Banjo

This is my review of the Rome Garage Rocker. I purchased this board as a blem and extra cheap off of Evo.com for the sole purpose of transitioning from big mountain riding to...jibbing *gasp*! Living in the city, I decided that between work and school I would spend some time at the local hill when i could and learn to jib/work on my airs.

Review: 11 days use. 154 length. Rider: 5'9 190lbs

The Tech.
For those who dont know, The Rome Garage Rocker is an entry level soft boardf and for the price there is quite a bit of tech in it. Here are the basics: Extruded base, flat mid-section, rocker tip and tail, bamboo and glass stringers for pop and stability, and what they call "Quick-Rip sidecut" which acts as a type of edge hold enhancer due to two sidecuts. The concept is that at slow speeds, you only engage the middle sidecut and at higher speeds, you engage the full edge-and where the cuts meet acts as a type of really mellow magne-traction.

The Ride:
Initially tough to get used to as it was my first board with NO camber. While it was near impossible to catch an edge, that also proved true when you really wanted to make a hard turn, it was a bit difficult to maintain a solid carve on anything that was hard, but once up to a good speed, it definitely improved which i found surprising, but a testament to the "quick-rip". It was pretty soft and quite easy to butter and had a fair amount of pop to it as well. it was really fun in terms of buttering on rails, very forgiving when landing a bit off the fall-line coming off a jump. Here is a breakdown of the conditions I had it on:

Groomers & Speed: Tough to grab an edge unless you got up to speed to engage the entire sidecut including the quickrip. Once you link a few good turns, it actually transitions edge to edge quite well and the flex of the board made it really easy to pop a high speed 180 on the groom and grab your edge back quick. It wasnt overly stable at high speeds, perhaps its simply the lack of camber to give you that locked in feeling.

Switch & Rails/jib: Really soft and playful, true twin so switch was no problem. It felt pretty decent on a rail, no issues with edges grabbing (i did NOT detune it) when 50-50. The extruded base worried me a bit, but after 10 days, other than a few scratches that arent deep enough to see post-wax, no damage!

Pipe & Jumps: The halfpipe was my LEAST favorite are to have this board in...when climbing the wall (icy pipe), i always felt my edge skid out and in turn would lose a significant amount of speed/height as a result. If I plan on riding the pipe, I will NOT be using this board, I will bring my full cambered board. Jumps were alot of fun on this, a good amount of pop and the rocker/flat meant crooked landings were not an issue. Due to the flex of the board, landing heavy on the tail was not fun, it would fold up and toss me forward so that was an adjustment to be made on my part. This board is quite light which made any spinning easy as well.

I didnt have it on any pow (nor will i) but overall for what I got this board was fun and inexpensive. Im sure there are much beter jib boards out there, and if I plan on getting serious about jibs, Ill upgrade.

If you are looking for a cheap end of season board that you wont feel bad about ruining on a rail, this is a good option!

Banjo