(Editor's note: The author's personal board is a Burton. As are her pants and jacket. And, uh, her hat.)
Their sheer ubiquity and variety in price points has made the Burton brand a little less edgy than it used to be. There's no better way to advertise your n00b status than to trot out on the slopes festooned head-to-toe Burton. You might as well scream, "I just bought a kit straight off the rack! And I'll probably knock you down if you ride the lift with me!"
But there's a reason for Burton's ubiquity and continued customer loyalty. For your money, a Burton is one of the best boards you can buy.
The Custom V-Rocker is one of Burton's best boards to date. The Burton V-Rocker places a rocker between your feet, with two additional rockers at the tip and tail that lift them completely off the snow. This rocker shape makes spins, jumps and butters (on-the-ground tricks) unbelievably easy and fun.
V-Rocker also features Burton's channel technology, which debuted around 2003. Channel technology refers to the single channel that runs down the spine of the board that is only compatible with Burton EST or 3-D bindings. If you've already spent $600 on a new snowboard, it would be annoying to have to drop another $300 just to be able to ride it. That's like Apple changing the size of the headphones jack so that you could only use special Apple-supplied headphoness to listen to an ipods. But the price is worth it. The bindings are micro-adjustable and incredibly responsive to shifts in weight.
The board was a little soft in powder, but that's not a major complaint. Where we really have a problem is that this board does not come in small sizes. The V-Rocker was soft enough for me to have a decent ride in its smallest size at 151 centimeters, although I normally require a smaller board. But if I wanted a stick that actually came in my size, I'd have to opt for something called "The Lipstick." Really, Burton? Do you think there aren't any dudes out there who are under 5 feet 5 inches?
