Board: Kemper SR

Size: 158

Camber Option: Camber with early rise. It’s a setback camber with rocker in the nose.

Bindings: Rome Black Label

Stance: 21.5 Wide 15 Negative 12 Goofy

Boots: K2 Thraxis Size 10

My Weight: 200lbs

Resort: Arapahoe Basin

Conditions: Overcast skies, cool temps, fresh snow ranging from 2 inches to thigh deep depending on how the wind loaded it, crusty frozen groomers or snow underneath, and moderate to high winds.

Flex: The overall flex of this board comes in just past a middle of the road freeride flex. Now with that said it’s obviously a directional flex meaning softer nose that progressively stiffens back up towards the tail. There’s a fair amount of torsional flex to it that does give a bit more play to this board. There’s also a clearly defined flex point in the middle of the set back camber as well as right outside the back binding inserts.

Stability: This board is highly lively and you will feel almost everything with it. At speed the nose gets a little chatter in it and that resonates back under the front foot. When plowing through choppy terrain the setback camber causes the back foot to take most of the chatter.

Ollies/Pop: The pop comes off the back foot and when you load that camber up you notice right away that the snap is accentuated by the force put off the back leg. This is a deck that has a delayed reaction when you load it which makes it optimal for sending sidehits, rollers, cat track gaps, rock poppers, etc. due to how it sets up.

Butterability: It takes a little more effort to muscle the nose of this board into a butter just because the camber is fighting you from an offset position. Once you figure out how to balance your weight on it then it doesn’t become an issue. With the tail that off set flex point right outside the bindings makes for an optimal place to balance on as you go sideways.

Carving: While not a total hard carver it does hold its own. The turn initiation is easy and more laid back as this board is designed to steer from the center point between the insert packs and off the tail. This means the nose is slightly disengaged and you can roll in and out of turns while pushing hard off the tail to drive it. This allows for optimal medium hard carves and quick set up turns but still gives you the ability to lay this thing over when you need to. On edge its not the hardest gripping board out there but it’s got enough to let you drive it through a turn when you need to.

Rider in Mind: Surfy pow chasing carver.

Personal Thoughts: This board gives you the power to be precise when you absolutely need it but most of the time it’s laid back and surfy. It floats well in deep pow and is easy to drive those rear flex points to get the nose on top of the snow. On edge it’s subdued till you need it to drive through a turn. Overall it’s one of those carvy cruiser resort boards that lets you slash pow or slush with ease but doesn’t suck on a groomer.

Comparable Boards: Rome Stale Crewzer, Marhar Sasquatch, Gnu Hyper

Recommended Bindings: Rome Katana, K2 Lineup, Bent Metal Transfer