Qball

Out of the designs I've ridden (camber, reverse camber, rocker/camber), I 100% prefer rocker camber. I've been riding a 09/10 never summer sl for a while now and just recently purchase a 2011 smokin superpark. I've had two days on the Superpark and I think I like Smokin's version (Clash Rocker) of rocker/camber better. It has a much more mellow rocker shape then the NS and the camber sections aren't quite as aggressive, so that pivot point in the middle is not as noticeable, if there at all, when flat basing. This paired with their version of magnetraction makes for one killer freestyle board. The edge hold is ridiculous on it.

schmitty34

so in your opinion, is it a really nice advantage to have some form of mtx paired with the various forms of RC?

I rode the raygun and had fun, and then found a Turbo Dream (just a better version of the Raygun) on sale at a local shop. I'm very tempted to buy, but I also wonder if I'd rather have my first RC board also have mtx or something like it to help the edge hold on hard pack.

I rode a btx board a little bit last year and it felt pretty nice carving.

rasmasyean

I think the magnetraction is a must have if you encounter any hard/ice situations. Unless there is like some board with features you HAVE to have that you can't get with an equivalent MTX board, go for the MTX one. You won't be disappointed.

There will be those who claim they are so good and their edges are so sharp that it doesn't make a difference for them, but this is one feature where I say that's total BS. It's almost like saying shaped skis are useless when you are GOOD. You can argue that a good enough boarder doesn't need the forgivingness of RC and can press and butter out a cambered board easily, but I'd be really surprised if someone is so good they can make magnetraction redundant.

I always kept my edges sharp and now riding an MTX board, the worst I've slipped out on a surprise ice patch is like maybe putting my hand on the floor. And most of the time, it's carvable/skidable. And this is with a softer total RC board, which is supposed to reduce edge hold. And just the other day, it got icy and cold like at 3 PM and all my friends when to the lodge, and I skied by myself because...heck, I'm not going to lie and say that the ice wasn't a little slippier, but it's totally boarable on my flexy short skate banana. And I went on the last lift up too.

If you insist on going "racing speeds" (which prolly like <1% of the ppl actually do) there's actually boards with mellowed out magnetraction so that it won't slow you down as much with too many serations.

Bones

That's pretty similar to my experience as well. I'm not sure I'd describe it as having to "lay into it a little harder", but once I got used to the board and where the cambered tips engage, I found no real difference with edge hold on ice versus a camber. Basically because when the tips engage, your whole edge is pretty much in contact just like a camber.

I dropped from a fast 164 camber to a 161 NS SL-R. I notice a slight drop in flat out speed, but I attribute that to the shorter length, not the different tech. I've ridden slower cambered boards in a 161.

zeeden

My first 2 years I was using a camber board, just got a burton custom v-rocker on sale last year and I am loving it. I ride 90% on hard pack groomers. I can bomb down mountains without being scared of catching an edge, turns our awesome, smooth as hell. It really does feel like I'm on a skateboard.

In a couple of weeks I'll be in some west coast powder, so we'll see how the board peforms out there.