Lib Tech Travis Rice BTX: Bananarama

A rider review by Hoon, a rider, surfer, biker, and all-round family man: hoonhwang.blogspot.com

The doods at Sierra were able to help me secure a Lib Tech Travis Rice BTX with MTX and XYZTX. I reviewed last year’s Trice on my own blog. If you’re too lazy to read it, the Clifnotes are: good board, stable, too slow base, not sold by MTX. Thankfully the 09 version has some significant updates and changes. As a disclaimer, I rode the 08 157 which has a waist width of 258. This year I am older, wiser and digging short boards so am on a 153 with a sensible weight watchers waist of 252.

The art work is by Mike Parillo this year versus last year’s which were by Mr Aaron Draplin. It’s not my cup of tea, but Parillo does some sick sick stuff.

Conditions: Cold like a witch’s teet, Stowe, hard pack with ice and snow guns, drifts of natural snow, wind, lots of packs of ski school kids doing s-turns across the whole hill, firm but fun park.

Pros:

• Travis Rice rides it. Seriously. I usually don’t buy into the hype, but he is pretty insane. Have you watched That’s It Thats All? The things he did on that slow-ass 08 Trice are death-defying.

• The 09 board is solid. The banana is not as pronounced as I thought it would be compared to some other rockers out there. All bananas are rockered between the bindings and flat towards tip and tail. This board carved well, was well balanced and had (gasp) decent ollie pop. The blunt tip and tail matched well with the banana and the short length of this board for park, trick applications. The board’s pretty lively and promotes catching air.

• Carving overall was fun. With the combo of the banana and probably the MTX, i was able to make some surfy (not ski racerie) backside carves. I wasn’t really sure if I liked this or not as my hands were out to my sides for some stability, total longboard in the curl style… Surf’s up duuuude. I tend to like carving looking like an enlarged ape. Anyway, it held an edge well and I was able to motor over some death cookie and other crap.

• Off the park jumps it was stable, solid, bomber. Landings were easy steezy. I didn’t hit any rails because it was cold, and I felt like a pussy.

Cons:

• I’m not into MTX. I think the whole ice to powder thing is crap. If you are a good enough rider, it really doesn’t matter when holding an edge. May be in pow or something it creates a “floatier” experience, but on the Ice Coast I think it’s purely marketing and/or psychological. I didn’t detune this board, but the MTX would catch in the most random places: off a spin on a kicker, in the middle of a long backside, high-speed carve, in the lift line skating. My plan is to detune the hell outta this board and ride it again. As I said above, the high speed arcing was fun with the BTX and MTX. The banana wasn’t as pronounced as I expected it to be, which isn’t really a pro or a con, just an FYI. I think an advanced rider would really be able to milk this board to its fullest capabilities, but an intermediate would probably be just fine as well.

Tech: Kudos for Lib for introducing the Bio-plastic beans topsheet on their high-end boards. With the combination of beans and their work in trying to be an enviro-friendly factory including: low VOC resin, soy-based sidewalls, basalt fiberglass, biodiesel and recycling a ton, It’s definitely a step in the right direction! The sidewalls are meaty. I can’t wait to stomp some cliffs in UT, bonk a rock or land on something weird to see what happens. For more Lib Tech tech info click here.

Overall: This board has a lot of hype and has won a lot of awards, which means it’s probably already sold out. The addition of banana and a fast base really up the ante on this board from my POV. The combination of being stiffer board and a slightly less pronounced rocker allows you to ollie better than some of the other rockers (which has been an issue for me with rocker boards) and stomp some landings off-kelter easier. The downside is that it means you have to do a bit more work when buttering and playing around on flatland. I think if someone is looking for an all-rounder to take from Right to Left Coast with some stops in the middle, and the specs work for you, this would be a solid addition to the quiver or a great one-board stable.

Specs (from Lib, yah for exclamation points!):

• CORRECT SANDWICH:Low spin weight!
• AXIS INVERSION FIBERGLASS SYSTEM:Mysto tech, more pop!
• H-POP CORE:Performance!
• POWER TRANSFER INTERNALSIDEWALLS:More pop!
• DOUBLE SINTERED UHMW SIDEWALLS: Tough!
• SINTERED UHMW BASE:Fast!
• MAGNA-TRACTION/BANANA TECHNOLOGY

Size Waist Stance (Min-Max) Set Back

• 153 BTX blunt [25.3 cm] 19” – 24” .75”
• 157 BTX blunt [25.8 cm] 19” – 24” .75”
• 161.5 BTX pointy [26.0 cm] 19” – 24” .75”
• 164.5 BTX pointy [26.2 cm] 19” – 24” .75”

What’s your experience with the board? Let us know in the comments below. You can also ask us questions about the board and we’ll answer.

Related posts:

1. Review: 2010 Lib Tech Banana Magic
2. Burton T6 2010 Rider Review
3. Burton Vapor 2010 Rider Review