Jones Mountain Twin - 2011

Snowboard Review:

It goes without saying that Jeremy Jones can design a freeride snowboard. Years spent developing Rossignol’s freeride offering with countless pro models means Jeremy knows his onions. I was intrigued to find out if Jeremy’s take on an all mountain freestyle board lived up to the hype and expectation surrounding Jeremy’s solo venture.

I took the Mountain Twin out in conditions that most boards and especially rockers tend to struggle in, heavy afternoon spring snow. The Mountain Twin uses Nidecker’s Camrock camber/rocker hybrid profile, an attempt to take the best of both worlds. Camber runs between the bindings and the nose and tail are rockered, in the case of the Mountain Twin, camber is probably being a bit generous, to the untrained eye it looks like the board uses standard reverse camber through the whole length, and on the snow you kind of get that feeling too, to say the MT is loose is an understatement, it’s one seriously slippery weasel, but it kind of works in most terrain. The spring corn was a bit of a laugh on the MT, which skipped over all the undulations so I ventured into the pipe and was pleasantly surprised. The blunted nose and tail mean the MT has an abnormally long effective edge which is definitely a plus when holding a solid edge makes the difference between airing out the top of the pipe, or cussing and blinding at the bottom of the vert. Out of the pipe the long effective edge is a mixed blessing, it grips well carving but made the MT feel a bit cumbersome on the smaller jumps, that said, transitions between edges was wickedly fast, like dancing the electric boogaloo, maybe faster. The Mountain Twin is so easy to turn that I reckon a beginner would get on with it.

The Mountain Twin is a board that does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a joy to cruise around on, holds an edge like a vice and is capable in the pipe and off jumps. I would have loved the opportunity to take the MT out in some powder lined tree runs which with the loose feel of the Camrock would be a delight. Riders who are coming from a camber snowboard background looking for a hybrid camber/rocker profile might find the Mountain Twin sits a little far to the rocker side of the fence for their liking, on icy run-ins and refrozen corduroy the looseness of the MT can be a little unsettling for those used to the planted feel of a cambered board.

Additional Info:-

Having found a thread on the net, it appears some people have been a little confuse by this review. Reviews are supposed to help consumers make a decision, not confuse them further so I’ll try my best to explain how I felt this board rode. Firstly, I mentioned that in the slush some rockered snowboards can struggle, sure if the piste is smooth then rockers work fine, you benefit from not having the start of your effective edge catching when you dig in a carve, granted on these occasions rocker is better in slush. Late afternoon, when the spring slush is super heavy and usually in big mogul like lumps, I find that unless the board has sufficient reinforcement in the tail and nose, you just get bullied about; cambered boards dont tend to get too affected by this because the camber works against the bumps. The Mountain Twin has enough reinforcement and guts to feel strong and forcefull in these conditions, it doesn’t get bumped around too much. The second point of confusion was that I said the board felt almost too loose on ice. Although the Mountain twin uses camber between the bindings, it’s really shallow (if you pick one up in the shop, you won’t notice it until you lie it down on a flat surface), so when you ride it on hard icy snow it feels as if the board is almost pivoting from the center point like on a banana deck. For those who are used to having these pressure points fore and aft of the bindings it can feel a bit un-nerving. Our head of testing Tom, rode the Nidecker Legacy in March which uses the same Camrock profile, his observations were exactly the same.

So the Mountain Twin has enough guts to cut through heavy slush mounds, but could do with a little bit more camber between the feet to feel planted on hard mid-winter snow.

Posted by Rich Ewbank in • Jones