Snowboard Review: 09-10 Rossignol Angus

Location: Keystone, Colorado

Snow Conditions: Bluebird with hardpacked groomers on the 3rd day of the demos.

Setup: I rode the Rossignol Angus with Union Forces and my Rome Vamps size 8.

First Impression: This was a hard board to judge, but ripped for handling the whole mountain.

Size: 157cm

Weight: heavier than average

Flex: It’s designed to be all mountain freestyle but this board just kills for freeriding down the mountain.  The longitudinal flex is softer from nose to tail, so the tail is stiffer which really lets you rally out of turns and it holds speed very well.  Torsionally between the bindings it’s softer so you still get quick response edge to edge.  Overall the flex is on the stiffer side for an all-mountain freestyle board.  In terms of freestyle, the stiffer flex doesn’t make buttering as easy definitely working harder for it unless you do nose butters.  The day I spent on the Angus it was hardpacked groomers and I would have really liked to see the Angus ride in powder and trees.

Turning: Turning on the angus is everything, the torsional softness between the bindings gives you quick response for the shorter turns and the overall stiffness of the board lets you carve down the mountain and hold the long S turns very well.  I liked carving with it best, seeing how it handled each turn and how narrow my line could be on the angus.   With the lifted up nose and tail, you don’t get catchy into turns either and it’s easy to roll into each turn.

Stable: The angus isn’t insane rocker, it’s barely noticeable so when I started riding with it it still handled speed when going fast down runs and felt stable.  The only thing that scared me was the softer nose and making sure speed didn’t cause the nose to become unstable but that never happened.  It held an edge on the hardpacked terrain, on the icy terrain in the pipe it was okay.

Pop: The pop won me over because it was easy, I went off a couple rollers with the angus and it was good pop without being weird to land on and ride out of.  I did take it in the halfpipe and the pop was fun to play with on each hit.

Switch: Since it’s a directional twin with a stiffer tail than nose, it took some adjustment to ride switch and for me with the lifted contact points made it possible to ride switch without worrying about catching the edge.

Overall Impression: Having a hardpacked groomer day on the Angus didn’t give it a fair review in my opinion, the angus could handle it but it needs more of a mountain and terrain for that board.  I liked how it handled freeriding, very stable and a fast responsive board that just charged.  Despite it being camber between the feet and rocker that lifts towards the tip and tail, the freestyle focus was less because of the stiffer tail.

Shay’s Honesty Box: I liked certain parts of how it rode but it was one of those boards I wished I had a lot more time on.  There’s definitely a couple boards this year that reminded me of the angus, all mountain freestyle boards that are meant to be big mountain where riding groomers with them isn’t enough.  I’ll be definitely borrowing it again this upcoming season to get a feel for it on my home mountain, Steamboat and ride it in the trees, powder…where I think it belongs.

Ready to buy? Head over to evo for the Rossignol Angus or shop their full line of Rossignol snowboards

On-snow Photos
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Rossignol Angus description