By Fes
Board Model and Year: Rossignol Jeremy Jones 2008-2009
Board Size: 158
Age: 36
Riding Style: Freerider
Last weekend when I was at Stevens Pass, the backside was filled with fresh pow so I decided to demo some long boards. I am 150 lbs and only 5’4″ so a 158 is essentially a long board for me. My regular ride is a 156 Burton T6 and my board for hitting park jumps is a K2 Anagram.
I was pretty stoked to see that they had the Jones Rossi board in stock.
The Jones board is a very stiff ride meant for backcountry pow riding where the snow is nice and deep. It’s not a light board by any means and as such has a lot of dampening (the Burton Custom 158 I demoed later in the day was a lot lighter). It bombed through the slough and fresh snow. I felt very stable on the slough and the pow going at high speeds on it. On the groomers, it was a lot of work getting to stop it from slipping out. Tapered boards are not meant to be ridden on the groomers and in the icy patches when I was headed back down to the base area, this was an extremely unpredictable and dangerous ride. For this long a board, with the proper speed checking, I was able to get it to pop a bit over jumps and oh yes, stomp the landings like nobody’s business.
Overall, the board was a great ride, stable as all hell, but what sucked was the crappy Rossignol bindings they put on it and that’s the only binding that they had available for that board and they were not mixing bindings at all. This is not for groomer/regular resort riding. It’s for the steeps and the backcountry where the pow is fresh and a plenty. In those conditions, it rules supreme. Why do think Jeremy rides it in those conditions? 😛
Next year’s model for this board has Magnetraction and a rocker for even better pow float. Magne and reverse camber? In a non-Lib Tech board? Whudathunkit?
This board is stiff with a good shape and is fun to rip on, but the sidewalls might as well be made of glass. Second day riding it hit a rock not even hard enough to compress the edge and the side wall popped out. I sent It back to Rossi and a month and a half later got it back repaired. I rode it four days and the same thing happened no core shot or anything just a little scuffed up edge but the sidewall cracked again. So two cracked side walls in less than a week of riding pretty weak for a high end board. If you live some where with rocky don’t buy this. If you live somewhere thats not rocky this is a super fun board to ride stiff and rails turns hard through chop, wind buff or pow. This guy reviewing above has no clue. Slough is powder that falls down around you when riding steep fresh pow that can take you off your feet if you don’t manage it properly, not some sort of choppy snow you cut through so I would say disregaurd that review.