Tue, 01/26/2010 - 8:09pmSnowboard Review: Rome Postermania with Rome 390s

I had the fortunate opportunity to shred a Rome Postermania 156 fitted with Rome 390 bindings at Hemel's Snow Centre on Friday night. Here's the low down on this indoor shred machine:

Snowboard review: Rome Postermania

What they say:

"Press a box. Float pow in either direction. Spin with control. Tap a stump. Surf. Throw a carve. Butter. The Postermania combines a Reverse-Free camber profile with a Carbon V stringer that adds snap off your tail edge, and balanced, more powerful ollies. The result is the poster child of reverse camber boards that have a habit of dropping hits of fun all over the hill."

Fitted with:
Pop Core Matrix
Lightweight and smooth flexing

StraightBiax Carbon Laminate
The ollie pop of carbon in the tip and tail built on a buttery 90-degree foundation

SinterTrue Base
Strong wax absorption for fast, fun-filled days

Impact Plates™
2.5 times stronger under foot

Edge Bevel: Park (-2° base/-2° side)
Catch-free to add comfort and control off jumps, but with plenty of bite once on edge

Reverse-Free Camber
A long mid-body of reverse camber combined with straight camber in the nose and tail delivers the ideal blend of playfulness and control on edge

And the stats out of 10:
Mountain: 8
Park: 8
Street: 9
Transition: 2
Longitudinal flex: 5
Torsional flex: 5

 

What we say:

"ROME POSTERMANIA 1985 

£365

Full reverse camber on a jib/freestyle tip here. Flex is kept soft and coupled with reverse camber makes for excellent pressing opportunities. Pop is retained with a reversed V carbon insert in the tail. The result is a playful board, that is good fun on rails yet can still hold it together well in the pow."

So where's it at I hear you ask:

The truth is that this is a great, fun shred board.

For the UK warrior it is perfectly suited to indoor or dryslope freestyle nights.
For the mountain trip I'd imagine it's really for a soft park (sping conditions) taking control of mini-shred runs, little hits and jibs but not hard icy jumps in the park, more for fun riding.

The reverse camber does make it easy to shift around at slow speeds and in tight situations, obviously I never got to mach this thing in the 150m confines of the Snow Centre but I can imagine it's probably not going to hold up to piste-charging like an Rome Anthem or a Rome Agent would.

Saying that, I did find some of the brands' bent-the-wrong-way boards carved effortlessly in Austria so there's no reason to suspect that this wouldn't.

Priced at £365 it is not a snowboard for beginners. You need to know what you want, if you're spending that much and whether or not you deem it money in the right place to spend that much on an indoor jib-board is up to you.

The SinterTrue base lies somewhere in between a slower, but easier to repair for rail jibbing, extruded base and a faster, but more wax hungry and trickier to fix, sintered base. If you're using it to shred rails the SinterTrue will be perfect, and will give you a little more speed for making jumps, but normally I'd expect a fully sintered base at £365.

Despite the price this board would also ride real well for beginners, the forgiving flex profile, mellow sidecut and reverse camber all make riding easier, and for intermediates you should find that it floats pretty naturally in pow, although again, that's not something that we got to try out at Hemel.

The feel of the board construction was great, responsive, fun to ride and poppy – although not having ridden many reverse camber boards I did feel ollieing was a little harder, the board doesn't help you out as much as traditional camber as their is less resistance to create your pop.

I de-tuned the full length of the edges as standard for a rail session, while I'm sure the park edge bevel would have been enough, being a bit of an amateur on the rails I wasn't taking any chances.

But would I buy one? Hell yeah, there's only two snowboards I need, one to attack the rails and mini-shred, and one for charging the jumps and the mountain – and this is perfect for the former.

 

Binding Review: Rome 390s

 

What they say:

"A merger of SDS technology and freestyle fun by the ton. Mid-flexing highbacks and super comfy gel-cushioned ankle straps provide an ample range of motion, while a megadose of Inbase padding dampens harsh landings so your feet can look for that next bomb drop. Toss in the coring of the highback and UnderWrap heelhoop and you have one of the lightest bindings on your local shop wall."

Flex Rating:
6 pushing backwards
7 pushing forwards
6 side-to-side

What they come with:
ConFormist.2 Toe Strap – Toe strap placement over-the-toe or over-the-top

Highback Rotation – Support customized to the rider

AutoStrap on ankle – Straps automatically pull out of the way

QuickStrap.2 Technology – The quickest way to customize your strap length

QuickLock Forward Lean – Updated for even easier adjustment

4 x 4 Disc – Micro-adjust your stance width

New PF Contour Ankle Strap – Form-fitting, flexible comfort; new waterproofing for weather-resistant flex

SF glass-filled baseplate – The side-to-side flex that snowboarding likes

SubBase Padding – Anti-vibration technology

3-Piece InBase Padding – Bomb drop protection with micro levels of foot roll

UnderWrap.2 Heel Hoop – Power over both edges—cored for lightness

390 Highback – Lightweight and flexible, with plenty of power

Toe Ramp – Matches up with your boot for toeside edge control

 

And so what were they like?

Pretty damn comfortable. Bindings can be a fickle bunch, one man's beauty is another's beast but these were perfect. To give you an idea I'd previously been riding the Union Force.

In contrast the Rome bindings felt much more easily adjustable, clearly looked the bomb and had a very easy flex, as prescribed by the 6/7 flex rating.

Adjusting the ankle strap was really easy with it's belt-like design, although how much of that is for aesthetics and how much function I don't know.

The only irk all night was the buckle kept getting consumed by one of the leather 'over-wraps'. And to be fair, I didn't spend any time setting the high-backs up correctly, I can get a bit impatient, still, it looks like they've got all the adjustable bits in the right places to set them up how you like.

Remember to check how your boots fit any prosepective bindings you're checking out – I found my size 10 Vans only just squeezing into the 390s in an X/XL (baseplate width at the toe area was a little tight).

£170 seems a really good price for a high-end binding.

Check out a little more about who Rome are and where the brand grew up
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