to snap off the lip because if you don’t this board only ends up doing the bare minimum.

Butterability: This thing is not fun to butter. It takes a lot of work to get your weight out over the tips to get it to press into the snow. Speed is your friend here and even then this isn’t going to be the easiest or most butterable board out there.

Jibbing: You can jib on this board but you’re going to be muscling it the whole time. It takes so much work and is not what this thing is really designed for so maybe scrap your dreams of high end jib dominance and instead go boost a hip at double the speed. It presses with so much work and most of the time the board wants to clap down on the rail. When you go sidways it just balances on the feature giving it that teeter totter effect.

Carving: Now if you like camber and pure drive on edge this is a board for you. It has a smooth roll onto the edge and transitions smoothly. This is a board that has clearly defined drive points when you’re on edge. It initiates the turn at the contact point at the nose then as you go through the carve it steers outside the front foot and as you lessen the pressure on the front foot it drives inside the back foot for all its power in a carve. This is a deck that locks in on edge and cuts through everything with ease and power. It’s graceful on edge and wants to swoop in and out of turns. The good thing is this board isn’t limited to short quick carves or long hard drawn out ones, it just wants to get on edge and rail a turn no matter what.

Rider in Mind: Oldschool camber loving high end all mountain freestyle guy.

Personal Thoughts: It’s always nice to get on a full cambered board of this caliber and just haul ass and let it fly. This thing rails turns while still being able to pop off everything in sight. It floats well enough in pow for being camber and believe me the pow was hot and heavy so it was a work out. This is a board that just has superior control and knows how much a slight pressure change can cause it to respond.

Comparable Boards: Nitro Suprateam, Rossignol Juggernaut

Binding Recommendations: Jones Mercury, Ride A-8, Flux XF