Location: Loveland, Colorado
Snow Conditions: Snowing with hardpacked groomers to icy groomers to fresh snow on the runs.
Setup: I rode the Rome Anthem with Rome Madison’s Bindings and my Vans Omni Focus boots.
First Impression: It’s a freeriders dream, you know how it’ll handle.
Size: 156cm
Weight: lighter than average
Flex: The Anthem is a lot stiffer longitudinally and the torsional flex is less stiff, I was able to twist the board when riding and go into shorter length turns. The stiffer flex overall makes the board aggressive but at the same time, for freeriding and carving…you could bomb down runs without losing stability when turning.
Turning: Quick response from edge to edge and you can really power into turns and power out of turns. Whether I was doing short radius or long radius, turns were smooth and once you were on edge it held it. For carving, this board excels on groomed runs and is one of my favorites to just freeride with.
Stable: I sized down on the anthem because it can handle it and I wanted to see it would carve in a small size than I’m used to. Even with the smaller size, I never felt unstable on it and always in control when riding whether at slow speeds or bombing down the run.
Pop: I took it off a couple rollers and trying it out on the side of a run to play with the pop and spinning 180’s with it. It had a good lighter swing weight and good pop for a freeride board.
Overall Impression: Compared to previous years, it has changed but in a good way. I like the added bamboo and airpop core to make it lighter…it makes the board better overall without sacrificing what a good freeriding board it is.
Shay’s Honesty Box: The anthem isn’t a let down for a freerider, I love riding it and it’s one of those boards that is in my top 5 list of freeride boards. I wish I could ride this board in the trees and more in powder, to see how it handles off the groomers.
Rome Anthem Description
Check out the 08-09 Rome Anthem for more information on Rome’s website.
Shayboarder.com - The World of Snowboarding Through Fembot Eyes » Blog Archive » 2008-2009 Snowboard Review
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Jono
August 17, 2009 at 10:48 pmcant wait for a review with the anthem rocker ss, its either that or F1-R
Shay
August 18, 2009 at 6:52 amJono, totally would be a good comparision to do. I haven’t rode the anthem SS yet and it’s on my list for this winter. I did ride the premier F1 as the season winded down and I’m working on getting all the reviews finished and up.