February 3rd, 2010 by JT

Rocker, Rocker, Rocker.. that’s a huge theme this year.   I’m seeing rocker boards from just about every snowboard company putting out products in 2011.  Never Summer has gone so far as to completely eliminate single camber board designs and implementing their Rocker & Camber tech through-out their new line.    Burton continues to offer both choices, as do many other companies.  Only time will really tell if straight camber is truly dead?  The outerwear line-up for next year is looking pretty solid.  686 has added some new additions to the Snaggletooth Line, as well as more sizes to the New Balance boot line-up coming out.

They’ve removed some jackets, kept others, and added new jackets and pants to their line-up.   Their use of color this year was interesting on some lines, and I’d love to sit down and talk with the design team on the inspiration on some pieces.   I found myself like at least one board from each company this year in some aspect.  Whether it was purely aesthetic with the graphics, or functional with the technology implemented.  I’m really stoked on getting my hands on boards from YES, Rome, Arbor, Nitro, Never Summer, and more.  I didn’t make it out to the on-snow demo due to other plans, but I plan on reviewing as much as possible.

The competition is steep this year between all the companies, and Flow really took that to heart and “brought it” this year.   Scotty Lago’s new Quantum signature deck is pretty much amazing in the graphics and tech department, as is several of Flow’s 2011 boards.  Their binding line has been improved, and the color-ways are among the best they’ve put out yet.

Union is keeping up in the color-way department and tech with the new Union Force MC’s, Forces, Contact Pro, and more.  They’ve introduced the Forces in Blue and Yellow for 2011, while the MC has gotten even lighter. How the hell does the MC get any lighter?  They are using nano-tech to get some weight loving and tweaking the design slightly more this year.

DC has definitely come into their own this year, especially in the boot category.  Not only are the boot great looking in various designs and color-ways, but DC has added some insane new tech with their new liner system.   I don’t want to give everything away just yet, but I think these boots will be a hit for sure.

YES has put out amazing board designs, continuing with their camrock construction, and of course insanely great graphics.  I’ll be writing up an individual review on YES soon enough.

Rome not only has great board graphics, and tech in the 2011 line, but also, once again brought the A-game in the binding category.  They have insanely great binding color-ways and tech coming your way.   Yeah yeah, not too much to explain here yet, but I’m gathering up more information for you all.

I’ll post more soon enough, but for now, I have to bail and get some other things done.   I will say I did end up checking out some outerwear by Obermeyer which impressed me.  I’ll have a whole write-up about that in and of itself.