Snowboard Review: 08-09 Never Summer Evo R

Update: Back at SIA, the Evo was to be released as a regular cambered board. This has changed and now the Evo for 08-09 season will be a reverse camber snowboard (Recurve Camber). Never Summer has their own patent pending recurve camber rocker with two cambered areas from the feet out toward the tip and tail and rockered under foot and a Vario Power Grip sidecut radius.

Location: Majority of time at Steamboat, Colorado and some time at Copper Mountain, Colorado.

Snow Conditions: Slush, hard packed, ice, bumps, groomed runs, heavy powder.

Setup: I’ve been riding the Never Summer Evo with my Rome Madison bindings and my Vans Omni Focus boots.

First Impression: I’ve rode the Evo before and really loved it since it’s a stiffer twin board. With the new reverse camber it’s a lot more about fun.

Size: 155cm

Weight: Bit lighter than average.

Flex: The evo is a stiffer freestyle board, but even then with the stiffness it has some good tail and nose flex. The flex of the evo really makes it a solid ride for halfpipe with enough absorption for coming back into the pipe. I liked that even with the stiffer flex, it’s still solid for freestyle manuvers. I did do some small airs on rollers with it and it felt stable with landings.

Turning: With the new rocker on the Evo, NS has introduced a new sidecut, vario radius sidecut* which gives the board a lot more grip on hard packed and icy conditions. I took the board down a same icy traverse to get to powder as the Lib with MTX and it held an edge against the icy traverse just as well. You can still lay over the evo into each carve, it’s always been a board that could handle carving it up outside of the park and even with rocker with the new sidecut, it grips and allows you to quickly snap into short radius carves or extend out to long radius.

Stable: Since the nose and tail is raised up, you gain speed when riding on flatter terrain. I didn’t wax the board and still noticed it held up speeds when I’m riding along cat tracks and traverses better. The dampening is a bit less on the Evo so over small bumps it didn’t absorb as well, so that takes some adjustment coming from a higher dampening board like the Lotus.

Pop: The Evo has always been super fun for popping ollies and freestyle tricks. With the rocker its just as easy to go into tricks. Butters/presses are easy on the rocker, really takes no skill to be able to hold a butter on any rocker.

Switch: I had so much fun taking the board out and riding switch. Even in the halfpipe when I went into switch riding, since it’s a twin it’s just easier to dive into switch. With the rocker its harder to catch your edge, so it’s super fun to ride around, ride switch and change it up without feeling like you’ll catch an edge.

Powder: I did manage to get powder turns on the last day of the season with the Evo. I was waiting for it and hoping to get some turns so test out the rocker since a lot of my time has been on groomers with it. It came in handy, even the evo is a stiffer park board but off groomers with the rocker I was impressed. It floated through the heavier snow conditions of last day here with a lot of ease.

Pipe: I am still getting used to take reverse camber boards in the halfpipe. However the Evo is one of my favorite halfpipe boards since it’s twin, stiffer and now with the new vario radius sidecut* grips the snow conditions so it’s a good combo in the pipe. I noticed this time with the rocker, I just need to adjust to it so I don’t pop too much off the walls. I had a chance to take this board into two halfpipes, steamboat’s and copper’s. Coppers on the day I took it, was icier conditions and I had no problem holding an edge against the walls and tranny. The great thing in halfpipe with rocker is pulling spins, I’m still working on spinning out of the pipe so right now it’s spinning on the walls. I don’t have to worry about catching an edge with the rocker doing that.

Overall Impression: I’ve had a lot of fun riding the new Evo, it definitely offers more to the freestyle rider that wants rocker. Even I was impressed with how well it rode on groomers, steeper terrain and powder. The only downside was with the less dampening, if you happen to run over a bumpy mogul field of doom…you’ll feel it by the end. In powder, it was fine with the stiffer flex of the Evo and the float of the rocker. The NS rocker is definitely a different ride than the banana tech and k2 rocker technology. NS has a patent pending on this new design and its definitely worth taking out for a ride.

On a side note, the prototype that I have with the blank topsheet has a neon green base which glows when riding. I’ve gotten so many comments from people who love the glowing base and it definitely is fun to see it stick out.

I’ve been riding the evo r and sl r. My own preference is the evo over the sl, because of the flex difference.

Shay’s Honesty Box: It’s one of the most fun boards I’ve been on in a while. The downsides is there is less dampening so anytime I get to varying snow conditions or choppy shit…you bet I feel it.

On-Snow Photo
This is the only photo I have at this time of the Evo. I will eventually take a photo with the board on it’s base and post it up. Right now as a test board, it’s blank with a NS diecut.
08-09 Evo Catalog Description
(Click on Photo to open bigger)