Snowboard Review: 08-09 Roxy Eminence BTX

Location: Loveland, Colorado

Snow Conditions: Snowing with hardpacked groomers to icy groomers to fresh snow on the runs.

Setup: I rode the Roxy Eminence BTX with Union Force SL bindings and my Vans Omni Focus size 8.

First Impression: I am riding a Roxy/GNU.

Size: 157cm/156cm…the board was labeled as 157cm and I have a photo of it as that…but according to Roxy, it comes in 156cm.

Weight: lighter than average.

Flex: As a more all mountain freestyle board, it offered up a mid-soft flex for women, I didn’t find it to be a noodle but it also wasn’t ideal for deep powder or bombing runs. For easy groomers and just mellow crusing, I noticed it had a softer torsional flex and it was easy to initiate turns with. Once I did take it into powder, it was okay…it didn’t cut through the best and I felt it was lacking there.

Turning: It was an easy ride and easy to manipulate in turning. It offered up really quick edge to edge response and a ligher swing weight to easy to go from regular to switch riding. It didn’t blow me away on carving, but it held and edge and I could make decent turns down the hill. I liked really quick short radius turns on the board, the longer S turns were okay but didn’t feel as stable as some stiffer boards I had rode earlier.

Stable: It surprisingly held up on the groomers when I was going faster with it. I went over a couple icy spots on the terrain and had no problems with holding an edge and the board remaining stable. I probably wouldn’t ride powder with it a lot…that was the only part where I thought it could have done better, but for all mountain just riding and playing around with it…handled it.

Pop: This was one of the boards that I spent more time on the walls next to the cat track…just to play around with, 180’s, ollies, tail presses. It was a really fun playful board.

Switch: True twin and rode fine either regular or switch. I did notice the easy swing weight of the board, it was no problems when popping a 180 into riding switch.

Powder: I actually found some decent powder off the side of the sun with this board, unfortunately it was also the board that found a log buried under the powder and totally flipped me over. It had okay float with the BTX, I wouldn’t use it strictly for powder riding. I think the soft flex would make you work harder than you need to in powder.

MagneTraction (MTX): I expected it to be more aggressive mtx, but I found it was quite mellow…no surprises in the riding. It held an edge on the icy spots of the day and other than that I rode and made turns without really noticing the mtx difference.

Overall Impression: I wasn’t expecting it to be a board I’d ride, but I found it to be a fun ride for the groomers and just messing around with. Definitely the more freestyle flare board for women but who still want the board to handle out of the park. I had a decent time on groomers with it, nothing to hard to ride and can help progress into more park.

Shay’s Honesty Box: The Roxy Eminence BTX is actually a GNU B-street with an extra cm on the nose and tail, same board different graphics. So really if you are looking at either one, you get your choice of which graphic and what size works better for you.

Finally huge Kudos for Roxy…I was able to demo the 157cm…typically that size for women’s board at demos is hard to come by and I was stoked to see that size available.